Letter from Espargal: 16 of 2009

The end of the week has turned up like an unwelcome knock on the door to find me without a photo taken or a word written. I am reminded of those distant occasions when I arrived at school with my homework either dubiously done or not done, in the sure knowledge that trouble lay ahead. I have the sense that this has been a run-around kind of a week but I’m not sure what we were running around or why. Pause here – while I think.

While my brain ticks over, let me tell you that there is the most beautiful scattering of pyramid orchids in the field beside ours. And we’ve found a dozen tongue orchids preening themselves in our own field. These discoveries are a delight. So, at this time of year, is Jones’s garden. Time and again I exclaim at the simple beauty of these little jewels of nature, and reflect how blessed we are to live in such a place.

Enough of such musings. Our immediate mini-drama is with a sick cat. Braveheart is unwell, either through illness or an encounter with another cat – or possibly a bit of both. Jones has been trying to coax food down his throat for a couple of days – with minimal success. We have borrowed a cat-box from Marie to take the cat to the vet. Yet we are reluctant to do this; Braveheart has never been inside a cat-box or visited a vet; and he will not thank us for our efforts. So we remain in two minds.

On the human front we have bade (bidden?) farewell to our house-sitters, Ian and Anne, with thanks – as always – for minding our brood so well.
IAN & BOBBY
Not only ours, for they went around each day to Zeferino to fetch Bobby and take him walking as well. It is ironic that we arrive back home to find our dogs better tended and groomed than when we left them. Anne is a serious dog person. She has five of her own, along with a host of ribbons and medals attesting to their merits.

At the same time, we have welcomed other UK friends and frequent visitors, Mike and Lyn, who are staying close by in one of Idalecio’s guest cottages. The couple are keen photographers and have taught us a great deal about the fauna and flora.


Also newly-arrived are our commuting neighbours, David and Sarah, who are gritting their teeth as giant cement-lorries rumble past their cottage to unburden themselves at the new house that is growing noisily and largely beside them.

Our runnings-around have included a couple of trips to the parish office to attend to the latest outbreak of bureaucracy. New legislation requires all householders who are in possession of septic tanks (boreholes, wells and much else) to register these by the end of May or face substantial fines. One has to be grateful for the pleasant and efficient service of Anna and Maria, the two women behind the counter. Our septic tank was registered when we built the house but the official in Faro, whom Maria eventually reached on the phone, said that we should re-register it, which Maria promptly did.

Among other requirements, one has to declare the type of septic tank on one’s property. Older houses (apart from the few that lack plumbing altogether) have traditional soak-away cesspits. Our house, like all recent homes, has a sealed septic tank, which must be pumped out (at considerable cost) from time to time. The owner is meant to retain the receipts as proof that his tank has been properly emptied and not simply drained into his garden.

REED FILTRATION TANK
As it happens, we have not had to pump out our septic tank. This is because it has developed cracks through which the contents leak out, much to the approval of the lush vegetation on all sides. The process sounds much fouler than it is, for the contents have already passed through a large filtration tank that renders them quite inoffensive. Even so, we are in breach of our commitments and we will have to get the tank fixed sooner rather than later.

While at the parish office we also made enquiries about post-boxes as ours are soon to be moved a few metres from the site of the well to a new position. Like other relative new-comers, we had to buy our own post-box and set it up beside the official grouping, which was already fully taken. The parish ladies didn’t know whether we would have to purchase a new box. They advised us to wait for the postman. He didn’t know either but he phoned his boss, who did.

The upshot is that we have to get rid of our private post-boxes and apply for official ones in the new site, which workmen have almost finished constructing. So be it.

As ever, Jones has been doing lots of weeding. She finds it all but impossible to walk past a patch of weeds without grabbing a handful by the hair and ripping them out. The place is dotted with piles of weeds. The wheelbarrows are stacked with them and, outside the gates, the weed mountain grows apace. For my part, I’ve been cleaning up the lands again with the tractor and spraying particularly dense patches of weeds. I’ve also taken a strimmer to the grassy verges, which had stolen at least a metre from the width of the tarred road that leads to the house.

Friday afternoon: We are back from the vet. Braveheart is diagnosed to be severely jaundiced after picking up a virus. It is very important, said the vet, that the cat should eat, something the beast has shown little inclination for these past several days. He has to be fed semi-liquid food with a syringe. As essential as this is to his recovery, Braveheart is less than grateful. Jones grips him as best she can while I do the squirting. We are both – Jones and I – sporting wounds for our efforts.

Saturday: You may count yourselves lucky to be hearing from me today. We have been the victims of some misleading publicity. To encourage the health and fitness of its citizens, the parish office had organised an hour-long night-walk, to start at 21.30. What, I ask you, could be more pleasant than a moonlight stroll after a relaxed meal at the local? Our neighbours joined us for the meal (but not for the walk), a convivial occasion with an ample supply of wine to support Brigitte’s excellent dishes. We finished just in time to retrieve the dogs from the car and join the procession of people emerging from the gates of the Benafim sporting club.

That’s when reality struck. Of the moon that I’d fondly imagined, there was no sign. The night was pitch-dark. And the crowd showed not the least interest in a gentle stroll. Instead, they cantered off up the road towards the village of Penina 3 kms away, as if the very devil were on their tails. Jones and I were forced to sprint after them, for we’d failed to take torches and we couldn’t see a thing without borrowing a little light from our neighbours. The dogs thought it was great fun.

STOCK-SHOT - ON THE ROAD TO BENAFIM
After staggering into Penina and catching our breath over a hand-out bottle of water, we had to join a 4 km gallop via a different route back to Benafim. It was a case of stay up or spend the night in the ditch. By the time we fell into the car 90 minutes later, we were done in. It was, after all, our third walk of the day.

We had a much more sedate outing last weekend, when we attended a solemn high mass at the mother church in Loule. An orchestra and choir, led by four soloists, had come down from Lisbon for the occasion. The music was by Eberlin (whom I’d never heard of) and Mozart. By the time we arrived, the church was packed and we had to stand with lots of other people at the back. The music was okay but the brass section nearly drowned out the choir and I wasn’t exactly wowed, especially by the sermon in Portuguese. Jones, who found herself exchanging “kiss of peace” greetings with the notary, afterwards said she was glad that we had gone. I suppose I was too but I’m not sure that I’d go again.

Today is the 25th of April, The Day of Liberty, commemorating the 1974 Carnation Revolution that overthrew the dictatorship which had gripped the country since the 1920s. There’s hardly a town or village in Portugal that does not have a street named after the day. The occasion is celebrated everywhere with great festivity.

In the afternoon we took ourselves to Alte, threading our way through the dozens of cyclists who were busy finishing some cross-country event.

As we were walking from the car to the scene of the celebrations, an old fellow in a pick-up started his vehicle in gear and promptly knocked down a section of the wall in front of him.The rubble landed in the road a metre below, fortunately without causing injury or damage to passers-by. A young Portuguese man took the wheel of the pick-up and managed to reverse it away from the wall, while Mike and I lent our weight to his efforts. We then cleared a path through the stones for traffic to pass.

The usual crowds were gathered in the big lunch tent beside the river.
We joined them for refreshments before watching some young Spanish damsels doing the flamenco.Their dancing was more enthusiastic than expert but the crowd was well pleased. The weather blew hot and cold, prompting much taking off and putting on of jackets.

I am reading a book by Christopher Hitchens, a tome I have borrowed from Llewellyn, entitled “god is not great”. Like Dawkins (The God Delusion), Hitchens does not believe in a deity and feels that religion has a great deal to answer for. (That much, at least, I think is indisputable, given the countless sectarian massacres and persecutions that have stained the centuries.) He writes well, from the heart as well as from the head, in crisp, crunchy prose. As interesting as I find his arguments, I am no closer after much reading of many books to knowing the truth of the matter. Like my fellows, I fear that I shall have to wait for my exit from this world to discover whether there is another beyond it.

Letter from Espargal: 15 of 2009

We are home from a visit to family and friends in Britain - home to find the countryside awash with wild lavender and poppies. It was a most satisfactory visit, in spite of the loss of a return rail ticket on the afternoon of our final day. We discovered the loss in a bus taking us to the London railway station from which we were to travel back to our base at Saffron Walden. No amount of scrabbling through my many pockets served to produce the missing ticket.

Jones was all for returning to the National Gallery in the hope that the ticket might have been discovered and handed in. This was a notion that I resisted. At the station, the nice man who sold us a new ticket, explained how we might write to British Rail, which might be persuaded of the merits our case and might refund us the cost of the new ticket. I’m resisting this notion too, as we have no receipts and I shall probably be volunteered as the writer. (Jones denies the latter.)

We flew with Easyjet, a budget airline that, along with RyanAir, has more or less elbowed flag-carriers out of the popular market. I must confess to paying the voluntary premium that permits passengers to board first and choose seats ahead of the scrum. I hate that headlong elbows-flying rush from the bus to the aircraft steps in the scramble for the best seats.

One mistake I’d made was to book the flights and a car with an online travel agency (Expedia), which I’ve often used. That’s because one subsequently has to register online with the airline itself and to pay an additional amount for any hold luggage - or face a penalty at the airport. And it’s not possible to register unless the booking has been made directly with the airline itself. As a result I spent a lot of expensive and frustrating time listening to muzak and wading through menus on international phone lines.

At Stansted airport, Jonesy waited to collect our single suitcase while I went ahead to rent a hire-car. The young lady at the Hertz desk did her best to persuade me to take out additional insurance. For just 100 pounds, she pointed out, I could avoid the 550 pound penalty to which I’d be subjected if the least damage were done to the car. I declined. Also declined was Hertz’s offer of a special petrol deal. If one pays for a full tank of petrol ahead of time, one can return the car with as little fuel in the tank as one chooses. Guess who thought that one up!

Having said that, I should add that Hertz supplied us with a splendid, virtually new car that served us well. We did lots of travelling, a thousand miles in a week. Our first trip was from Saffron Walden (where we borrowed our house-sitters’ home) to Colchester to see my niece, Anita, who is completing her Master’s degree in political science at the University of Essex. Her special interest is women’s rights.

Anita, as usual, was in fine form. She showed us around her digs and gave us a brief tour of the campus before leading us a few miles down the road to the riverside village of Wivenhoe, with its many pubs. We beat the crowd to lunch. It was the first of several excellent pub lunches that we enjoyed. Especially enjoyed were the English ales that one finds in Portugal only at supermarkets and comparatively high cost. My favourite is Speckled Hen. Mind you, at 3 pounds a pub pint, it costs even more to drink the stuff in the UK than in Portugal.

From Colchester, it took us four hours to cover the distance, through the Easter weekend traffic, to Leamington Spa, where Barbara’s brother, Llewellyn (and wife, Lucia), have settled.
BREAKFAST IN LEAMINGTON SPA
The town is also the home of my cousin, Tricia, an academic biologist, and husband, Mark, a professor of mathematics. That evening the couple ambled round to Llewellyn’s house where our host prepared a delicious stir-fry supper. (Llewellyn is a talented cook.) Our animated conversation continued deep into the night, in spite of any jetlag that Tricia might have been suffering after returning from South Africa a few hours earlier.

We spent three days with Llewellyn and Lucia, who rolled out the red carpet for us. The Easter weekend had brought her a welcome respite from her very demanding job at a market research company. The pattern, as in Portugal, was always for us to begin the day by taking the dogs out for a walk, availing ourselves of the many parks and paths in the area.
The dogs are Edgar, a large and (fortunately) affable Rhodesian Ridgeback, and his hairy companion, Hazel (along with cats, Tigger and Charlie Brown). Both dogs operate under Llewellyn’s strict control. Like the English themselves, the dogs share the peculiar habit of being able to mingle with while largely ignoring their fellows in public spaces.

At such times Lucia carried with her a supply of plastic bags with which to scoop up the inevitable droppings. (In Edgar’s case, a shovel might have been more useful.)Whether Lucia had assigned herself this duty or whether it had been assigned to her, we did not inquire. Here in Portugal I have never witnessed anybody removing dog droppings, of which there are plenty, from the streets or parks. Indeed, our country pooches might think we’d gone mad if they saw us collecting their unmentionables in plastic bags.

We tried and were most impressed with the Portuguese café that Llewellyn had discovered in neighbouring Warwick. We visited the amazing exchange where citizens may leave redundant possessions for other citizens to acquire at penny-farthing prices. The mountain of old bicycles, many still usable, is extraordinary. I picked up two fine walking sticks – I have a weakness for walking sticks – at a pound apiece. Lucia had earlier bought a suite of wicker furniture, which she painted blue, for her conservatory – and very fine it looks.

One day we motored over to Croome Park, a National Trust property that had been turned into a fine 700-acre estate for the Earl of Coventry by Capability Brown before being ploughed up in the 1940s to supply the huge demand for food in wartime Britain. The National Trust is now doing its best to restore the estate to its pre-war condition.

We ambled along the river that Brown created for his employer, admiring the follies and sculptures along with the views, before taking the inevitable afternoon tea and cake at the restaurant.

On Easter Sunday afternoon, we bid our hosts farewell and drove two hours north to visit our fellow ex-journalists, Gary and Malcolm, in Newark, where they have settled after spending years on the south coast of England.
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL
We had time to make a brief stop in Lincoln, whose vast cathedral took my breath away. The magnificent edifice has been stealing visitors’ breath for close to a thousand years, easily rivalling the great cathedrals of York and Canterbury!

MALCOLM & US
After treating us to bed and board, Gary and Malcolm took us on a walking tour of Newark, an old market town with much to recommend it. The town sits on the River Trent and is dominated by the remains of a huge castle that played a pivotal role in English history for at least half a millennium.

From Newark we returned to Saffron Walden. As always during these travels, we were guided by Heloise, our satnav. She was fabulous, taking us to the very driveways of the people we were visiting. If she occasionally suffered a rush of blood to the head, by leading us off a motorway and then directly back on to it again, we forgave her. We’d never have managed with maps alone, especially among the maze of villages and tangle of minor roads along which we often had to find our way.

ELECTRIC CAR ON CHARGE
Our last full day we spent in London. It’s just over an hour by train from Audley End station on the outskirts of Saffron Walden. In Marylebone we met Llewellyn in time for a nostalgic visit to a café where Jones had wiled away many an off-day hour in the sixties, when she worked for the BBC. Then the cafe was known as Sagne’s. Now it’s been taken over by a chain. Even so, it retains much of its old world charm, and its croissants are as good as ever.

Lunch was with more former colleagues, Nancy and Brian, with whom Jones worked for years at NBC – and whose two children, now at university, we once watched grow up. Nancy led us to a restaurant in a restored centre close to Russell Square. Like some of London’s old stations, a squalid and depressing old building had been given a new lease on life. If only one could airbrush such colour and life back into other crumbling areas!

ROSA HOTEL, BEREA
I was shocked by a series of photos that I received from a South African contact of mine, showing the state of buildings in much of central Johannesburg and its surrounds. All have deteriorated into sordid, litter-strewn slums, occupied mainly by squatters. I wonder if Mr Zuma will be able to improve matters, when that gentleman becomes state president in due course. I doubt it, not while hordes of desperate Zimbabweans continue to seek shelter there.

In the afternoon – returning to my theme – we went to the Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery, an event for which I’d booked online months earlier. Like anyone vaguely interested in art, I was aware of Picasso’s work – we’d seen his stunning Guernica in Madrid - but had very little detailed knowledge of his pictures. The exhibition and a short film on his life didn’t disappoint. One came away with a much better idea of the man’s influences, ideas and women.
The most interesting painting, for me, was a near-conventional portrait of his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, beautifully executed, showing just how accomplished the man also was when he chose to reflect the world as we see it rather than as he generally saw it.

Joining us at the exhibition were old friends, Julian and Ann-Christine. She was at school with Barbara in Johannesburg in the days of yore; the couple moved from South Africa to England shortly before I was sent to London as a correspondent. Over tea in the gallery restaurant afterwards, we caught up on their lives.

And then, returning to the start of my letter, it was off to the station and back to Saffron Walden to catch a few hours’ sleep, ahead of an 03.00 rising for the return flight. Our house-sitters, Ann and Ian, met us at Faro airport, where they had deposited us a week earlier. The weather was wonderfully cloudy, damp and cool. We’ve had about half an inch of badly-needed rain. Espargal looked much as we had left it. The roadside weeds were perhaps a few inches higher.

VILLAGE WELL
Two labourers were building a stone wall around the base of the village’s ancient well, which is being restored as a feature after being re-dug out. It had filled with sand during years of disuse.

NEW SITE FOR POST-BOXES
Around the corner, new supports are being installed for the post-boxes, which are to be transferred from the area of the well, the better to show off the latter. We've been advised that we will have to uproot our post-box and move it to the new site.

BEAN FIELD
We've been picking our beans, what remains of them. For the most part, they've vanished among the most beautiful crop of poppies and a wretched profusion of weeds. I'm in two minds about whether to plough the whole field under, because I'd like to get rid of the weeds sooner rather than later. On the other hand, it would be a pity to destroy the poppies. A little procrastination may resolve the matter.

Letter from Espargal: 14 of 2009

SORRY

NO LETTER THIS WEEK

GONE TRAVELLING!

Letter from Espargal: 13 of 2009

This has been, one way and another, by the drowsy standards of Espargal, quite an exciting week. It began right at the beginning, last Sunday. As we were ascending a track on the far side of the hill, a fox hurried across our path. I think it had been disturbed by the dogs, which were crashing around in the bushes nearby. There was no time to reach for the camera. In a moment the animal had disappeared again. We were relieved that it was well away before the dogs came leaping out on to the path. What is a fox between friends, you may wonder? Well, for us, such a sighting is a rare privilege.

A moment later, Raymond went sprinting into the bush again and emerged with a limp rabbit, his first kill. We were surprised that he’d caught it because although the dogs are forever chasing rabbits – indeed, they love little more - they seldom come close to catching them. The bunnies are lightning fast and perfectly at home in the thick scrub.

Raymond crouched over his rabbit, not knowing quite what to do with it. He showed no interest in eating it. I picked up the unfortunate creature by the ears and dropped it into a dense patch of greenery, well off the path. Our hardier Portuguese neighbours would have dined on rabbit that evening. Not us, I’m afraid. Jones was upset, as always with such senseless killing. I was more phlegmatic. The dogs’ hunting instinct has been honed over millions of years and that’s the way it is.

The following morning we got a call from the Dutch ladies. They had returned home the previous evening to find that thieves had broken into the house. We went down to take some pictures for insurance purposes as their cameras were among the items stolen. To get in, the burglars had prized open sliding doors. I was alarmed to see how easy this was. One had only to bend the soft aluminium sheeting fractionally with a large screw driver in order to slip the catch and open the door. Our doors are virtually identical and could just as easily be forced.

Burglary is a thriving industry in the Algarve as in most of the rest of the world. We are fortunate to live at the termination of a dead-end road in a small village, with lots of nosy neighbours and noisy dogs; not that this situation brings any guarantee. Some weeks ago I made contact with a fellow who has been advertising locks for sliding doors. I am interested in seeing how the system works before I commit myself but the man has been too busy to set up a meeting.

That afternoon, I collected my long awaited “quick hook-ups” from Jose, the tractor dealer in Benafim, and drove the tractor around to the workshop of Dinis, the metal worker, on the outskirts to get them welded on. The hook-ups are designed to solve the problem of aligning the tractor exactly with a heavy implement in order to attach it to the 3-point hitch. Unless the two side-arms are exactly aligned, it’s all but impossible to hook up the implement without much heaving and hohing – not good for bad backs.

Dinis and his sidekick, Bruno, removed the two side-arms and cut off the old hook-ups with an angle-grinder. Then they worked together to align the new ones at exactly the right angle, checking the measurements and adjusting the hook-ups several times before setting about the welding. I was impressed by their thoroughness. We were able to test the new device immediately on the heavy scarifier that I was carrying – and it’s a great improvement.

In the evening we met up with David and Dagmar to see Duplicity – a come-back for Julia Roberts. It’s my sort of film, a teaser rather than a feel-good movie, really cleverly done - perhaps too clever. One headscratches afterwards about the relevance of certain flashbacks. Whatever the case, the ending isn’t apparent until it arrives. There much to be said for a little unpredictability.

The construction of the new house beside Sarah and David’s cottage has brought a hygiene problem with it. It became increasingly evident, with the spread of loo paper and unmentionables on the hillside that (some members of) the team of builders were not using the portaloo on site. At first the mess was confined to an area enclosed by bushes. Then it spread to the paths we use each day. So I went along to the house and sought out the boss, a meeting that required me to clamber on to the upper floor. There I explained as politely as I could in builders’ language how unpleasant the villagers were finding their excremental habits. There were some wry smiles. Jones said she could hear me 50 metres away. I do have a rather loud voice. Whatever the case, the problem has abated.

WILD FLOWERS

Wednesday: We are trying a new deal with Natasha, which involves sharing her once-a-week cleaning services with another couple, who live nearby. She works for them in the morning; I fetch her at lunchtime and she cleans for us in the afternoon. As usual, I dropped her back at the bus stop at 5.15. Nearly an hour later, I got a disconsolate call. She was still waiting there. The afternoon bus, intended mainly for scholars, had been cancelled because the schools were already on their Easter break. We were out walking the dogs at the time and she had to wait on our return.

THE GARDEN

On the way down the road to fetch her, our car was chased (as usual) by Leonhilde’s dog, Presidente, and I somehow managed to run over his paw. He squealed blue murder and limped back home. Our dogs, which were inside the car, added to the din. I stopped and rushed in behind Presidente, fearing that I’d have to take him straight to the vet. As it turned out, his paw was just badly bruised and he didn’t need any treatment. Leonhilde wasn’t overly sympathetic, saying he might have learned his lesson at last.

MORE GARDEN

Thursday: I took the tractor back to Jose’s shop in Benafim to have a “pirilampo” fitted. (I’d never heard of the word: it translates as firefly.) This is an orange-coloured flashing light that is now required by law on the tractor roll-bar when the vehicle is used on a public road. Few of the locals have bothered, nor do the police seem concerned but Jose offered to fit a lamp and I agreed.

I asked him to attach the lamp to the underside of the hinged roll-bar, to protect the lamp from low branches. This he was quite happy to do. The first setback came when Jose lifted the bar without warning, catching the finger of one of the several watchers and gashing it. There was a 15 minute pause for first aid. Then work resumed. Every so often it was interrupted by a cat’s miao or a dog’s whine – sounds, which I discovered, were emitted by the mobile phone in Jose’s pocket.

As is customary when dealing with clients, Jose offered us all a tot of his local medronho. It was excellent. He then urged us to try a very special whisky, one which had apparently been treated with the bark of a tree in Angola, rendering it a powerful aphrodisiac. Jose described, as he worked, the miraculous improvement that it had made to the love life of an acquaintance. I demurred as graciously as I could; the medronho was perfectly adequate, thank you.

Eventually, the job was done. The part was cut, welded, fitted and spray-painted – and it worked. What I hadn’t realised was that the lamp would sit just above my head. (We were taught in TV training never to seat an interviewee with a flower pot or bunch of flowers emerging from his/her head!) I have to admit that it looks a bit silly. Still, that’s not serious.

CHATTING TO NEIGHBOURS

After settling the bill, I took the tractor around to the service station to fill it up. It was the first time I’d filled it from a pump and I didn’t notice that diesel fuel was spilling down from beneath the hood until I’d wet the forecourt. I wasn’t best pleased. Nor was the owner of the service station. I drove to the car-wash next door to clean the tractor and then came home. It’s amazing how the simplest activity in this part of the world transforms itself into an adventure.

We are back on summer times. Suddenly we have long afternoons again. The sun, which sets at 5.30 in winter, now goes down only at 8. And in midsummer it won’t set until 9. I have been doing hours of scarifying on our fields and our neighbours'.
BARROW OF WEEDS

Jones has been attacking the weeds with a vengeance, crouching in the garden and ripping them out. She’s very careful to remove only her enemies (of which there are many) while preserving the chosen few.

I have to say that the garden is looking glorious. So are our fields, which are covered with a sea of yellow daisies (or similar). The wild honeysuckle is in its party dress. The season is marred only by the flies and the ticks. I woke last night with a crawly feeling and leapt up to put on the lights and pluck another little tick from my body. Fortunately, he hadn’t started feeding. It was hard to get to sleep again. I imagined ticks on every limb. Jones, who once shared her bed with a centipede, said she perfectly understood.