Letter from Espargal: 20 of 2009

While I am not an enthusiastic participant in funerals, I have come to recognise the merits of the Portuguese custom of despatch. This was well illustrated by the funeral last Monday of our friend and neighbour, Jose Luis.


When we arrived at the church in Benafim at the appointed time of 10.45, we found groups of men straggled around the rim of the church yard. It was hot and most of those present were grateful for what little shade was to be had.

Few women were to be seen. As we later discovered, the womenfolk were in the church, awaiting the arrival of the priest, who was late. No surprise there; few events in this country start on time.

Like those around us, we took the opportunity to catch up with the affairs of our friends and neighbours. Snatches of conversation filled the air. Most of the men wore trousers and short-sleeved shirts. There is no dress code in this country for funerals – as for concerts or banquets - apart from the immediate family, who are expected to wear black. Indeed some older widows continue clad in such drab garb for the rest of their lives. After the service, the undertakers emerged with the coffin, which they slid into the hearse.


Then, and this is the important part - the salute to the departed - all the mourners formed up in procession and followed the coffin a kilometre down the road to the cemetery. This is where the size of the crowd reveals the community’s true feelings towards the departed. Traffic comes to a respectful halt while the mourners pass. Jose Luis must have been pleased with his send-off. There were several hundred of us, Portuguese and estrangeiros, to bid him farewell.


At the cemetery, we clustered around the shallow grave, barely a metre deep, for the briefest of services. His coffin was lowered and the grave was immediately filled in. (In a few years time, his remains will be removed, to be placed in a niche, and the grave will serve another client.) We went to express our sympathies and support to his widow, Leonhilde, before making our way back to the Snack Bar Coral for a cold beer in celebration of life.

Most of the rest of the week has passed like the preceding week. Walks, watering and weeding have been the main dishes on our daily menu. Down in the valley, the tiny water melon seedlings that we saw being planted before our Canadian holiday are now producing football sized melons, thousands of them.

It was with some surprise that we heard late in the week from Barbara’s brother in the UK, Llewellyn, that his wife, Lucia, had been offered a new post in her firm. They hoped to celebrate a long weekend with us in Portugal before she began her new job.

We were at the airport to greet them on Friday morning. Ono and Prickles have learned to associate the airport with desirable arrivals and strained at their leashes to welcome all and sundry. L&L got a particularly warm welcome. From the terminal we drove ten minutes down the road to the “Electrico” (tram) snack bar on Faro beach for brunch and catch-ups.

On the way home I stopped at the Honda outlet to take a look at the new CRV that I have ordered, following the arrival in the post of a brochure advertising substantial summer discounts. The car is a silver grey (officially “Whistler Silver”) with black upholstery and a lot of bells and whistles; not that it looked like much clad in its protective white sheaths. I have asked additionally for a tow-bar to be attached and for a few other options. The car should be ready for collection early next week. We shall be trading in our 9-year old CRV.

To return to our guests; we accompanied them Friday night to a concert given in the mother church in central Loule. The catch was that the whole of the old town had been fenced off for the annual Mediterranean festival.
Those attending were required to pay a 12-euro entrance fee, which is steep by local standards. Having obtained tickets, we made our way through the crush in the narrow cobbled streets, past endless stalls hawking knick-knacks (jewellery, clothing and music, adds Jones) to the church.

(Jones complains that I have not done justice to the event, with its alternative flavours, Bohemian atmosphere and smell of hash hanging in the air. It’s life as life has been lived in bazaar towns for centuries – if that’s what you like. Certainly, lots of people did.)

The concert was lovely.I was not familiar with either of the two works, Bizet’s Symphony No 1 (which Jones says she knew well) and Voríšek’s Symphony in D Major, both of them glorious bits of music. Afterwards we found in a table in one of the numerous places to eat, and if service was slow and the ambience distinctly noisy, we didn’t much mind.

Saturday morning we took L&L around to JR’s medronho distillery at Monte Ruivo for a brief tour (which doesn’t take long as there’s just a single room) and to make some purchases.

Saturday night, Jonesy and I attended the annual banquet of the Senior University of Loule, at a splosh hotel on the coast. It’s the sort of place we visit only once a year. But the company is always good and the food delicious and it’s a rare opportunity for such as Jones to trot out their glad rags. I employ my usual jeans and party shirt. The presentations to the teachers - all volunteers - are always of some specially commissioned gift, generally in glass or metal, and this year's was a chromed glass vase, which looks much better than it sounds.

From the pupils in my English class I received a bottle of something special and a card that really takes my fancy. Judge it for yourself.

I have joined Facebook, feeling a bit like a Jew circling the Kaaba. My niece, Anita, encouraged me to do so if I wished to stay up with her life, its public face anyhow, which I do; so I complied. I have written a few notes on other Facebookians’ walls and had a few written on my own. Why the medium is so compulsive I’ve yet to discover. My suspicion is that I have just raised the average age of Facebook fans by several years.