Letter from Espargal: 6 of 2008

When I told Jones this morning that I loved her, her suspicions were instantly aroused. “Why?”, she demanded to know. That wasn’t a why I loved her “why” but a why I was telling her now “why”, as if my declaration were a prelude to a “but I’ve met someone else.” (I haven’t. Espargal, for all its merits, isn’t the best place to look around for a new wife.) Jones is a person who feels it’s prudent to live life expecting the worst. That way one is ready for it when it comes, she explains.

I am running late this week, something that I ascribe to the weight of our responsibilities. It is not a week that has had any particular theme although, if it has been characterised, it’s by meetings.

Last Monday, for example, as we were returning with the dogs through the valley, we bumped into old Zeferino, who was hurrying in the opposite direction. His 82 years have done nothing to slow him down. We always exchange a few words with Zeferino who, in spite of being illiterate, knows more about what is going on than anybody. He was off to Benafim (5 kms in each direction), he informed us, to sell his carobs because the price had reached 7 euros. (That’s 7 euros per “arroba”, a traditional 15 kg measure.)

Like most of the farmers, Zeferino hoards his carob crop in the hope that the price will rise. It’s a dangerous strategy, not only because the price sometimes falls but also because carob theft is a widespread problem. In the event, he had to settle for 6 euros and 70 cents. (Even for two truckloads of carobs that’s a little money for a lot of picking, take my word for it.)

While I’m on agricultural subjects, let me mention that, inspired by our neighbours’ efforts in the adjoining field, Jones has been hoeing out the weeds in our bean field. In view of my “condition” I have limited myself to encouraging her. It’s hard work, and took her the better part of three afternoons. She has expressed doubts about the wisdom of our sowing beans again next year.

On Tuesday we bumped into Miguel and Raquel. (I’m in their good books for printing up some photos that I took of them.) Raquel was waving a half-filled medronho bottle, which is very unlike her. She insisted that I take a glass, even though it was barely mid-morning. I shared one with Jones. It wasn’t bad! The occasion was carnival, loudly celebrated over several days both in Loule and in Alte. It’s a big festival, as well as a hugely noisy one. The whole place closes down. Enormous trouble is taken with the preparation of both the costumes (especially for the children) and the floats. Thousands of people go along and let their hair down. We are happy to let them go.

Also on Tuesday, when I went for a physio session with Jodi, I bumped into her partner, Richard, and his travelling dog. Richard, who was injured in an accident, works out in her gym and uses the back roads to reach Alte on his quad-bike. The dog rides with him, seated on the frame and wearing his dog goggles. I wondered to Richard whether the police had objected to this mode of travel. They had stopped him once, he recalled, but had allowed him to proceed when he said that the dog otherwise chased the quad-bike. I tell you this mainly as an excuse to stick a photo on the blog.

Wednesday brought a meeting with a young American chiropractor, who yanked my limbs in various directions in a bid to frighten away my sciatica. I found the session quite helpful, as if tension had been released from an elastic band running between my foot and my back. When I told Jones that I thought it had done me some good, she expressed her doubts with a “poof” expulsion of air from her mouth. She had heard such stories before and would wait for the results. Jones is definitely a proof of the pudding person.

Because there was no public transport on Tuesday, Dani and Natasha came on Thursday instead. It was clear when I fetched them from Benafim that Dani was very unhappy. He had picked up some kind of infection in his sinuses. In spite of pain killers that he had taken, his ear was aching and his head throbbed when he bent down.

I recalled suffering similar symptoms when I had a septic root canal and suspected that he required anti-biotics. The pharmacist in Benafim – a hugely helpful woman – was of the same opinion. He had to go to the health centre, she said. Although Portuguese pharmacists take a lot of sensible liberties with dispensing drugs, they don’t run to anti-biotics. Natasha was not entirely sympathetic, commenting that Dani always had something wrong with him.

THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS
Jones sometimes feels the same way about your author even though the latter hasn’t spent a day in bed in 10 years. Come to think of it, I’m nearing the 10^th anniversary of my retirement from the Beeb. I can’t believe it. A whole decade of OAP-ing. It just boggles the mind.

Also on Thursday came the satellite TV man to fix the sat TV. This has been playing up, refusing to access many of the channels that we should get. We had come across the sat-TV man at a show, where we bought a card to give us access to additional UK channels. When it didn’t work particularly well, he said it was because our dish was too small. So he put in a bigger dish and a new LNB. That was a bit ouch but things were better – for a while. (In fairness, he did say that the 40-metre cable between the house and the dish was losing a lot of signal strength and that we might need to replace it.)

Anticipating his arrival, I had helpfully drilled a hole through the wall of the house to give us a much shorter route to the dish. He rigged the new cable and, after testing it, left Dani and me to tack it to the side of the house, where it still needs to be painted into invisibility. The cable seems to have done the trick. The signal is much stronger and we – touch wood – now get all the channels without difficulty – both radio and TV. We beam the signals through to the bedroom where we can listen via small speakers or on (wireless) headphones, something I often do during waking hours. The headphones have the added advantage of helping to block out any snores. (Stoopy is a dreadful snorer.)

Speaking of animals, Leonhilda’s little bitch, Princesa, has been off-colour and off her food. Her kind neighbours, Olly and Marie, took Princesa (along with Leonhilda) to the vet, who thinks that the dog has tick-fever. We hope that she may recover although the outlook is not good. Few of our Portuguese neighbours run to tick-collars for their animals, and even collars don’t stop the ticks from biting. In this instance, the estrangeiros are helping to pay for Princesa’s treatment as well as for the spaying of another neighbour’s little dog, which often comes walking with us. (Princesa has since died, much to our sorrow.)

THE FLOCK
While walking on the hill above the house Jones came across a ewe and a lamb that had obviously drifted away from the flock that often feeds in the valley below. We asked our Portuguese neighbours if they knew how to contact the shepherd. They shrugged, as if to say that there was nothing to worry about. The shepherd would find them again, we were assured. We hope he did.

Friday was a runaround day: to Alte to get a new prescription (vastly reducing the price of medication), to Benafim to see what’s happening about the legalisation of Casa Nada (nothing) and to Salir for hardware. I also purchased two 50-kilo sacks of fertilizer, to scatter around our carob trees ahead of the rain that’s forecast for this week. I apologised to the lady store owner for not being able to carry the sacks to the car. No problem she said, and got the bike-shop repair man to help her carry them instead.

Inbetween times Jones continues to clean smoke damaged items from the Massey household. I dropped Fintan's computer and monitor off at a computer shop for an assessment of the damage. With luck, the painter will be in with his power hose next week to start the clean up. That’s about it. Oh, we saw Atonement and liked it although neither of us found ourselves emotionally engaged.