Letter from Espargal: 43 of 2008

It’s been cold. Some days it’s felt almost as though we were back in a Canadian winter, in spite of the thermometer’s insistence that temperatures remain comfortably above zero. Certainly, there was nothing comfortable about the winds that howled down from the Arctic. We’ve kept our shirts and jerseys zipped up to the throat on our walks. The dogs have taken up station around the wood-burning stove, which is working overtime.

The week began in a hurry and continued that way. Monday brought the usual English and Portuguese lessons, closely followed by the Portuguese class end-of-year lunch. For this event we retired to Pedras d’Agua restaurant (Water Stones), a once favourite (now, bit distant) venue, just down the road from the Quinta. We presented our Portuguese teacher, Antonio, with a book on the wines and wine regions of Portugal. Antonio’s real job is teaching English at the high school in Loule. Like most Portuguese teachers he’s up in arms over the education minister’s attempts to force through a controversial new teacher evaluation regime - Antonio says just in a bid to save money.

In the afternoon I had a phone conversation with a worried Natasha, who is still trying to legalise her position in Portugal. She’d been contacted by the immigration department and told that she had no chance of getting a residence visa unless she obtained a new work contract from me, raising her income to the national minimum wage. She was given three days to hand the required documents in to the government offices in Faro.

The evening was spent trying to help a neighbour work out why his internet link had failed. The puzzling part was that his service provider had no record of his contract, even though he was paying monthly for the service. We eventually got it sorted out. It was one of those Portuguese situations, so complicated that their telling requires its own chapter. I’ll spare you. The toughest bit was getting through to a help-line operator; the ISP computer didn’t recognise the home phone number that we had to key in – and kept us in an endless loop.

Next day I got a call from Barclays public relations in Jersey in connection with a complaint that I made months ago. The bank had failed to pay me due interest, a failing that puzzled the clerk whom I eventually got through to at the time. (Callers typically have to wait for 10 to 15 minutes while the call centre computer repeatedly assures them that they will be attended to by “an account executive” ASAP.)

The public relations woman was contrite. She said the interest owed would be paid promptly. The interest, I told her, was the least of my complaints. It was bank’s ridiculous call-waiting times that drove me to close my account. She promised that this complaint too would be looked into. I’m not holding my breath.

JONES PICKING UP BITS OF SPONGE - SEE BELOW

Next morning, Natasha sent a text saying that she had missed the bus to Benafim – not for the first time. Young Alex keeps her up late and, as a consequence, she struggles to get him up and off to the crèche in time. I advised her to take the lunchtime bus instead – which she did. Not that she got much work done in the afternoon; the pair of us spent most of it with an accountant, drawing up the required new work contract.

This contract will not affect Natasha’s real wages but it will sharply raise the related social security payments. She filed the papers with the Financas and the Social Security offices and we then ran her into Faro to present the duly stamped and approved documents to the authorities. An official rang me to check that it was all kosher. I assured him that it was. Now we wait; her prospects look good.

We joined David and Dagmar at the cinema to see the new Brideshead Revisited. It was ok in a slow period drama way. I drifted off for a while, an interlude that didn’t seem to spoil the film. The Portuguese subtitler mis-read much of the dialogue – translating expressions such as “still” (meaning “even so”) as “calm”. There were just a handful of people in the cinema, most of them English-speaking, so it didn’t much matter. Local audiences prefer action movies.

I’ve been suffering from a dodgy tooth and waiting for my dentist to make an appearance. He is an itinerant South African who lives some 400 kms away in Spain and divides his time between surgeries in three countries. On the day of the appointment, his receptionist called asking me to come in early. The problems required double root canals and new crowns. The bill hurt more than the drill.

One thing to be said about the dentist is that he doesn’t hang about. His assistant can hardly stay up with his requests. He said he wanted to get back home to Spain that afternoon – about a 2.5 hour drive he reckoned. That’s really moving. I’d noticed the Porsche parked outside the surgery. Clearly, dentists are not feeling the pain.


Tooth or no tooth, I have remained partial to the occasional piece of chocolate. Waking from a siesta one afternoon, I spied a small Kit Kat bar in a basket on the dining room table. It was just what I felt like. I made a neat slit in the wrapper and considerately removed half the bar, leaving the rest for Jones (not that she would ever consume half a bar). Then I thought no more about it. A day or two later we came across neighbours who thanked Jones for a gift she had taken them but expressed their puzzlement at getting half a Kit Kat. The light dawned. We’ve bought another Kit Kat to present them with the other half.

Today we are promised rain. It’s much needed. In preparation, we have fertilized the carob trees, hauling the 50 kg sacks of ammonia-something around the property on the back of the tractor and scattering half a bucket around the trunk of each tree. The carob trees represent a link with the history of the Algarve as well as a serious part of the local economy. One doesn’t ever own carobs. One just looks after them until the next generation.

Raymond’s love affair with Braveheart the cat continues. We have fetched Raymond’s brother, Bobby, from a yard 100 metres away as often as possible to let the pair of them play together and to give Bobby a solid meal. They charge around madly, not doing the garden any good but usefully tiring Raymond. The downside is that they love nothing more than disembowelling sponge-filled cushions.

Poor Bobby spends most of his day on a chain and his nights in a dark little shed. Jones made a cardboard kennel to go into the shed. I was carrying it down the path in front of me yesterday afternoon when I twisted my knee. A kindly neighbour has lent me crutches. Several days of inaction lie ahead.