Letter from Espargal: 44 of 2008

This has been a jumbled up, tumble down sort of week, most of which I’ve spent clanking around on crutches (and hating it) or limping around without them (and rueing it). My muse has fled and my prose may prove more pedestrian than I have been. The problem about crutch-motion is that it requires the use of both the mover’s hands. It’s one thing to be aware of this restriction and another thing, vastly more frustrating, to live with it. Doing anything useful, like carrying firewood or cleaning ash from the stove, becomes awkward, irritating and time-consuming.

The bottom line is that while I have concentrated on recuperating (from a twisted knee) the burden of the week has fallen on Jones. After bringing me knee-improving coffee and toast in the morning, she has taken the dogs on the mandatory walk, often in damp weather. (It’s been wet and unusually cold; loads of snow has fallen over the interior.) She’s avoided the main roads as she has to leave Raymond off leash, making for muddy outings. We place a large towel on the hall floor to retain up the worst of the returning paw marks.

Bobby, Raymond’s brother from next door, often arrives for a romp in the garden. Although we welcome him (as well as feeding him) he’s noisy, nervous and excitable, with the habit of jumping up on one’s clothes. In spite of these failings we have bought him a kennel in the hope that we can persuade his owners not to keep him overnight in a damp, dark hole of a shed. The kennel came flat-pack. I shall assemble it with a little neighbourly help as soon as possible, and plan to insulate it with a polystyrene panel.

While I’m on my canine theme – it emerges that our dogs have been treated by our dermatologist’s son – rum as it may sound. For some years now we’ve been making an annual visit to a dermatologist in Faro, the last of them this week. The lady operates with a magnifying glass/torch instrument in one hand and a canister of icy gas in the other, employing the former to seek out any dermatological imperfections and the latter to zap them.

She likes to talk as she works, and was telling us proudly that her son had gone to Glascow to do a post-graduate veterinary course. We made her afternoon when she learned that our dogs had enjoyed the benefit of his services at the veterinary clinic in Loule. As we emerged, much zapped and somewhat tenderly, from her rooms, I was doing a little mental arithmetic on her likely income. She sees patients only in the afternoon, typically for 20 minutes, and charges 85 euros (upwards) for a consultation. There's much to be said for being a consultant. She says she tried working part-time at the local hospital but couldn't handle the confusion. Patients there who are diagnosed with melanoma are now sent to Lisbon for treatment.


Monday was a public holiday, Independence Restoration Day, celebrating the overthrow of Portugal’s Castilian rulers in 1640. To celebrate it ourselves we arranged to have lunch in the town of Messines with Eddie and Lesley, friends who live nearby. It wasn’t the best plan. On public holidays, three quarters of the restaurants in Portugal close and the other quarter are filled to overflowing. We eventually found a vast chicken eatery (600 parking places) and joined the (happily, fast-moving) queue. The cavernous interior was choc-a-block with chicken eaters. Within minutes we were assigned a table. There was no menu. Diners could choose between chicken piri-piri and just chicken. Even so, it was good chicken and there were no complaints.


Tuesday Natasha again the missed the morning bus and several hours’ work. (She's asked us please to phone her at 7.30 in future to ensure that she's up.) We fetched her from the 13:00 bus and dropped her off at the house, then took ourselves to Loule. After a bite of lunch Jones went shopping while I gave my Portuguese pupils an additional English class to make up for the class they’d missed the previous day. (We talked about the elderly British woman who sued her barrister daughter for alleging in a book that her mother had abused her as a child. The mother lost.)

I plan to do the same thing next week when Monday is another public holiday, the Immaculate Conception (a dogma that, in the arcane world of religious beliefs, I have found particularly puzzling). I need to get into credit to make up for the several lessons I’m likely to miss next year when we are hopeful of a family reunion in Canada.

Wednesday evening we joined David and Dagmar at the cinema in Faro. I clanked my way upstairs feeling like a fool, wanting to explain to people – not that anyone cared a damn – that this wasn’t really me and I didn’t belong on crutches and would soon be off them again. Yes, I know that it’s stupid. It makes me think of the buck that “pronk” when they flee a threatening carnivore, as if to demonstrate their virility and the futility of chasing them.

We bought tickets for a chick flick, Nights in Rodanthe. (Don’t bother.) Behind us there were chewers and chatterers, in front of us mobile-phone consulters. I’ve got too many of my daddy’s genes to enjoy a film in such a contagion (he could never abide interruptions) and cranked off at the interval to read in the lobby instead. It’s a comfortable lobby with a bar, a lounge and an internet café, and I was perfectly content there. Jonesy, who likes her happy endings, reported afterwards that the film didn’t have one. She wasn’t best pleased.

After years of making do with MS Office 97, I have upgraded (via Amazon) to the student and home version of Office 2007. It becomes clear to me that Microsoft’s programmers have not been idle these past ten years. The possibilities of the new WORD and EXCEL programmes are just mind-boggling. Strangely, however, these programmes lack a HELP menu. The only way to reach help is via F1, which takes you to Microsoft’s online help. If you’re offline, you’re sunk. A little googling indicates that Office 2007 is beset with problems in this area. That aside, I really like it.

On the reading front, I’m midway through Michael Moore’s “Stupid White Men” – a different and interesting (if somewhat repetitive) book. I’m not surprised that he had such difficulty in getting it published. Like me and most of his countrymen, he is not an admirer of the current US administration and one can only be surprised that none of its members has taken him to court or sent him to Guantanamo.

Friday evening we visited Loule’s Christmas fair. We like it. It's always much the same, a melange of food, art, jewellery, pottery, basketry, leatherwork (I bought two new belts) and what have you, all set to music by local choirs. We always fall for the puppies that the Sao Francisco kennel uses to separate passers-by from a little money. In the food hall, the local VIPs cluster around their dedicated (free) refreshments table. They're welcome. I can't remember when last I wore a tie or wanted to.