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.