Letter from Espargal: 39 of 2008

Let me open a wormhole into Casa Valapena this Friday morning. We are just returned from our usual trek through the valley. The tarred roads glistened from the overnight rain and we were forced to dodge around the broad puddles on the gravel roads. Jones begged a couple of lemons from the woman who lives in the house of “bichos” (a bicho can be any creature from a grub to an ugly person) and received a bagful, straight from the tree, along with the invitation to help herself in future. We made it back home just in time to beat an incoming shower.

In the house, some light classical music is competing with the churning of the washing machine and the insistent meowing of the ever-hungry cats. A fire glimmers in the wood-burning stove, just sufficient to bring a little cheer to a dull end-of-October day. The dogs are settled in their baskets. That’s apart from Raymond who knows that he has to lie down if he comes inside. He has just been thrown out for sneaking through to the kitchen to consume the cat biscuits. Jones, soft-hearted (when it comes to animals), is bound to let him in again shortly.

That reminds me. Another stray has been running around the village. It looks like an Alaskan malamute. Our dogs go beserk when they see it. It’s as if they know that it has no right to be here. We understand that its owner, from a village a few miles away, has been looking for it. But when he’s around the dog isn’t – and vice versa. The bicho house woman said it had been running around there early in the day.

It’s been an up and down week, like most I guess. On the positive side, I managed to sow our beans and peas, two lines of each, before the rain arrived yesterday. To do this, I had to borrow an implement from my neighbour, Joachim Sousa. Like most small farmers, he doesn’t keep both a scarifier and small plough but merely attaches the plough plates to the teeth of his scarifier. (That’s what I used to do as well but the nuts and bolts on my (not so) new, large scarifier are hopelessly rusted and I can’t undo them to get the plates on.)

Keeping it simple – I took the tractor around to Joachim’s place, where he helped me fit the scarifier. I was very grateful for his assistance. The implement is big and heavy, and the very devil to attach. (You have to line up the fittings in the rear hydraulic arms exactly.) Once it was on, the rest was easy. I had my field ploughed within the hour and Joachim’s scarifier back with him the same morning, along with a good bottle of wine.

I also (this is the last paragraph on scarifiers, I promise) arranged with Dinis down the road at Alto Fica to take mine down to his welding shop, along with the plough plates, midweek in order to fix the problem. I arrived at his house at the agreed time to find only his dogs in situ. They gave me a loud if fairly good-natured barking. Folks at the local café gave me Dinis’s mobile phone number but all I got when I called was the wrong kind of beeps.

Returning to the subject of neighbourly relations, those with another Espargalian have, regrettably, taken a dip. The gentleman in question is a strange old fellow, who lives by himself and doesn’t often join in the village corner conversations. He owns several fields, none of which he tends. With his permission, Jones and I have been looking after one of them, “the running field”, close to the house, the better to pass through it with the dogs and to enjoy the fruit on the trees.

At the top of this field is a smallish carob tree in the midst of a weed thicket. The carobs on it have never been picked. So we thought it a good idea to haul out the weeds (Jones spent hours at it) and present the owner with a sack of carobs. It was a mistake. The man wasn’t pleased. He gave me a five-minute lecture on picking other people’s carobs without their permission. He also asserted that he had agreed to allow a third-party to pick the carobs, which was nonsense although I thought it sensible not to tell him so. I have dumped the carobs back under the tree (where his imaginary picker may find them) and thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie.

To celebrate some good fortune – a belated pension pay-out from the SABC - I have bought myself a new watch. It’s quite a special watch, designed to run on light-energy and to reset itself from a radio signal. In order to save money, I ordered one from Amazon in the UK, where they are 25% cheaper than in the local shops. I tried to impress on Jones its ecological qualities and my efforts to save money. She felt that it would have been better to save 100% by not getting the watch at all. Jones can be very obtuse about these things.

Anyhow, it’s a very beautiful watch, a bit big and heavy but acceptably so in view of the technology it incorporates. I’m several hours into my study of the lengthy instruction manual. I’m sure that once I’ve worked out how the thing functions that I shall be even more pleased with it. It’s not a watch whose wearer is supposed to set the time. One informs the watch of the nearest city and it decides for itself what the time should be. One small disadvantage that I have discovered is that Portugal lies (just) outside the range of the radio transmitter in Germany that corrects the time (if required) several times a day.

Speaking of which, our clocks went back last weekend. Like the people of Britain, we will spend the winter in GMT or, if you prefer, UTC.

I’ve made a couple of visits to the post office to inquire about the savings schemes it offers. On my second visit, the clerk, recognising me, called me to the desk to give me some information. This greatly irritated waiting people who had numbered tickets ahead of mine. One of them protested to the clerk about my intrusion and was told that I didn’t need a ticket. She wasn’t pleased. I hurried away, feeling like a scoundrel.


We have visited Faro fair, where one finds the best ham and cheese sandwiches in the Algarve, as well as a selection of the latest cars and tractors. All sorts of charitable enterprises muster volunteers to beg donations from the public. Some of the volunteers are shy about practising their awkward English on estrangeiros. Others don't hesitate. Being charmed out of a few euros is fair game.


From the fair we went to a performance by the Portuguese army band - 100 strong and very impressive. The occasion was army day and the auditorium was awash with military types. It was not difficult to distinguish the brass from the base-metal but we found ourselves struggling to make out the various lower ranks from the range of insignia. Whatever the case, the music was good and much enjoyed.

Jones has been maintaining her busy Portuguese schedule, going to Maria and Elsa for tea and conversation and immersing herself in Portuguese exercises with Olly and Marie. This coming week will be an exception. On Sunday we are expecting guests, to whom we’ll leave the house and cats next week when we take ourselves and the dogs off to the Alentejo for a three- or four-night stay. The duration will depend on the weather and how we like it. We will probably be out of email contact.