I have only little things to report this week. The littlest of them was a dung beetle, pushing its ping-pong sized ball of dung erratically through the grass under a carob tree. I know not where he was going. I came across the little guy as I was clearing under the trees in preparation for summer’s carob crop. Every so often the ball would roll forward an inch or two, dragging the beetle over the top with it and dumping the insect helter skelter, legs akimbo on the far side. It was the first time I’d seen such a beetle at work in real life and I felt quite privileged for the front row view. And, still on little things, the European Bee Eaters are back from their over-wintering quarters.
"BORROWED" PICTURE
They sit along the electricity wires, displaying their stunning aquamarine chests before launching themselves with shrill cries like flashing rainbows of light. They’re lovely to watch. The swifts (or martins or whatever they be) are also back, skimming along the surface of the road before shooting up vertically in a dizzying display of avian aerobatics. We’ve a weekend of showers ahead. The satellite picture shows the Atlantic flecked with white dots. Each shower comes gusting in on the wind, hurling a spray against the French windows and soaking in seconds any soul that it happens to catch in the open. In a few minutes the cloud moves on and the sun comes back to warm us up again.
The showers have brought out the snails in force. While these are cursed in English gardens, here they are welcomed. The roadside is dotted with the bottoms of snail gatherers, who lean into the grass to find their prey, tossing their capture into a plastic bag – to be turned into a delicacy in due course. Jones was invited around to Maria’s house one morning, not for snails fortunately, but to try Maria’s formula for beans, done the way that her husband, Joachim, likes them. They were delicious, those she brought home for me to taste. We’ve been picking our own beans too. Jones boils them up briefly and adds them to the generous salads that she prepares most evenings.
We have managed to get walks in between showers.
With us, as usual this week, came Robbie and Kayleigh, our visiting neighbours’ adopted grandchildren. They have been assisting Barbara in the garden as well (having negotiated a good rate of remuneration) and have joined us at puppy-feeding time. 
(Click on the video above to see Kayleigh playing with the pups. I battled for hours to upload the video to this blog but it absolutely refused to cooperate. So it's by itself.)
Close by, Idalecio has been working away on the holiday apartment that he has been restoring. For years it was just a ruin, attached to the side of his house. Gradually he has transformed it into a smart stone dwelling, adding a patio and stone steps. Also available for holiday rentals will be the apartment across the pathway from his house, until recently occupied by his former partner, Mariette, who has now moved out.
We drove up to Benafim with Robbie and Kayleigh for coffees and icecreams at the café, seating ourselves at a table beside the old fellows playing dominoes in the corner.
Across the road, half a dozen workers were engaged in alterations to the pavement, some of them labouring, some advising and one holding a heated conversation on his mobile phone. While we watched, the fish delivery van drew up outside the café with a great blaring of its horn, attracting several women out of the café to purchase their daily portion of fresh fish.
Jones and I have spent hours cleaning up a field just below ours. It belongs to an old fellow who lives at the bottom of the village, who was only too pleased to have us clear it, having ascertained that the service was free. We often pass through the field with the dogs, which have been picking up ticks from the long grass. Several fruit and nut trees on it had slowly been succumbing to a mass of thorny brambles.
BRAMBLE
I used the tractor to do the basic clearing, reversing in under the trees where I could to rip out the brambles with the scarifier. Then we cut off the mass of dead branches from the best fruit trees and attacked the brambles by hand. They are vicious, tough, resistant invaders which, left alone, will rapidly knit themselves, anywhere they get a foothold, into a virtually impenetrable hedge. I take poison spray to them several times a year.
We had a phone call one evening from a couple who had stayed with us at the Quinta, people who had bought a plot of land in the 90s and with whom we had lost touch over the years. They were down from the UK for a brief visit and joined us in Loule for lunch. Both are in education and contemplating retirement next year, possibly down here. The biggest obstacle to Britons moving to Portugal right now is the continuing slide of the pound against the euro. It’s hurting us and most of our acquaintance. It will also hurt Portugal’s tourist industry this coming season – although it will obviously affect British visitors to any country in the euro zone.
Natasha confessed that she’d been struggling to get some photos of herself and young Alex on to a site on the internet where her Russian acquaintances could see them.
Her problems were several. She had been using computers at the public library, computers that did not permit users to transfer files via DVDs or USB connections. So she had been trying to detach picture files from an internet based email account. But, with no formal training in the use of Windows – especially Portuguese or English programmes, as opposed to Russian Windows – she’d made little progress. We transferred the pictures from her camera to my computer and, after we’d worked out the means of uploading them to the (Russian) site, and then of using a virtual keyboard to write captions in Russian, I left her to put up as many as she wished. I should add that this was on a non-working afternoon. As usual, I dropped her off at the bus stop afterwards for the ride back into Loule.
Two cats - one official and the other a scrounging visitor - started a great scrap in the garden one evening. I summoned the dogs, which rushed down to break up the fight. They're always delighted to do this. The two cats fled up a carob tree, climbing to the highest branch, where they continued to squall and bat at each other as they swayed back and forth. In the end, I used the hose to send them on their way. These fights have resulted in unpleasant injuries to two of our cats, including young Braveheart, who had a great raw patch ripped down his throat and chest.
I have been reading. My sister, Cathy, aware that I’d read Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion”, sent me a copy of a response to it by Alister McGrath, a former atheist scientist turned Christian theologian. It’s entitled “The Dawkins Delusion”. As I told Cathy afterwards, neither book left me feeling much better informed although Dawkins’ was far the more entertaining. I don’t think that science tells us much about whether or not there’s a God. On the other hand, I don’t believe that Theology does either. I’ve read a great deal of it in my time without being any the wiser on matters divine - although it has taught me a lot about people.
Friday night we went to the 65^th birthday celebration of a neighbour of ours, Mike Brown (pictured with his two sisters behind him). The best thing about being 65 is that, with luck, it brings a pension with it. It’s quite staggering to me that within a year or two I’ll be following suit. I shall conclude before the thought overpowers me.
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