Letter from Espargal: 11 of 2009

Late morning – it doesn’t matter which one: Jones is doing a bit of ironing behind me. The dogs are strewn around the study, feeling the effects of our 90 minute jaunt into the hills. It’s the last mile back to the village that’s the killer. The stony track up the side of the hill gets steadily steeper. I’ll swear that tectonic plates are shoving up Puffer Hill at the rate of at least a metre a week. By the time we stagger in the front door, I’m bushed. I often lie down on the study carpet for a spot of recuperative meditation. The dogs generally take that as an invitation to join me.

This morning I am at the computer instead, resisting the temptation to play Spider Solitaire and getting on with the serious business of correspon-dence. Spider Solitaire is something else, a variety of cyber cocaine to which I was introduced by one of my relatives, who had better remain nameless. If you haven’t heard of the game, count it as a blessing. It doesn’t actually harm one’s health, except possibly with an occasional stab of back-ache, but it does promote bouts of severe procrastination.

The aim of the game is to get all the cards down with the smallest number of moves. On average I get out one game in seven, typically with a score of about 1170. On a good day I might achieve a score in the 1180s and once a month in the 1190s. I have resolved to give up the game entirely when I achieve a score of 1200 or better. My highest score was 1194 – until recently, that is, when I got a tantalising 1199. I am reassured that 1200 is possible if not actually in sight.

Midweek we heard the renewed grunt of heavy trucks making their way up the hill as Horacio prepared to lay a cement floor on the foundations of the house is building on the brow of the hill.

Jones returned from her Portuguese exercises with Marie and Olly to report that the huge cement trucks could barely squeeze between the cottages on a bend in the road. She grabbed the camera and set off to take pictures while I accompanied the dogs on their customary late afternoon leg-lifters around the koppie. As you can see,the truck drivers had barely centimetres to spare on either side.

CATERINA

Speaking of dogs - old Dona Caterina came clip-clopping down the road with her stick one evening, just as we were setting out. To our embarrassment, two of the dogs rushed down the drive to bark at her, scaring the old lady silly. She tottered around on her octogenarian pins for a couple of seconds, waving her stick at them, and jolly nearly toppled into the bushes.

The irony was that neither of the offenders belonged to us. They are neighbours’ dogs that love to come walking with our lot. They’re not at all dangerous but you can’t tell that to old ladies. I went round afterwards to apologise to her and her daughter, Leonhilda.

Leonhilda understood only too well. Her own small dog, who’s completely harmless, loves nothing more than to rush out into the road and bark at passers-by or passing cars – something he did several times as we chatted.

We wandered up the road to look at the roof-beams that have just gone up on Dries’s house. He must be thrilled to see such progress at last. Forgive me if these house building reports are tedious; in a small community such as ours, a new house and the prospect of new neighbours is big news. What’s more, all this construction is gradually changing the face of our community.

I think of Cruz da Assumada, where we bought the Quinta 22 years ago. At that time, our little cottage was situated in the country, close to a small country road. The country road became a highway and the whole area, where we and the sheep once wandered through the veld, has gradually turned into a plush suburb, studded with vast new villas. Some of them must cost millions.

One morning I took the tractor down to assist our Irish neighbour, Fintan. His new holiday villa is nearing completion at the other end of the village. It’s the second of two such villas that he and his wife, Pauline, have built in their retirement, each with three bedrooms en suite and a pool. (I can heartily recommend them to any prospective holiday makers.)

With the assistance of their neighbour, Ollie, (much in demand because he doesn't suffer from back problems) the couple have started planting shrubs and trees around the new villa. To facilitate this, Fintan asked me to clean up the weeds and level the ground a bit with the scarifier. In the event, this proved an all but impossible task. Pockets of soil vied for space with outcrops of bedrock that fiercely resisted the heavy steel prongs of the scarifier. Sparks and shards flew in all directions; the shards ricocheted off the back of the tractor. All I could usefully do was to drag a couple of heavy poles around to flatten the greenery.

During a visit to the Modelo hypermarket in Loule we were approached, as we wheeled our cartload of goodies back to the car, by a gypsy boy aged about ten. This is not unusual. Families of gypsies habitually bum a living at the supermarkets. The usual arrangement is for mother, clutching a baby in one hand, to hold out the other hand at the door. In the car park the kids, pleading hunger, beg for the empty carts in order to recover the 50-cent or one-euro coins from the slot. And, if you look hard, lurking somewhere nearby, you’ll spot dad making sure that his brood doesn’t slack.

The kids are often grubby. In our case, the lad was quite presentable. Taking us (quite-rightly) for foreigners, he performed a little me-hungry and can-I-have-the-cart mime. When I asked him in Portuguese why he wanted it, he said it was to buy bread. Little surprise there. We gave him the empty cart to return and he went off – only to reappear some moments later, clutching the coin, which he indignantly returned to us.

The coin seemed to be a one-euro piece from an EU country other than Portugal – there are small differences in the coinage – but on closer examination it turned out to be an old French ten-franc piece in the same silver and bronze format. So we took it back and found him a genuine one-euro coin instead, which pleased him no end. I guess that daddy wouldn’t have been very happy with a useless coin. For all that gypsy children may lack education, they are born with a keen commercial sense.

The last of our seasonal orchids, the tongue orchids, have finally made an appearance. There’s a tree on the far side of our hill, half an hour’s walk away, where they rise each year. We keep a lookout for them each March. There are usually a few dozen but so far we’ve seen only a disappointing four. As you may see below, other wild flowers are now in their glory.

NICOLINE & ANNEKE

Our Dutch neighbours, Nicoline and Anneke, took us to lunch at the Snack Bar Coral, to thank Jones for walking their dog. Nicoline scolded me for misspelling the animal’s name in my blog as “Herme” rather than Ermie, waving away my excuses. So where-ever you may have read “Herme” in the past, kindly assume “Ermie” instead. Our neighbours were quite surprised that I had referred to their little pet as a bitch. I had to assure them that even the sweetest pure-bred lady dogs may be referred to in this manner without causing offence.


ORNITHOGALUMS

It was a good lunch. The place was full, which we were glad to see. We wish the owners every success and the fact is that it’s meals that make the money, not drinks. There is little profit in selling coffees, beer or whisky, especially to folk who can make any of the above last an hour of casual conversation. I’ve been following with interest the debate in the UK about imposing a minimum price per unit on sales of alcohol to discourage binge drinking.

GRAPE HYACINTHS

Here in Portugal alcohol is cheap but I can’t think, with the exception of the local alcoholic, when I last saw any drunk Portuguese. I felt weak-kneed on hearing from Llewellyn that he had paid £20 for a bottle of average wine at a favourite Portuguese restaurant in London. That’s enough to drive a soul to sobriety which, I suppose, is what the whole debate is about.

LAVENDER & CISTUS

On a totally unrelated subject, some time ago I saw a low-slung, otter-like animal running across a road. Recently I saw another and then, much to my surprise, a third – each time crossing a road late in the day. When I described the creature to Idalecio, he said it was the same animal that had been taking his chickens, scaling the wire fence with ease. In Portuguese, he said, it’s called a “saca-rabo”. This was identified by the dictionary, as well as a neighbour, Mike, to whom I described the beast, as a mongoose.

ROCK ROSE

My idea of a mongoose was a cute, family-proud little guy, often seen on TV, who stood up on his hind legs on an anthill to scan the world around him. I had to change my image radically. The mongooses I briefly witnessed were a good deal bigger and beafier although very fast. According to the Wikipedia account, there are more than 30 species, ranging up to 4 feet in length, and spread over several continents.


SORRY - NO MONGOOSE PICTURES

The local variety is shy and with good reason. It’s not popular. Unlike chicken farmers, I count myself lucky to have come across them. Another animal that I have glimpsed here is the fox, a most beautiful creature which is, regrettably, equally unpopular with hunters and farmers. Anneke, who is training to do a pilgrimage walk from Porto to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, said she too had spotted a fox, a beauty.