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.