Letter from Espargal: 27 of 2009

Things have gone with a bang this week, some things at least, especially an egg that Jones tried to microwave. Although she had taken the necessary precautions, or said she had, the egg blew itself up like a suicide bomber. The explosion startled us both. It threw open the oven door and spread a white and yellow mush evenly around the oven. The bang was quite impressive – certainly as impressive as I ever wish to experience at close quarters. I cleaned up the worst of the eggy fragments before Jones set about restoring the oven to its usual pristine state.

This endeavour brought another setback, announced with a loud (why are the fates against me?) groan from the kitchen. It seems that the top came off a bottle of strong cleaner while Jones was trying to remove the container from the cupboard under the sink. The bottle fell over, the contents went everywhere and she had a great deal more cleaning up to do than she had envisaged.

That, however, was as bad as the week got which, compared to mudslides in Taiwan and upheavals elsewhere, wasn’t too bad at all. Jones returned from the UK on Monday morning. The dogs gave her their usual frenetic welcome at the airport. On the way home we stopped to get her new specs from the optician. The old lenses had become so badly scratched as to be virtually opaque.

WATERPERRY GARDENS

Jones spent several excellent days with her family in Leamington Spa, with outings to favourite places, attested to by the photographs she brought back with her. On seeing her garden and her house, both of which I’d cared for with the greatest diligence in her absence, she got a distracted look about her and said she hardly knew where to start – there was so much to do. No doubt that husbands all over the world are familiar with this response.

WITH LUCIA IN LONDON

As much as there was to do, we found time to join friends for a patio lunch beside the river at a favourite restaurant in Alte. After the meal, as is quite usual in these parts, I asked the waiter to put our scraps (and any others he might have in the kitchen) into a plastic bag for the beasts. On our return, Jones cooked these up on the stove. So delicious were the chickeny smells that issued from the pot that all the animals lined up in anticipation. If you look carefully, you will spot the diminutive Prickles behind the chair, bottom right.

Friends’ visiting teenage children, Robbie and Kayleigh, joined us midweek for a bit of carob picking. After dropping off Natasha, we headed to Alte for icecreams. This was a mistake. We had all three dogs with us and we’d barely got them out of the car than we ran into a large (fortunately amiable) Great Dane.

Our three greeted this beast with the kind of welcome the Angles and Saxons gave to the Vikings. The Dane was intensely curious and followed us all the way to the tearoom and back again, trying to sniff our lots’ bums while they hissed, snarled and spat at it in return.

We gathered from the tearoom owner that the dog belonged to the local doctor. It didn’t like being locked away, she told us. It was evidently well known and liked for it got a pat or a hug from a number of passers-by, including a small boy.

Back home, Kayleigh, who’d been stung by wasps a few days earlier, was lucky to spot a number of the insects emerging from a hole in the ground beneath the carob tree that we were picking – lucky, that is, to see them before she trod on them. Although the wasps are not normally aggressive, they get very upset when anybody approaches home base. This I know to my cost. I waited for sunset before taking a can of insect spray and a rock, first to stun the blighters and then block the entrance. “Live and let live” is fine, up to a point and the wasps had crossed it when they put my carob tree out of bounds.

A neighbour, Ollie, had needed to take similar action a week earlier, to get rid of a nest inside a rock. There was just a small hole where the wasps were entering and leaving but they were protective of their interests and threatening the human residents. In the event, after failing to get rid of the pests with spray, he had to use petrol and a match to complete the job. (As I say, it’s been an explosive week.)

This was at Villa L, a holiday house in the village where Ollie and Marie’s family have been staying. We joined the group one evening for a barbeque, a most relaxed and pleasant occasion, at which I was able to make myself useful.

Returning to the theme of Danes, I tried to trace on the internet some choral music that we’d heard in the car on the Portuguese classical music station, Antena 2. The details were not on the station’s website but a contact email was. So I wrote to enquire. The answer came back the next day.
The music was "Hymnus Amoris” by the Dane, Carl Nielsen. I have since bought the piece online, along with a number of others by him.

August 15, the feast of the Assumption (still a big festival in what remains of Catholic Europe) brings the start of the hunting season. The next seven months are going to be a lot more explosive. Judging by the number of rabbits the dogs have been chasing down in the valley, the hunters should get a good bag. We will wince each Thursday and Sunday – and try to find a quiet spot for a walk.

ZEFERINO

We were distressed one evening to hear that our 87-year-old neighbour, Zeferino, had been taken to hospital after feeling unwell. We got the news from Luigieiro, his son, as we were taking back Bobby (who joins us each afternoon for a walk, a meal and a romp with his brother, Raymond). Zeferino returned home the following day, accompanied by lots of his family. (His house was full of mosquitoes one little girl told me.)

We’ve chatted to him since. He ate something that caused a prolonged spell of vomiting. He thinks it was a bad plum he told me although I have my doubts. He hopes to be well enough to go picking carobs again next week. We hope so to. He and Luigieiro have just forked out hundreds of euros on tractor repairs and it will take the pair of them a great many sacks of carobs to recompense themselves.

As I write, the dogs are snoozing (as usual) on the carpet beside me. We are back from our morning walk. It’s really hot outside and is going to stay that way until close to sunset. (I can’t wait for the arrival of autumn!)
Ono is dreaming and uttering little barks in his sleep. A while back I watched Raymond as he lay dreaming. Every so often his tail would start wagging. It was obviously a good dream. I hope that he was having more success with his dream girls than he has with Bobby each afternoon. The two spend much of their time trying to practise mating on each other, often at the completely wrong end.