Letter from Espargal: 34 of 2008

Exactly why destiny had led us to Espargal and induced me to invest in a new tractor became apparent last Sunday afternoon while I was picking up stones from the Casanova field and tossing them into the back of the tractor. My neighbour, David Burdett, phoned to say that the Family Frost refrigerated truck, which visits the village each weekend, had broken down at the top of the road. He thought I might be of assistance. Leaving the stones unturned, I fetched my tow-rope from Casa Nada and hastened to the scene.

The scene was not encouraging. The truck was stuck on a steep corner close to the top of a dead-end road. The driver, attempting a three-point turn, had backed into the bank and damaged either the transmission or drive-shaft, leaving him with no way of getting power to the wheels. He’d borrowed David’s phone to summon a tow-truck, his own phone having run out of cash. Villagers stood around, assessing the position, appreciative of a little drama to brighten their day. The tow-truck was clearly going to have difficulty getting past; there was barely room for the tractor.

So we agreed a rescue. With David’s help, I secured the rope to the front of the truck and engaged the tractor’s lowest range. If Jones entertained any remaining doubts about the wisdom of our agricultural investment, that was the moment that must have erased them. Kioti flexed his muscles and hauled that truck unhesitatingly up the road. The driver then ran back, managing a half turn on the slope. I repeated the manoeuvre with the rope attached to the back of the truck, lining it up to run down the hill. For our efforts, the driver rewarded us with free ice-creams. With this booty in hand, we returned triumphantly home like Roman generals, David standing on the tractor box and clutching the (ROPS) safety bar.

Talking about David, he and Sarah have nearly completed their latest project, the construction of a stone wall at the top of the field below their house. The wall supports a terrace that is to become a boules (or petanque) pitch. It is a handsome wall, one that Jones and I and the dogs (in their own way) have admired each evening as we’ve passed by.

The pitch should be a great improvement on the uneven ground above the house where we have several times been invited to play the game. Although I compliment myself on my eye-hand coordination, I was beaten at the game on this pitch by Marie and Jones who, by her own admission, is not a natural ball player.

Another project is reaching its conclusion in the field below Olly and Marie’s house.
For some weeks I’ve been bringing Olly piles of rocks (which he has been loading and unloading himself). He’s heaved them down the steep hillside and created a rock-lined gravel-floored stairway. Like all Olly projects, it’s been impeccably executed. (Jones never fails to point out to me the immaculate arrangement of Olly’s firewood stack which, one of these days, I’m going to sabotage, just for the fun of it.)

Clambering up the gully below his house has suddenly become much easier. We have exploited his efforts as well as admiring them. Olly pointedly expressed the hope that his stairway would be kept free of dog turds. (Our dogs would never do anything of the kind.)

Not to be outdone by this profusion of garden building, I have been constructing my own wall. Unlike David’s and Olly’s, it’s free of cement – well, almost free. The stones are supported by their weight and their cunning arrangement. This wall too supports a small terrace, in an area where several plants formerly straggled over a thinly-disguised heap of builders’ rubble. As the wall has risen, I have back-filled the terrace with stones collected from the fields.

The rocks for the wall itself have come from the road down to the river, where a picapau has been busy pulverising boulders along the verges in preparation for the widening and tarring of the road. A digger was clearing the road of debris as I approached. When the driver began to move aside, I signalled to him that I intended merely to load the tractor with some of his rocks. He said he wished I would take them all.

I had a similar reaction from José Faisca who, like most farmers around here, has an army of rocks scattered among his carob trees, making it difficult to keep the land clear. He urged me to take as many as I could carry, saying he would normally have to pay someone for this service. I’m doing my best to oblige.

Another person I obliged is old José (Josés and Marias abound in Portugal), who lives at the bottom of the road. He had picked several sacks of carobs but was unable to convey them back home because his strange-looking motorised cart couldn’t negotiate the rough tracks to the trees. So I took him down to fetch them. He had them well-hidden, he told me, so that the gypsies wouldn’t find them.

José, who looks younger than his 79 years, struggled to carry the sacks up the steep, slippery slope to the tractor. He said that 20 years ago he could easily heft a 30-kilo sack on to his back but that his wonky knee now limited him. Wonky knee or not, he did pretty well. We took a large load of carobs back to his house, where his wife, Maria, helped us unload them.

Afterwards, they insisted that I come into the house for a convivial medronho. In these parts, if you do someone a favour you have to accept a token of appreciation.

Speaking of which; as we were relaxing over baggies on the front patio at the end of a hard day, Ermenio dropped around with brimming boxes of tomatoes and grapes to thank us for our carob contributions. Jones has been turning the tomatoes into jam – and it’s delicious. She complains that it doesn’t set properly but I’m not finding that any problem at all.

Thursday we went into town with two neighbours to sign on for the new academic year at the senior university. Most of Loule’s summer visitors were gone although we did see one group of obviously foreign girls escorted by a large shirtless (probably British) male. It’s so nice to have temperatures down in the mid-20s, with a promise of rain in the air.

After taking refreshments on the patio at “Naturalmente” (I am fond of their carrot and orange juice mixture) we did our weekly shop at Lidl’s supermarket. As I waited with the dogs, I saw a car being driven away by a “Michelin man” of a woman. She was all but buried under rolls of fat. As she steered with one hand, she stuffed her mouth with the other. Jones said there but for the grace of God….

DOG AT REST

Cathy, I have very nearly finished reading the book you sent me (‘Mind the Gaffe – The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English’ by R. L. Trask, and I’m much wiser for it. As it happens, one of his sentence constructions is as horrible as anything he criticises himself. I’m in two minds about whether it would be a good idea to point it out to him.

Letter from Espargal: 33 of 2008

Monday this week began like Monday last week, with a walk down Espargal hill, across the valley floor and up the opposite hill to Benafim. We’ve been discovering new routes but they all take much the same time, just over an hour, to our destination, the Snack Bar Coral. We sit out on the patio with the dogs at our feet. Brigitte, who’s French, married to a Portuguese, brings us a sandwich, coffees and baggies, plus water for the dogs. She’s finding the Portuguese language hard going – don’t we all? – and is grateful to be able to speak French to Jones.

Jose Raul, the tractor dealer, has his shop next door. He said he had a used 7-prong scarifier that would suit my new tractor. (He knew I was looking for one in exchange for my smaller 5-prong model). He’d lent the implement to Jose Casamiro, who lives a few kms away in Charneca de Nave dos Cordeiros (Heath of the Nave of the Lambs), and suggested I drop by to take a look.

I expressed an interest. I didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic. Lehman brothers had just gone down the chute and Jones was fearful that our savings would follow suit. (Who knows? she may be right!) It didn’t feel like the right moment to be discussing agricultural investments. I did point out to Jones later that it helps during a downturn to spend money. I’m not sure she was persuaded.

DUTCH NEIGHBOURS, ANNEKE LEFT
Anneke, a Dutch neighbour, arrived on foot with her dog in tow. She’s a great walker. She’d come to get some long-promised documents from the local architect, who has an office nearby and happened to be taking coffee at the next table. The Portuguese must think we are mad to go trekking across the countryside with our animals, especially as the weather continues hot – mid to upper 20s.

The dogs found the return leg hard going, stopping frequently for rests in the shade. I exhausted my supply of water. Eventually Raymond lay down, saying “so far and no further”. Jones waited with him while I went to fetch the car. Everyone piled in, Ono objecting to Raymond’s presence, and we finished the trip in style.

Monday afternoon I went to find Jose Casamiro. Like me, he has recently bought a new Kioti tractor from Jose Raul, a slightly different model, and he was pleased to show it to me. His had to live outside in the summer, he explained, because his shed was full of carobs. He had only one tooth in his front upper gum, which did solitary duty each time he smiled. (Dental treatment for the peasantry in old Portugal amounted to extracting troublesome teeth.) We went to look at the scarifier, which was parked in the long grass across the road. It wasn’t much to look at. Scarifiers seldom are. But it seemed useful enough.

Tuesday morning Jose Raul accepted my trade-in offer. I hitched up my scarifier and took it into Benafim to leave with him. He asked me to park it in the field across the road beside the other used farm implements. (These are heavy and unattractive to thieves, who would have to attach the things before conducting their getaways on tractors.) Our business was conducted in cash. We retired to the Snack Bar Coral to seal the deal over a couple of medronhos.

During the conversation that ensued there I met a young fellow who had been reading a newspaper with the help of a beer or two. He identified himself as the owner (or former owner) of the large field between us and the hamlet of Birrao that is due to be developed as a “model village”. There’s been no sign of any development to date. He assured us that the project would be going ahead next year. When I expressed my doubts about the consequent traffic and disruption he swept away any such thoughts with a wave of his hand and the assurance that the village would be exclusive. No arguing with that!

From the cafe I proceeded to Nave dos Cordeiros to fetch the 7-prong scarifier. Jose was out picking carobs but his wife waved a cordial hello as I battled to attach the implement to the back of the tractor. (Unless the tractor is lined up exactly, scarifiers are the very devil to hitch because of their weight! It’s very difficult to nudge them forward or backward.)

Back in Espargal Natasha was cleaning. I’d spent the better part of a morning with her, taking her to a used-furniture outlet to choose a cupboard and set of drawers, and then putting up shelves and what-have-you in her new apartment. She likes the apartment very much. So, she said, does her young son, Alex. The only problem is with her second-hand gas water-heater, which is not doing a lot of heating.

Wednesday I had a call from the Senior University to check that I was available to take English conversation classes again and to inform me that the term would begin in three weeks. I asked, if possible, to take the class on the same day as we go to Portuguese lessons. The boss had his doubts but said he’d try to oblige.

On a couple of evenings we had neighbours around for drinks. We admired the huge full moon that rose over the eastern horizon and speculated over what made a “harvest moon” different. (See: http://www.earthsky.org/faq/harvest-moon if you’re interested.) I was reminded that the equinox is almost upon us, and a good thing too. You folks down south can keep the orb there as long as you like.

Thursday we went to an investment conference given by a firm that focuses on expats. En route, we spotted a cat with its head caught in a can. The poor beast was running around terrified on the side of a busy road. I stopped the car and the traffic while Jones sprang out to assist the animal. Moments later the cat’s owner arrived from a house nearby. Kitty was rescued and hugged and carried off to safety, minus several of its lives. We took the can (salmon paste for cats) to throw away.

I’ve lost my car keys, the principal set. Jones and I have searched high and low for them, checked every conceivable nook and cranny and there’s been nary a sign nor a clue. Reluctantly, I have ordered a new set.

Friday morning: we bumped into Anneke, dog-walking. A large friendly stray accompanied her. He’d arrived the previous day and wouldn’t leave, she explained. Welcome to Espargal.

P.S. The dog later made its way to the den of Chico and Dina, from which it was rescued by Jones and Anneke. Neighbours identified the animal as "Leão", a dog that belonged to a hunter. It had apparently been upset by the noise of the shots on the previous hunting day and fled. It is hoped to reunite Leão with his owner on Sunday.
Otherwise, I fear he's bound for the pound.

Letter from Espargal: 32 of 2008

It was when the dogs went awol last Sunday (for the umpteenth time) that I told Jones I planned to run an electric fence around the back of the garden. The little blighters have taken a fancy to chasing rabbits when they’ve nothing better to do, and we’re both sick and tired of waiting for them to come home. They’re sometimes away for hours, generally led by (butter wouldn’t melt in his little mouth) Prickles. The village side of the property is fenced but the extensive rear is open to the hills.

Monday we thought we’d start with a walk to Benafim to get the dogs good and tired. En route we bumped into Ermenio picking tomatoes in the valley. He told us that he’d just put up an electric line to protect several hectares of newly-planted cork oaks from the wild pigs that were damaging the saplings at night. He showed me the battery that he attaches to the line in the evenings (and removes in the mornings lest it be stolen). The equipment, costing a couple of hundred euros, had come from the agricultural suppliers in Messines. I resolved to visit the shop the same day.

We took coffees and baggies on the patio at the Café Coral before slipping over the road to the pharmacy. Jones waited outside with the dogs. It was the first time that Raymond has encountered the outside world.
He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. At six months he’s bigger than the other two dogs put together although he remains on the bottom rung of the canine status ladder. He’s often forced to sleep beside his kennel while Pricks takes up residence inside.

We staggered back into the house late morning; Jones suggested that we postpone the visit to Messines, especially as we’d arranged to join friends at the cinema in Faro that evening to see Mamma Mia. (The theatre was packed with squeals of young popcorn-masticating, cellphone-checking fans. We bore with them, as well as the film’s youthful romance, for the sake of the brilliant Abba songs. It was fascinating to see how the Portuguese subtitles interpreted the English lyrics. The film went down well; at the end the audience clapped. That doesn’t happen often.

Late Monday afternoon Prickles and Ono disappeared yet again. We had just set out to look for them, whistling loudly as we went – a fat lot of good that it does – when I got a call from the picapau man. He had arranged to visit us the following evening to widen the tractor entrance to the property. Could he come now instead, he wanted to know. Of course he could.

He rolled up half an hour later, having managed somehow to get himself lost in the village, and set about destroying three (seriously) big rocks that were cramping the driveway. Chips flew in every direction. I watched the progress from behind the gauze of a face mask. I’d estimated half an hour’s work but the biggest of the rocks promised to double that. It was huge and it wouldn’t break or budge.

THE ROCK
Eventually, the driver decided to undermine it instead. After much hammering he was able to haul the whole thing out and push it aside. The end result is an entrance that will comfortably take the tractor. I was most grateful to the man for his efforts and added a bonus to his fee. Bringing a digger in just to do the job would have cost me several times as much. There was time to shower before we set out for the cinema. Our absentee dogs had returned in the meanwhile and been locked in the house for their sins.

I spent the next morning clearing up the mess left by the digger. Most of the stones I carted across to my neighbour, David, who is building a new wall and was pleased to have them. I owed him a favour as he’d given up an afternoon to help us take an old wardrobe into Loule for the use of Natasha; she was busy moving into her new apartment. Jones and I had done our best to give the cupboard a face-lift, before heaving the thing on to the back of the tractor and taking it across to David’s house to load on to his trailer. He sensibly decided that it would be much easier to dismantle, which we did. We then delivered it and other useful items to Natasha in Loule.

Midweek my UPS (uninterruptible power supply) unit gave up the ghost. I returned it to the computer shop, which pronounced it dead and a throw-away. Silverio, my usual contact there, showed me the battery. Its shape had become quite distorted as a result, he said, of the spikes and troughs the unit had been subjected to. Although the battery itself was replaceable, the rest of the unit had been trashed as well. So reluctantly I bought another. I’d rather that the UPS took the beating than my computer did. Portugal, its rural areas at least, is notorious for voltage fluctuations.

Thursday evening a gale blew up. I closed most of the shutters and allowed Raymond to join the cats on the sheltered back patio. Ono laid himself down on our feet at the dining table. He doesn’t like the wind. We find it unsettling too. It’s as if the big bad wolf is really trying to blow the house down. I'm glad that we don't live in the Caribbean.

Friday morning (never mind that the picture was taken earlier) dawned crisp and clear and still windy – windy enough to blow away my internet link for a few frustrating hours. There’s a real autumnal feel to the dawns and dusks. I wore two shirts on our morning walk and was grateful for them. On the far side of the hill we came across Horacio, the builder, adding a shed to a house he built there some years ago. He said his daughter, who’s a computer person, had come across my blog and he asked me for the web address.

He was welcome to it although, I’m starting to take extra care of what I write lest I say something imprudent. Llewellyn found himself at the end of unpleasant phone calls after he had commented on the failings of the kennel where he’d housed his dogs. How the owner got wind of his blog remains a mystery.


Friday afternoon: The wind is still blowing. We are just back from lunch at the Alte Hotel; that’s the pair of us, the Dutch ladies and a friend, Jane. We gathered from the facilities office in Benafim en route that our efforts to register Casa Nada are still on track and that it’s a matter of time. I’m going out to collect a few more carobs (we spent the better part of a day at it) before delivering them to our Portuguese neighbours. My internet link is back, for the moment at least. So I’ll get this up.

Letter from Espargal: 31 of 2008

THIS PICTURE IS HERE JUST BECAUSE IT'S CUTE
This is the first day – Friday the fifth of September – since our return from Canada early in June that I have ventured outside without first smearing my face and hands with sun-goo. (Jones clucks as I emerge from the bathroom and rubs the cream in so that I don’t look like a waking zombie.) The most beautiful dark clouds are floating overhead. We actually had a few drops of rain as we charged around the back of the hill with the dogs, and real rain is promised for tomorrow. Promised truly or promised falsely I don’t know but after months of wall-to-wall sunshine the prospect is delightful.

A “pica-pau” digger has been excavating large holes across the hillsides around us in preparation for a new electrical run; not pylons fortunately, we have those already, but for substantial poles as evidenced by the preparations. Raymond and I left the road as we returned from our walk so that I could have a word with the driver whose digger we could see working up on the horizon. As I explained to him, somewhat out of breath, I need about an hour’s jackhammering to pulverise a rock that is squeezing the tractor entrance to the property. My new tractor is slightly wider than the old one and there is no room to spare. Any miscalculation is likely to spell bad news for the old walls of the Casa Nada bread oven, or worse, for the tractor.

Speaking of which – I hitched up the plough (technically the scarifier) and set about cleaning up the running field below the house. Right now, its several fig trees are providing us with a daily feast. The scarifier blades dug much further into the ground than they had previously. When I looked around after a few minutes, I saw that the frame holding one of the blades had broken away from the rest of the structure. The strain had evidently been too much.

So I took the plough into the panel beaters in Benafim, where a worker shook his head, explaining that their welding would just break again. I should go to Denis (pronounced Dineece) at Alto Fica – 3 kms along the road – he advised me, and ask him to fix it. First house on the left.


First house on the left it was. Half a dozen dogs emerged to yap at me when I stopped outside, followed by a somewhat red-eyed Denis. He ushered me into the yard, helped me disconnect the plough and, unimpressed by the grade of iron used in its manufacture, said he would do what he could to fix it. Come back at lunch time the next day, said he.

The next morning I had two visits, the first from Jose Raul, the tractor dealer, at whose shop I’d stopped en route to the panel beater – was there a problem and could he help, he wanted to know; it was really nice of him – and then from Denis himself to say that the job was bigger than he thought and would take another 24 hours. That was okay, I could wait 24 hours. I gathered from Fintan, whom I passed on the way home, that some years earlier Denis had been contracted to do the iron fence outside Fintan’s cottage. Denis had come to measure up and ask for a down-payment, then taken himself off again - for about fifteen months.

It would seem that his parents had died, one in an accident, and it had taken him some time and a lot of liquid refreshment to recover. Fintan eventually got his fence. In my case, the plough was ready on time, heavily welded. Denis advised me to ensure that it was always free to swing slightly on the supporting arms, something I didn’t know. We’ll see if it holds. I’m still trying to balance the sophisticated system on the new tractor for adjusting both the depth and sensitivity of the implement.

LOULE MARKET FISH STALL
Natasha’s bid to get her own apartment has also kept us occupied, mainly because of the insistence of the landlady’s lawyer that the young tenant should be backed by a guarantor. After a meeting with our lawyer last week, I went with Natasha to negotiate with landlady’s lawyer. He agreed to limit the guarantor’s responsibility and Natasha agreed to leave some cash in trust with me. So we both signed.

At this point, she has the keys but is still waiting for electricity and water to be hooked up. The apartment is bare of furniture. There aren’t even any appliances in the kitchen. The focus now is on obtaining the essentials on the second-hand market and from any neighbourly surplus supply.

MERTOLA

Llewellyn and Lucia took themselves off early in the week for a two-day stay at a rural retreat near the ancient town of Mertola on the Guadiana River, a town that was old long before Rome was born. Jones and I visited it some years ago and loved it. On the day of our guests’ return we had neighbours around to a scrumptious buffet, while Llewellyn’s considerable culinary skills have been employed in frequent barbecues.

On Thursday Jonesy joined L&L on a trip to one of the numerous islands off the southern Algarve coast. Most of them are really just extended sandbanks but big enough to house a shifting population in numerous small dwellings. Cafes and restaurants cater for visitors’ needs. There are no roads to speak of and no cars. Stuff gets shifted around on tractors and quadbikes. Llewellyn and Lucia went back to another island the following day – to celebrate sun, sea and sand before their departure on Sunday. It’s Friday night as I write, and it looks as though we may get those promised showers tomorrow.

Jones had a nasty fall while walking down the steep hillside above the house, landing painfully on the rocky slope. She didn’t break anything but she’s still tender in several places. I have to be careful with any affectionate hugs or squeezes.

For my part, I’ve been battling for several weeks with an ingrown toenail. After some eye-watering attempts to get rid of the extruding bit, I finally succeeded – for the meantime, at least. It was like taking a sharp pebble out of a shoe. The toe went from a state of inflammation to contentment in a matter of minutes. Ever since I’ve been floating around the hillside on my morning walks. Life is so good.

For the rest, it’s been all the usual stuff – watering, gardening and carob-picking.
CAROB MOUNTAIN

I spent the better part of a day clearing a badly overgrown section of a neighbouring property because it offended Jones’s eye when she was sitting on the south patio.

I’ve been building up a stone ramp connecting this property to ours, and can now get the tractor and all the implements right up there. We’ve been cultivating and picking carobs on the land for some years and gradually making it look like the surrounding “park”. The owners don’t mind. They’re as keen to sell as we are to buy but they can’t do so until the younger of the two children who inherited the property turns 18 in two years’ time.

Oh, this is a spider that we came across one morning, a huge fellow who was waiting in the middle of his large web for some insect to provide him with breakfast. He was gorgeous in his black and yellow suit, if not necessarily good company.