Letter from Espargal: 18 of 2009

This is quite a difficult week to write about sensibly. Some parts of it have been much the same as other weeks and other parts have been quite featureless. So I’m caught between repeating myself and saying nothing.

Mostly, Jones has spent her days weeding and I have spent mine strimming. There is only so much to be said about those two activities. Principally, they have to be carried on outside and are both quite enervating in the hot sun. And hot is what it has been. Summer arrived simultaneously with the start of May.

WEED MOUNTAIN
After one tiring session of strimming, I was less than enthusiastic when Jones suggested a lengthy walk to terminate the day, prompting a sharp reprimand. You have to rail against the night, my wife impressed upon me (or something very similar, à la Dylan Thomas). And to ram the point home, she exhorted me to “fight decrepitude!”

THE SLEEEPERS
Well, give me a cold beer and a comfortable chair, preferably in front of football on TV, and I’m prepared to rail against anything you like. Not that I did any railing, I just went on the walk. If I hadn’t, Jones would have taken the dogs herself and left me behind. One thing you have to learn with my spouse is not to get between her and her walks.

Mind you, the wretched ticks have been giving us a hard time. We have, both of us, had to examine our clothing and persons, as well as the dogs, carefully and frequently to get rid of the wretches. After one particularly ticky walk, Jones removed four of the horrible little insects.
(S)HAFTED TICK
And I have just moments ago used the haft of a handy paper knife to crush one that was wandering across my hand, here at my desk.

Lots of road-clearing, verge-trimming and tree-pruning has been going on all around us. Jones was quite concerned as we approached our "cork walk" to see large machines and chainsaw-wielding workers active in the area. In the event, it was merely to widen the road and remove excess wood from the wonderful cork oaks that line the avenue. As the picture indicates, however, the dreaded pandemic of Mexican builders' bum has arrived in Portugal.

The dogs have had a wonderful time chasing rabbits in the adjacent veld (known as "mato" in Portugal, akin to the French "maquis"). Poor Prickles frets terribly; he has to remain on the lead while the others roam free because he doesn't return when he's called. We take care to keep the three of them off the newly-planted melons that are now rising steadily out of the artwork plastic strips that drape the land.

Our Canadian trip looms large. With this in mind we made our annual visit to the Portuguese Automobile Club in Faro to renew my international driving licence. This is a chore required by the US and Canada of those foreign drivers whose domestic licences are not readily intelligible to their officers.

MORE POPPIES
Previously, the licence has been typed out by an assistant and stamped. On this last occasion, I found that the process had been computerised, a change which had slowed things down rather than speeded them up, as if the computer were still learning how
to do the job. The service was carried out by a sour-faced young woman who made it plain that she was doing me a favour.

When, at last, she completed the task, her assistant pointed out a mistake. So Sour-puss had to go through the whole business a second time. On coming to pay, I discovered that ACP members no longer got a discount on international licences. I felt most displeased. The ACP is about to lose a member. When she eventually finished the job, Sour-puss cranked out a smile and wished me a good trip but she clearly wasn’t used to smiling and it damn near cracked the paintwork on her face.

THE CORK WALK
On our return from Canada, I will have to renew my Portuguese driving licence ahead of the 65 OAP – help me - milestone that looms up in October. The law requires Portuguese drivers to renew their licences at diminishing intervals from age 60, each time producing a medical certificate. While I can sort of see the point, I can’t help feeling that it’s rampant ageism and at least as worthy of being railed about as decrepitude. I console myself in these tough economic times with the reflection that at least OAPs can’t lose their jobs.

With little more to say about our own activities, let me turn my attention to our neighbours. The most active of these have been Sarah and David, who have been building a nook from which to watch the boule-players on their new pitch. It hard to know with Sarah and David whether they enjoy shaming the rest of us or whether they’re simply addicted to domestic construction.

Whatever the case, they fire up the generator (because they don’t have mains electricity), hook it up to the cement mixer and away they go. They seem never happier than when covered in cement dust. On off days, for a spot of relaxation, they travel 30 minutes west to Cortelha to grout the new tiles on the flat roof of the cottage recently acquired by their daughter and her partner.

On Thursday evening, we went around to try out the boule pitch. I regret to report that our hosts tried the sneaky tactic of plying me with wine in order to win the day, and I’m pleased to say that it didn’t work. Jones also gave better than she got. We did allow Sarah and David one token win, however, in order to save their blushes. Given the excellent supper they later presented us with, it was the least we could do.

ANNEKE
At the bottom of the village, our Dutch neighbour, Nicoline, has spent the week alone because her partner, Anneke, has been walking the pilgrimage route from Porto to Santiago de Compostela, a distance of some 300 kms. We await her report at the weekend. In the meanwhile, we gather from Nicoline that Anneke has been less than impressed with the Spanish pilgrimage town.

For her part, Nicoline took her car in for its annual inspection, only to have it failed because it did not have two screws securing the rear number-plate. It’s not that the number plate wasn’t secure; it’s just that it lacked the requisite screws. She had to go off to the Citroen garage to have the screws put in, before returning to the test centre to have the work approved and receive her bit of paper.

Nicoline, not one to bear fools gladly, was most annoyed and had an exchange of words with the idiot who had failed her, demanding to know where in the inspection book it said the number plate had to be fastened with two screws. (Many are riveted into place.) I wasn’t there and can’t report details of this exchange. I am, however, proposing this petty bureaucrat for Dr Ronald Sole’s prestigious ‘wanker of the year’ award.

Our friends, Mike and Lyn, having identified all the orchids and birds within miles, enjoyed some final sundowners with us on the front patio before flying back to the delights of the Isle of Wight. We look forward to seeing them again in October.

RAYMOND WITH TAG
From other UK friends, Anne and Ian, who were recently down here looking after the ranch, we received a small metal engraved name-tag that we have attached to Raymond’s collar. (Thank you.) The other two dogs already have them. I’ve not seen them on sale in Portugal.

Also, strangely, not on sale here are rain gauges. Idalecio’s dad was delighted when we gave him a plastic one that we’d bought in the UK. The other villagers come to him after a rainy day, he confided, to discover how much of the wet stuff has fallen. (It’s never enough. We’re nearing the end of the wet season several inches short of what we need, and there's barely a shower in sight.)

TONGUE ORCHIDS
Jonesy continues to take tea regularly with Maria, one of our Portuguese neighbours. With her, my wife takes a large clump of the dandelion weeds that Maria’s hens adore. In return, we have received a supply of fresh eggs and a plastic bag of Joaquim’s best fava beans. These Jones boils in a saucepan before adding them to our nightly salad bowl. They’re delicious and given the meagre offerings from own bean crop this year they’re much appreciated.

LEONHILDE BUYING FISH
Another Portuguese neighbour is Leonhilde, who lives close by. For some time her husband, Jose-Luis, has been in poor health, and this week he was admitted to Faro hospital. He would appear to have cancer and the outlook is bleak.

On the desk beside me is an envelope from the Portuguese equivalent of the group that was known in the UK as Mouth and Foot Artists (to distinguish them from the Foot and Mouth lot). We used to make Easter and Christmas contributions to them in return for the packets of cards that inevitably landed on the threshold twice a year.

How they tracked us to Portugal I don’t know but the cards, decorated with flowers, kitty-cats and sailing boats, still arrive (even more) frequently in the mailbox. The paintings are distinguished more by sweetness than good taste, with saccharine sentiments such as: the road of happiness runs beside your house. For the artists concerned I suppose there’s a grain of truth in it.

Of course recipients can send them back or simply throw them away but the senders rely on one’s sense of honour to do the right thing and reward their handicapped artists with the recommended contribution. One can go further and order cards that say things like: “glad you had a baby” or “sorry to hear that you died”. Tempted as I am to throw the latest selection in the recycle bin, I guess we’ll send off a cheque and await the next inevitable batch.

WILD IRIS
I had been hoping that by the time you came to read this we might be multi-millionaires. The EuroMillions jackpot on Friday evening was over 100 million euros. Even when one has divided the winnings among the other neighbours in the syndicate, that’s still lots of millions jingling in one’s pocket. How on earth, I'd been wondering, would we spend 20 million euros?

BUG ORCHIDS
We would probably get a new car and I might consider another tractor – I doubt it – but once the house has been repainted and one has gone out to dinner a few times, what does one do with the rest? It might have been a problem. Happily, it's been resolved. The morning brings news that some ticket-holder in Spain is today 126 million euros richer. From what we understand, it's the world's biggest lottery payout to date. I wonder what the winner is doing this weekend!