Letter from Espargal: 33 of 2009

It’s hard to know where to start – with the stormy weekend in prospect, the arrival of the long-awaited hall cupboard or the departure of the cousins. Let us begin with the cupboard, a really handsome piece of furniture, designed to cope with the contours of the entrance hall and made to measure by Sergio, the carpenter who did such a good job with our bedroom cupboards. The new item is intended not only to compliment the hall but to absorb the clutter that had begun to collect there, much to Jones’s irritation.

It was all of two months ago that we put down a deposit and Sergio said he’d order the wood. Not long after, he begged a few weeks’ delay to carry out an urgent project that had come his way. We agreed. Then he apologised that he had mis-cut the angled doors on either side of the cupboard and needed to order more wood. After that we had to wait for the arrival of special hinges from Germany – and finally, the mirror-fronts were late. We began to wonder whether the man was just making excuses but no; he was telling the truth. He confessed that had never worked with angled doors before and neither he (nor we) had realised just what complications they present.

In the end it all came right. Sergio turned up with his assistant, Leonardo, one morning to the usual chorus of dog barks and (unlike Horacio, the builder) didn’t seem to mind too much when Raymond tried to impregnate his leg. (I fear that both Raymond and Bobby are due for the snip next week.) The two carpenters grunted their way from their truck to the hall carrying first the base cupboard and then the upper section.

Sergio cut two holes in the backboard to expose a wall socket and the answer-phone. After securing the cupboard to the wall, he installed an uplighter and fastened the door handles. We admired his handiwork – he’s a class act if not always a prompt one – before settling the bill.

There is generally a discussion about the method of payment when such jobs are commissioned. It is truly unfortunate that the parties have to choose between a paperless deal in cash or making it official and coughing up 21% in VAT.

Turning to our cousins – the ladies climbed into their car last Sunday morning, keyed their destination into Henrietta and took off in the direction of Spain. They reappeared three days later, just in time for a bite of lunch and to return their hire car to the airport before catching the express train to Lisbon for a 24-hour visit.

During this brief interval we gathered from them that they had arrived safely at the destination near Marbella, been bowled over by the sheer ostentatious- ness of the yachts in the marina (“we thought we’d seen everything”), and spent half a day in Seville (where they lost and later found themselves).

They are get-around cousins, relaxed travellers who are at home with our animals, get on fabulously together, take it as it comes and seem to have a ball in the process. They have presented Jonesy with a lovely jersey (that both suits and delights her) to thank her for looking after them.

IN THE STATION CAFE

If we have a complaint, it’s that they have not proved diligent correspond- ents, not with their distant relatives at least. We have impressed on them how much we look forward to reading about their adventures and staying in touch.

During their absence we conducted our other guests, Richard and Penny, who are art collectors and cognoscenti, to the rural Corte Real art gallery on the outskirts of Paderne.

There they bought us a hand-thrown ceramic bowl (http://www.suebinnspottery.co.uk/) to thank us for our hospitality, albeit hospitality at a distance because they stayed in the super-comfortable quarters of Casa L (a holiday house belonging to our Irish neighbours). (The “L” stands for Liam, a grandson, and is likely to be followed – or preceded - by the initials of succeeding grandchildren.)

The villa proved perfect for them, providing them with the ideal spot to recuperate from their demanding London lives rather than being woken by Bobby’s occasional nightly howls. The only night he hasn’t woken us was Wednesday, when he escaped through an open gate and vanished off into the hills on one of his jaunts. Jones, as always, worried desperately whether he would return. I assured her that it was very likely. In the event, he wandered in at dawn, to be received like the prodigal son. One has to say in Bobby’s favour that it was his first jaunt for a week.

Jones has continued to walk the dogs alone in the morning while I’ve been keeping up visits to Jodi the physio for ultra-sound treatment on my troublesome tendon. At the same time, I’ve ordered another pair of insoles, this time for my boots, from the German technician who supplied me with the first pair. They really make a difference.

With an eye on the approaching winter season – not that there’s much sign of it - and after persuading the cat to vacate the seat -
I’ve taken the tractor around to Idalecio’s yard to stock up on firewood. Apart from seeing to our guests and animals, we have continued with the sisyphean task of tidying and tending the garden. One difficulty is trying to determine where the garden begins and ends. Apart from the fenced half-acre around the house, there are also the inset entrances, the pedestrian passage along Banco’s Broadwalk, the Park that lies up the hill, the surrounding fields – and so on.

I have had two calls from Portugal Telecom to ask if I am satisfied with their response to a complaint that I made. The first call was generated by a computer that asked me to press different digits to indicate my level of satisfaction or otherwise. I hung up on it. The second was from a real person who rang while I was driving and whom I asked to ring back.

The trouble is that I don’t know whether to be satisfied or not. PT have sent me a bill for satellite tv receiver that I paid for in cash when it was installed. I had no option but to pay cash. The technician who took my money said I’d get a receipt in the post. Instead, I’ve got an invoice and no means of proving that the item has been paid for. There’s a moral somewhere.

The Senior University chief phoned to check that I’d be teaching English again this coming academic year. I will. Classes start early in October after the long summer break. My slot, as requested, is on the same day as the Portuguese class that I’ll be attending. Barbara is not sure. We are to have a new Portuguese teacher. This news has been ill received, not because of any failings of the new teacher but because our former teacher was simply outstanding. He put me to shame with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the grammar of several European languages. His replacement is to be a colleague of his, a woman that he recommends. We’ll see.

Letter from Espargal: 32 of 2009

This has been a week of arrivals. First on the scene was Bobby (Raymond's brother) who is now officially our dog, even though he has been almost as much absent this week as present. He was followed by our cousins, Liz and Louise, from South Africa.

And finally we have welcomed our London friends, Richard and Penny. They are staying in a holiday house in the village while our cousins occupy our guest facilities.

Let me take them in sequence. Bobby’s former owner was our elderly neighbour, Zeferino, who liked the dog but was incapable (at 87) of caring for it. In practice, his son did whatever he judged necessary, which was very little.

Apart from ensuring that the dog was provided with the essentials, we hesitated to interfere for fear of offending the old man. He was happy for us to walk and feed Bobby each day; the poor dog would otherwise have lived on scraps and spent most of his life on a line.

We are pleased that the dog is now ours. He was growing quite schizophrenic as a result of his commuter existence and badly needs both love and discipline. For the first couple of days he stayed with us only for walks and meals. Then he’d vanish. Now he seems to be settling in. We’ll get him snipped as soon as practicable.

Liz and Louise flew into Faro last Tuesday night from Lisbon and Johannesburg. The pair are experienced travellers and have proved excellent company. We’ve talked lots about their lives and how they’re finding the new South Africa. They took out a hire car and, with a little help from Henrietta the satnav, have been busy acquainting themselves with the Algarve as well as planning a visit to Spain. They joined us for lunch at the riverside restaurant in Alte. Another day, they were my companions on a drive down the coast to the historic fortress at Sagres.

The most notable part of this trip was my attempt to extract myself from a parking spot at the fishing village of Salema. I couldn’t back out because some fellow in a van had double-parked behind me. But I was able to drive up on to the raised centre island and do a 9-point turn, with a view to then driving out frontwards and squeezing past the van.

Before I could complete this manoeuvre, another motorist occupied my former parking spot – in spite of Louise’s attempts to dissuade him. That left me stranded on the island with no exit. I wasn’t pleased and engaged in a terse conversation with the gent concerned – a German tourist. Happily, he saw the point and agreed to back out while I made an exit.

A couple of days before the girls’ arrival, Jones spotted a minor leak coming from the upper sewage tank. It was the second time we’ve had this problem. A previous leak had been caused by the blockage of the pipe leading to the lower (filtration) tank, which is filled with sand and gravel. This tank had since become heavily overgrown. I spent an afternoon cutting back the jungle in order to gain access to the corner concerned.

Horacio the builder then sent round one of his workers to dig down to the mouth of the pipe. I suspected that this had been invaded and blocked by roots from the plants. Sadly, this proved not to be the case. It means that the seepage is from cracks in the upper tank. I shall turn once again to Horacio for advice on how best to deal with the problem. I fear that it will prove neither easy nor inexpensive.

We made two attempts to visit the Moorish fair at Salir, both of them unsuccessful. On the first, we arrived to find ample parking and few people about – most unusual.

The reason soon became apparent. We were a day too early. The ghostly stalls that lined the roads around the castle were waiting for their merchandise; the camels had settled down to spend the night in their pens. Only the residents and security guards were about.

So we tried again on the final night of the fair. As it happened, the mother of all thunder storms had hit us late that afternoon. The heavens rumbled and flashed, the earth shook, the dogs gathered nervously around us, the electricity came and went - and the rain poured down. It was our first rain of the season and very welcome, though we could have done without the celestial fireworks.


When we turned up in Salir it was to find the fair rained out. A tractor was dragging the traders’ vans out of the mud of the parking grounds.

The organisers must have lost a fortune. Sometimes, that’s the way it is. We returned to the village to the home of Marie and Olly, where a fine meal awaited us.

Another evening we were guests of Mike and Liz Brown, who’d invited us to join them in watching the Last Night of the Proms. This is a TV spectacle that we enjoy each year. Over the past weeks we’ve listened to many Proms performances on the radio or watched them on TV. Jonesy recalls the occasions in which she stood in the gods of the Albert Hall in the days when she was a researcher for the BBC.

Long hours have gone into communications with bankers, financial consultants and a life insurance group in South Africa. It seems that I will need to renew my SA passport and obtain a replacement I.D before I can benefit from my policies there. I’ve been in touch with the consulate in Lisbon – and will probably visit the city next month.

I’ve been driving to Alte every second day for ultra-sound treatment from Jodi, the physio, on my troublesome Achilles tendon. At her suggestion, I contacted a local technician (http://www.centrodospes.com/en/orthopedic-insoles) who came around to measure me up for insoles. I’ve since had them fitted and am already feeling the benefits.

Also in Loule, I went around to the workshop of Sergio, the carpenter who is making the cupboard for our hall – a project that has been much delayed in favour of a big job that he was awarded. Sergio wanted me to inspect the carcass before he completed the work, to ensure that I was happy. I was. He’s due to install the cupboard this coming week.

Another visit was to the dentist, to replace a veneer that had come off one of my front teeth. It had been there for longer than I can remember, serving to straighten the appearance of a badly twisted incisor. Its absence left me looking quite strange, turning my smile into a leer. Jones insisted that I had it reattached before the arrival of our visitors. They don’t know what they missed.

Letter from Espargal: 31 of 2009

In a world where everyone was rich, society would soon collapse. This was a realisation that came to me some time ago (and that I may address one day in a book). Unlike global warming, the prospect of universal wealth does not loom large.

Neither, regrettably, does the modest aim of the Espargal syndicate of winning the lottery. Each Friday morning we awake potential millionaires; each Friday night we go to bed as poor as we awoke. (I can see my virtuous sister’s wagging finger in front of my nose as I write.)

The thing is that money has been on my mind. I have been spending time trying to get my hands on some and finding it challenging. The money concerned is tied up in policies of various kinds that become payable to me on my 65th birthday, an event that is closer than I might wish. One policy is with a British financial institution; the others with a group in South Africa.

Before you conclude that I’m rich enough already and cut me out of your wills, let me hasten to say that all the policies together would scarcely buy a modest 2nd hand car. All were frozen decades ago. That’s half the problem. The other half is that the companies are based in foreign countries. Even to see the cash, I am required to fill in vast sheaths of information, answering questions I don’t understand, making choices I don’t appreciate, and supplying documents that I don’t possess. It might be simpler just to die poor – in due course that is. There’s no rush.

In the meanwhile, we have been busy souls. Last weekend we attended an evening recital presented by the Orchestra of the Algarve for its supporters. The performance was held in the lee of the historic church of Sao Romao near the town of Sao Bras – a picture-book setting. According to the blurb, a quintet would play a number of pieces. But one of the musicians fell ill, leaving us with just a duet. (No idea what happened to the other two.)

The pair did a good job in the circumstances. These included four interruptions by amplified church bells, two dog-fights, a speeding motorbike and a lorry being unloaded close by. Nonetheless, the musicians were well clapped, as much as for their resilience, I suspect, as their music.

Afterwards, we repaired with two friends to a nearby snack-bar where I joined fans watching the Portuguese football team being whacked by the Danes. As you may imagine, this did not go down well with the audience. It’s touch and go as to whether Portugal will win through to the World Cup finals in South Africa next year. In a country where football is the true religion, the situation is causing widespread dismay.

WATCHING FOOTBALL

The England team, by comparison, has been doing superbly. The dogs and I took up front-row positions in front of the telly to watch them thrash the Croats 5-1, a victory that I ascribe largely to our moral support.

JANE, JONES & MIKE BROWN

Another outing was down the road to the home of the Dutch ladies, Nicoline and Anneke for a superb Sunday lunch with most of the local expats. The ladies (including Jane, who co-produced the feast) did us proud.

Guests included Nicoline’s mother and a friend of hers, who were down on holiday from the Netherlands, and with whom I undertook to converse in my rusty Afrikaans.

In the event, my residual command of the language grew shakier with every passing beer until I was hardly able to distinguish my Portuguese nouns from my Afrikaans verbs. What emerged was a Portukaans pidgin. My companions, God bless them, hardly seemed to mind.

It’s late. Two cats are warring nearby and their caterwauling has prompted an outcry from the village dogs. I’ve been downstairs with out lot to assess the situation –they’re always happy to break up a cat fight - but the combatants are somewhere in the fields beyond their reach.

Speaking of which - Lucifer, the roving tabby that we feed over the way, has been beaten up. He has a nasty wound in the throat and is limping from a bite. The chief suspect is a thuggish Siamese, which Jones caught lurking in the bushes at supper time. I asked her whether she threw a stone at it. No, she threw a leaf and stamped her foot, she replied – adding that she might have thrown a stone if there had been one at hand. Somehow I doubt that the Siamese was intimidated.

Also limping is Raymond’s brother, Bobby. We don’t know the cause. There’s no sign of a wound or a thorn. His owner suspects that he may have sprained his paw while leaping over the fence to come and play with our lot.

Before I leave off limping, let me confess to doing some myself. The cause is a flare-up of tendonitis in my right Achilles heel (well named). The condition is long-standing. For the past several days I have been assigned to garden-watering duties while Jones takes the pack on their morning walk.

Our harvesting has extended from carobs – we’ve collected and disbursed several more bags - to grapes. We joined Leonhilde one afternoon to pick grapes at a plot she owns on the far side of Benafim. Vines there hardly get attention or irrigation from one year to another. But they never fail to produce bulging bunches of delicious green grapes. These were complemented with a large box from Ermenio, another neighbour and recipient of our carobs. We have been sharing them around.

Our own vines, I’m sorry to say, are giving up the ghost, in spite of any amount of love and irrigation. Idalecio says the same thing happened to some of his. He says the secret is to get Mario in with his digger to loosen up the soil and to plant the vines in winter. With luck, they’ll then look after themselves.

The real task of the week has been to complete the construction and painting of a chest that now resides on the front patio. It’s intended to serve as a receptacle for gloves, garden tools and other objects that hang around the place – offending Jones’s sense of order. I bought the chest as a flat-pack and assembled it – only to find that it was rather lower than we expected. We wanted it to double as a bench.

So I got hold of some 2-by-4 and arranged with our woodworker neighbour, Mike Brown, to raise the chest. This he did admirably. Jones, a colour-conscious soul, wanted the chest to match our blue front door.

ON BENCH

A little hunting in the storeroom produced the 7-year old (heavily congealed) tin of paint concerned. I struggled to apply it, even after thinning. Still, the final result looks good – judge for yourself – and the chest is already being put to work.

Letter from Espargal: 30 of 2009

September is here and it's welcome. I feel that we’re over the hump. We’ve seen off July and August, survived another summer. True, it’s still blisteringly hot but that’s just the season thrashing around in its death throes. The days are closing in. Autumn looms. We can start to breathe again.

Down in the valley the melon fields are deserted. The last melons lie rotting in the sun like so many corpses, hundreds and thousands of them. Grapes hang heavy on the nearby vines. (Jones never hesitates to borrow a bunch or two, most often from Sarah and David’s vine – they’re absent – while feeding meaty treats to Lucifer, the roving tabby cat, who goes mad for them, as we pass by in the evening.)


For the moment, the farmers are fully occupied picking carobs. So have we been, at the same time cutting back in the garden and tidying up. We delivered four bags of carobs to our Portuguese neighbours this week. They apologised that they had no tomatoes to give us in return. Like the melons, the tomatoes are wrinkled and shrunken, returning to the earth from which they came.

The week began with its usual promise of five working days and, like so many weeks, just evaporated into thin air. We did quite a lot of running around. One outing was to a small art gallery on the outskirts of Paderne, a town built in the lee of a stunning Moorish castle – or what remains of one. The gallery occupies a rambling old cottage, full of steep stairs and rooms in unexpected places, with paintings hung on every side.

During the visit I found it necessary, as happens, to take myself to the loo. Our host pointed it out, set in what must once have been a broom cupboard. I was barely able squeeze inside and close the door behind me. The loo must surely warrant entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest.

As I subsequently informed Jones, raising one’s trousers without first opening the door calls for advanced training in yoga. “Don’t go in unless you’re desperate,” I warned her. She hushed me, pointing to the office in a nook just above our heads. But if our host overheard my warning he must surely just have smiled.

One day we kept a promise to help Natasha find a computer. We thought our best bet was the huge shopping complex at Guia, 30 minutes south east of us. I reckoned that we’d probably need at least an hour to consider the computers on offer. In the event it was well over two. I eventually left Natasha to weigh up the options alone, having advanced her Christmas bonus as our contribution to the purchase. Once she'd bought a computer, I had to spend several hours more downloading free programmes and making back-up discs. Keeping 21st century maids happy can be a demanding task.

While we were busy Jones found some small plants in a hypermarket, plants that needed saving, as she explained. She finds the demise of plants and trees, most especially her plants and trees, most upsetting and I have often to console her about the loss of a plant that she has nurtured. She goes to lengths to save other people’s as well. I have twice been employed to take a hose around to neighbours on the tractor.

Her latest project has been to clear the area beneath some trees on land just across our driveway. She won't be happy till it's all neat and tidy. Come the winter rains, the weeds will invade once again. I guess it keeps us out of mischief.

Another favour was to assist an old friend by casting an eye over hand-written recollections of his early days as an architect. He and his wife retired to Portugal before the introduction of computers to the profession and they still manage to survive quite contentedly without a computer in the house. I transcribed the text, making a few suggested amendments, before taking a draft with us to a most delicious working lunch.

On Friday evening my wife called me out to admire the full moon that was rising in the eastern skies. And what an amazing moon it was, looking all the more stunning in the setting of the Algarve hills. We once heard a fellow explain why the moon seems so much bigger as it rises over the horizon. I forget the explanation but it’s not important.

We didn’t have much time to admire it because Celso had called us earlier in the day to say that Brigitte had made a new batch of quiche, up at the Snack Bar Coral. We’d asked him to keep a couple of slices for our supper. It was delicious, the more so, I guess, as we feel so at home in the premises.

Between attending to clients’ needs, Celso found time to play pool with a friend. Half a dozen guys lined the bar, watching the evening news. There was a report on a campaign against “marquises”, which were spoiling the urban environment. We’d never heard of the word and had no idea of what it was all about.

ENCLOSED BALCONIES

A watcher explained that it referred to an apartment balcony that was informally closed in – often with glass or aluminium - to provide an additional room. This is a phenomenon that we’ve frequently witnessed in Loule. I guess that if you occupy a small flat, the additional weather-proofed space is invaluable, even though the apartment building looks a mess as a result.

We were concerned – yet again – about Bobby, who had gone missing while out walking with his master that morning. We wondered whether we’d find the dog at home on our return. In the event there was no sign of him.


As we were settling down, around 10.30, the dogs rushed down to the fence. Bobby reappeared, looking a little sheepish. What he does with himself in the bundu for 12 hours is hard to know. We gave him a hug and a meal before taking ourselves to bed. No doubt Bobby will test our nerves and our patience again but, for the moment, life goes on – and it’s good.