Letter from Espargal: 12 of 2008

It would be easier to tell you this week about the things we haven’t done because I can’t think of much that we have, other than pulling out a lot of weeds (most of which Jones took across to feed Maria’s chickens, which just love fresh dandelions). As to the things we haven’t done, they’re legion. Maybe they’re best left for another week.

One thing I did do was to reinforce the stays holding our cypress tree, which has been leaning ever further into the valley. It’s our special tree, bought to help hide the outline of the house against the hill and planted into the Idalecio-built stone garden. The roots don’t have enough room, however, to anchor the tree properly, and it shows. The wind is the price that we pay for the views we enjoy in every direction.

Another thing we did – last weekend – was the walk up our miniature Table Mountain, Rocha de Pena (the rock of suffering). The mountain squats over Benafim’s shoulder. It’s a 15-minute drive from here to the village that huddles in its shadow and a wonderful 2-hour walk up one side, across the top and down the other. The mountain is a refuge for Early Purple orchids. From the top we took a couple of pictures showing Espargal hill jutting up from the Algarve plain, against the backdrop of the sea.

Also last weekend, I took a call from Dani. That’s to say that I called him back (at our expense) after he’d rung me and promptly rung off. Dani launched into a detailed description of his mother’s ill health – rushed to hospital, a litre of fluid removed from her lungs and much else that I didn’t need to hear. The point was that he badly needed money, as ever, and hoped that we would renew his line of credit, which had long since expired.

Keeping this story short - we drove into Loule on Monday morning, met Dani and “lent” him the wherewithal to take a mini-bus back to Romania. Dani promised faithfully to repay the money within two months. (I should as soon expect to be taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot – but there you are.) This is not an account of our virtue, just of life in Espargal. If I were as penniless as Dani, I don’t doubt that I’d swear by the whole pantheon.

RAINBOW OVER ESPARGAL
Natasha breathed a sigh of relief at Dani’s departure. She was in no doubt that it would simplify her life. No love has been lost between them for a long time. She will now concentrate on trying to legalise her position in Portugal and in persuading the Portuguese courts to award her sole custody of their young son. That much I gleaned from her when I went to fetch her from the bus in Benafim on Tuesday.

At the end of the day we ran her back to Loule (because the return bus service doesn’t operate during the Easter break) before joining three local ladies at the Hamburgo for supper. Two of them are a retired Dutch couple, who have settled in the village, and the third a widow who had lived in Rhodesia. It was a fine supper. The ladies are knowledgeable, enjoy good conversation and a glass or two of red wine. All three want to improve their Portuguese and hope to join classes at the senior university.

ROCHA DE PENA
Wednesday we walked and weeded. Walking you’ve heard enough about. Weeding’s another story. Jones and I both have our least favourite weeds. My pet hates are nettles, thistles and dandelions (which come in chicken-useful and -useless varieties). Jones especially hates two types of low creeper, both of which invade her garden, sending out sly shoots and dropping seeds in every direction. She can’t pass by them without wrapping her fingers around their roots and ripping them out. We piled the weed-heaps on a wheel-barrow (my tractor still lingers, loveless and clutchless, in Vitor’s garage) and added them to the weed mountain in the Casanova field.

I’ve dropped by a couple of times to see how the tractor is getting on – and it isn’t. The problem is that it’s a South Korean model for which spares (in spite of the salesman’s assurances to me) are difficult to acquire. I consoled myself when I bought it with the thought that the engine was a Kubota, a popular Japanese make. But, as Vitor pointed out, the problem lay with the clutch, not the engine. So we wait.

OUR LOWER FIELD
Thursday we drove to Loule to attend a mid-morning notary appointment. This had been made on our behalf by a young woman who runs a facilities office, which helps people to sort out Portugal’s horrendous bureaucratic tangles. The aim of the appointment was to link Casa Nada (a former ruin, now a big storeroom) on our property to the lot on which it stands (something the lawyer we employed when we bought the property signally failed to do). The end result would be to allow us to register the ruin and restore it in due course as a cottage, should we so desire.

If this situation puzzles readers unaccustomed to European bureaucracies, I’m sorry. In these parts, the paper world and the real world exist in parallel universes. Nothing is substantial unless there’s a piece of paper to prove it.


Jones and I both had our fingers crossed that the procedure would be successful. But shortly after we arrived in Loule, the facilities person rang to call the meeting off. The notary had a problem and had cancelled all appointments for the day, she informed me. Also, she had discovered that a couple of the Finances documents we needed to present to the notary were out of date. This last statement she made quite unapologetically, in spite of her earlier assurances that all was in order and under control.

Over lunch I downloaded updated documents from the Portuguese Finances interactive website (the anomaly of living in a high-tech third-world environment) and we then walked the dogs an hour through the fields to Benafim to hand the papers over to the facilities person in readiness for our next attempt. Afterwards we sat ourselves down on the pavement at Rui’s Café and consoled ourselves with a round of baggies, bicas (expresso coffees) and rice-cakes. This repast left us ample change out of 5 euros and reminded us of the benefits of living in Portugal.

Around us the valleys are green, still benefiting from last week’s rain. The farmers are out on their tractors, clearing the ground under the carob trees in readiness for the August crop. Many pastures are covered in wild flowers, a delightful carpet of yellow. Jones says they are corn marigolds Our beans, like our neighbours’, are waist-high and nearly ready for picking.

BEANS & POPPIES
That brings us to the present, Friday morning. Shortly, we will drive to the town of Almancil. There we will take an old friend to lunch and sign up our annual travel insurance. The latter is an end-of-March chore, along with renewing my international driving licence, ahead of our spring travels.

We have two trips planned: first to the UK (April 1 to 8) where we look forward to catching up with friends in London and Barbara’s brother Llewellyn and Lucia in Wawick; and then to Canada (mid-May to June 5) where we both have family. We were delighted to hear from Cathy that she will be able to join us in Portugal, while Rolf is away, on our return from Canada.

More immediately, on Saturday evening we’re going to a concert. On Sunday our next house-sitting couple arrives. On Tuesday we’re off to London.

That’s it.