Letter from Espargal: 38 of 2009

I am aware that it’s not considered good taste to raise personal medical matters in family letters. But I feel that, treated with sufficient delicacy and discretion by a mature writer, most ailments can at least be alluded to. The thing is, you should know, that I decided this week to take care not to go down with cholera or dysentery. The spur for this decision was a ferocious assault of Delhi belly one night, the first such in many years. It took me completely by surprise as my stomach has proved among the steadiest and most reliable of my organs.

The probable cause of this monstrous upset was a bowl of walnuts consumed that evening, or possibly their reaction with the litre of Guinness beer that washed them down. By the time I staggered into the pharmacist the following morning, I was feeling decidedly sorry for myself. Celia, bless her heart, was suitably sympathetic and supplied me with boxes of medication and lots of advice on when to take which - and what and what not to eat.

We did have a few moments confusion when she insisted that each sachet of restorative powders be mixed with 20-thousand litres of water. Even for dehydrated diarrhoea sufferers, that’s a lot of water. Eventually it dawned on me that she meant 20 millilitres – in Portuguese, “mil” and “mili” are easily confused.

Celia’s young assistant, Carla, who (with other folks in the pharmacy) was listening keenly to my tale of woe, asked me if I was feeling bad. Well, I wasn’t feeling great, I had to concede bravely (before heading over the road to use the facility at the Snack Bar Coral). The upshot is that I’ve been on a diet for a couple of days, which some folks might think was not a bad thing. (Thank you, we are feeling much better!)

On another occasion, this time on a visit to the resort town of Carvoeiro, CLIFFS AT CARVOEIRO

I found myself filling in a form that required me to put down my profession. “I’m retired,” I informed the young lady sitting on the opposite side of the desk. “Well, put down pensioner,” she replied. “Being a pensioner is not a profession,” I objected; “it’s a stage of life”. The young lady merely smiled. There are occasions on which it’s hardly worth the effort of being right.

Still, my now official pensioner status has brought me the consolation of a letter from the UK Pension Service, informing me of the pension that it intends to begin paying me shortly. The amount is not substantial but on the other hand I have only to wake up once a month to earn it so I’m not complaining.

TEMPORARY LICENCE

Another letter contained a new driving licence “guia” (guide), the first having just run out. This is a temporary document that is issued in lieu of the permanent document that spends months grinding its way through the torpid Portuguese bureaucracy. I had to surrender my licence a couple of months ago in advance of my 65th birthday, and to supply the authorities with a form from my GP asserting that I was still fit to drive. This second “guia” is valid until the end of January, by which time even the sluggish Portuguese bureaucrats should have come up with a new licence.

As ever, we have had our little outings to break the routine of village life. One evening we visited Faro fair. We always sup there on smoked-ham and cheese sandwiches, so delicious that they have to be tasted to be believed. The items on display are nearly always the same; it’s the flow of people past them that offers the real interest.

SARAH AND DAVID

Another outing – with neighbours Sarah and David, since returned to the UK – was to the last of the “musica antiga” concerts. It took place in the mother church in Loule, starting – as usual – at 21.30. We were a bit surprised to hear from an announcer that the concert would last two hours, with a ten-minute interval. The clocks had just gone back an hour, which meant that the performance didn’t even get underway until 22.30 body-clock time.

PLAYERS FROM THE GROUP

In the event the musicians of the Concerto Campestre & Quarteto Arabesco provided the backing to half a dozen truly classy singers, who sang their way through a mini-opera (no costumes or chorus) in Italian. As good as they were, I found listening to Italian opera from a church pew not easy going. So I retired at the interval to walk Prickles, who was waiting in the car, and to listen to the radio in more conducive surroundings. My hardier wife and neighbours stayed the course, and returned full of compliments for the performers.

One night we watched an hour-long TV programme on an American man, Lynn Rogers, who has been studying black bears in Minnesota for most of his life. He has established bonds of trust with a couple of bear families, which allow him to interact with them. The scenes were truly enlightening. (http://www.bearstudy.org/website/) The hard bit was watching hunters gun down some of his bears, even though the victims clearly wore radio collars. We know about the conflict between hunters and preservers. I don’t think it will be resolved until there’s nothing left to hunt – or maybe until the hunters have globally warmed themselves into extinction.

His picture reminded me of another that I saw recently in the Facebook page of a cousin of mine, Luke Cornell, who trains animals for film roles on his farm in the western Cape Province. I hope he won't mind my sharing it with a wider audience. It brought back to me Eugene Marais's great book, My Friends The Baboons.

We have had a dry week, with another in prospect. As ever, we long for rain. Even at the end of October, our temperatures are still comfortably into the mid-20s and the mozzies still buzz around our ears at night. Only once have I turned on the car heater. The air-conditioner still works overtime. (In this fancy new car of mine, one doesn’t actually turn on the heating or the AC. The driver merely dials in the desired temperature and the car does the rest. The front seat passenger has the option of setting a different temperature. Barbara, who likes to be warm, often does.)

My newly planted apple and fig trees, courtesy of Idalecio, are struggling in spite of daily doses of water. The apple trees look as though they will make it. But two of the figs are in a bad way, with dying leaves. I’ll continue to water them and keep my fingers crossed.

Our neighbours are all in the olive groves, knocking olives down into nets strewn along the ground. They don’t sell the olives; the price hardly justifies the effort – 3 euros for 15 kilos.


The mechanisation of the industry in Spain has undercut them to a point where they simply can’t compete in the market place. Instead, they take their olives along to presses where the owners supply them with olive oil in exchange for the fruit. Jones and I are both olive oil fans. It’s got so much going for it.

Letter from Espargal: 37 of 2009

JONES DAWN

I was talking to a woman in the UK Pensions Department this week in a bid to obtain the state pension I am now entitled to. Over the past 25 years I have invested a lot of money in the State Pension and the time has come for the Department to return the compliment. But there’s a delay because one official has rejected the notarised copy of my birth certificate that another official assured me would be acceptable as proof of my identity.

So I phoned them up. “Sorry for keeping you waiting,” said a woman who answered my phone-call the instant I got through. For those of us accustomed to wading through a maze of Portuguese phone-menus and hanging on for hours, such apologies are beyond comprehension.

The apologetic woman said she’d need to ask me some questions. “On what date did you get married,” she asked. “Thirty years ago today,” I replied, and it was true. “Congratulations!” she remarked, before continuing with her questions. Never mind the rest of the conversation. It really doesn’t matter. I’ve sent off the birth certificate on the understanding that the Department will send it back and in the hope that UK Inc. will soon start paying me out. How long the certificate will take to get there, with the Post Office on strike, is another matter.

That evening Jones and I had a small celebratory dinner at the Coral. I stopped off at Jafers’ supermarket en route to buy a bottle of wine. It was a 2006 Duas Quintas vintage and very good indeed. I offered a modest glass each to our hosts, Celso and Brigitte, as well as to the tractor man and his boss, who were dining at another table.

Supper couldn’t have been simpler – a toasted sandwich and a salad but it was the deliciousist toasted sandwich and salad you could imagine. The tractor man (who is trying to sell me another tractor) stood us to a glass of port wine and dessert that came with a “happy anniversary” salutation in icing.

Beside us, young Joey played uninterruptedly – except for an ice-cream break – with his mini computer, guiding racing cars around its screen. Joey is going to be a racing driver. Nobody in the family doubts it. Nor do we. Afterwards, he and I had a brief game of pool. I used a cue. Joey just rolled the balls around the table.

Our next door neighbour, Idalecio, has been busy building stone walls in his garden with a view to extending his parking area. (He builds wonderful walls, as you may recall from earlier letters.) In the process, he had to rip out apple trees and fig trees, all of which we were happy to accept.

I planted several in a corner of the Casanova field, banking up the earth around them. I was most put out the following day to find that the small bank around an apple tree had been destroyed. To judge by the hoof prints, the culprit was a wild pig. I start to understand why the farmers are so keen to pot a few of them.

STORM AT SEA

On Tuesday we had a wonderful inch of rain. More was promised on Wednesday but all we got were leaden clouds that floated tantalisingly overhead. We could see heavy showers falling out at sea. What a waste of good rain! Overnight we were woken by a storm that shunted the chairs around the patio and clattered the shutters. We didn’t mind. From our beds we could see the patio glistening in the rain.

The wet stuff would have been welcome a few evenings earlier. We had just set out on our walk when a stout neighbour came panting up the path, clutching his large-toothed pruning saw. “There’s a fire down at the river,” he puffed, quite out of breath. And indeed there was. We could see a plume of smoke rising from the river valley a couple of miles away. To reinforce the point, bits of ash came floating down around us.

“I’ve called the fire brigade,” the neighbour added, before rushing off to join the villagers watching the action from the top of the hill. We headed along the contour path with the dogs. The plume of smoke grew fatter and the air stinkier. The fire itself was out of sight in the canes along the river banks.

CANES

We stopped to watch the fire-fighting helicopter choppering in, dangling its bag of water. It would duck down below the rim of the hill, empty the bag, and then dash off to the far side of the valley for a refill. Within a minute or two it was back. Fortunately, the evening was cool and there was little wind.

Loule council has been promoting a series of concerts by groups of musicians specialising in music from centuries past. We went with David and Sarah to a concert by such a group, Il Dolcimelo, in the Boliqueime church last weekend. Several musicians were backed up by a small choir. They were very good – excellent, says Jones - if you like 16th century polyphony. We wondered what made young people devote their time and resources to such unusual and demanding music.

LOWERING SKIES

Most of my evenings this week have gone in planning our spring visit to North America. After hours of searching for suitable flights I settled on Air France to carry us over the pond to Toronto. The airline offered easily the most suitable schedule and connections. Before I booked with them, however, I read some passenger reviews online. With few exceptions, these were of the “never again” “terrible seats” “awful service” variety. So, mindful of an ever-fussy back, I booked instead with our usual carriers, Lufthansa, via Lisbon and Frankfurt.

The only drawback to this flight is that it is scheduled to get us into Toronto just 80 minutes before the last connection to our destination, Washington. Well, I reflected 80 minutes, should be enough. So I booked that connection too.

MIST IN THE VALLEYS

The next day, beset by doubts about the wisdom of doing this, I phoned Air Canada at Toronto airport for a second opinion. An airline official explained what we’d have to do. Arrive at Toronto (hopefully on time), exit the plane, clear immigration, collect our suitcases, clear Canadian customs, go up two floors, check in once again and clear US customs – to find that our plane had left without us. I have cancelled the reservation. Fortunately, one gets a 24-hour window to do this without penalty. We are reconciled to spending a night in Toronto.

P.S You have little idea how hard I have struggled to bring you this blog with its content intact. Jones, whom I employ to cast an eye over my efforts (with a view to picking up any minor errors), disputed several opinions and insights, which I felt obliged to excise in the interests of marital harmony. Notes of sympathy to the usual address!

Letter from Espargal: 36 of 2009

On a day such as this the world was born. I mean an Old Testament Garden of Eden world, with Adam and Eve admiring the rose garden, not a cosmological big-bang, plasma and molten rock kind of world. Only the occasional pestiferous fly was there to mar the perfection of the day as we walked along the agricultural road through the valley.

The road is perfectly flat which, Jodi the physio says, is the only sensible walking to be done for the next few weeks until my troublesome tendon heals. (It’s much improved, thank you.) We had five dogs instead of the usual four as we are looking after Poppy, a neighbour’s pet, for a few days. She’s well-known to our lot and fits in with no trouble at all.

WITH POPPY

After the walk we went, as usual, to the Coral Snack Bar in Benafim for coffees, toast and a minor baggy. (In this part of the world it’s considered normal to have a beer or a small glass of spirit with breakfast, especially for workers who’ve been up for several hours.)

Next door, José, the tractor salesman, was demonstrating his latest models to the locals. Jonesy suggested that I take a picture of the new tractor that I didn’t buy. The point about this tractor – the latest version of the one I already have – is that it has larger wheels and a more sensible ROPS (roll-over protection system) bar. The wheels raise the hitch several inches higher, away from the rocks that my hitch often hits on our very rough ground.

DOG TAKES OVER

It just so happened that I’d learned from José of another client who had traded in his relatively new tractor for a brand-new one with different wheels, better suited to his terrain. What a sensible idea, I thought – and wondered how much I’d have to pay to do the same. The actual sum doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say that I couldn’t justify it. That’s to say, I couldn't justify the amount of discord it would have provoked.

THE ONE I DIDN'T BUY

It did occur to me that the new tractor was so similar in appearance to my own that few people would have known the difference. But the year and month of sale, which appear on the registration plate, would have been hard to explain away to the curious.

JONES DAWN

As you might have inferred, not a great deal has happened in this part of the world. I’m not complaining. That’s the way we like it. I’m not saying that nothing happened. Last Sunday, for instance, we went to Benafim to vote in the local elections. These are taken seriously, much more so than the national elections were last month, because they dictate the composition of the two bodies that really matter – the councils that run the parish of Benafim and the city of Loule under which we fall.

VOTING STATION

Voters are handed three papers – green, white and yellow – on which only the names of the contesting parties appear; no candidates. We marked our crosses and dropped them into the boxes. In the event we were among the majority that re-elected the incumbents. They’ve done a reasonable job and it’s a case of better the devil you know. Here local elections are more about personalities than parties. You just have to remember which party your desired personality represents.

Jones and I have started to think about our customary spring vacation next year. We are hopeful of meeting up with our families in the US and Canada. I have spent a couple of long frustrating nights on airline websites trying to work out the best dates and options. There’s always a hitch. No airline flies direct to one’s destination. I found one super option, much cheaper than the rest – until I discovered that it meant changing airports in New York en route to Washington. No way, José! Keep it simple is my cardinal rule.

One morning we went along to inspect Ermenio's maize crop (here used only for animal and fowl feed). We explained that in RSA in our youth, mielies - boiled, salted and buttered - had made a splendid lunch or supper. Portugal does make a maize-meal porridge but it's seldom found on menus.

Beside the mielies is the family's newly planted lettuce crop. The lettuce are irrigated and covered with a fine gauze strip. Great white-striped fields of these gauze coverings are much in evidence in the valley. I put the dogs on leads as we pass by, for fear that they'll spot a rabbit and demolish half a lettuce crop in the ensuing chase.

I have no dreams to report his week but I did make a particularly witty comment that I record for posterity. Jones was examining a pair of shoes that had come into her possession. She really liked them and was disappointed on trying them to find that they were too small for her. I consoled her with the observation that Cinderella’s sisters had faced the same problem. Jones was not appreciative of my wit.

NEIGHBOUR MARIE WITH POPPY - APROPOS OF NOTHING

We have returned to class. Jones came along reluctantly to Portuguese, more to meet up with our fellow pupils than to improve her language skills. (We’re a bit like Jack Sprat and his wife. She has an excellent knowledge of Portuguese grammar but sometimes finds it hard to turn her expertise into speech; I tend to jabber away without giving a thought to the grammar.) We have a new teacher, a young woman. I think she’ll be fine once she’s settled in.

My English Conversation class takes place immediately after the Portuguese lesson. I found myself with a dozen new pupils, few of whom had any grasp of English at all – although they’re happy enough to chatter away in Portuguese. (Most are retired or semi-retired.) That’s going to make it tough. Previously, most of them have been able to express themselves in English, however awkwardly. I have suggested to the new group that they also try to take the introductory English course, which is run by another teacher.

I have written to the ambassador at the embassy in Lisbon to sing the praises of the young official who served us so well last week. As I told the ambassador: “We have been inside a great many consulates in the course of our lives to renew documents or obtain visas but I cannot recall previously being treated as a valuable client rather than as a mere member of public.” It only occurred to me afterwards that I might not have done the young man any favours. He really went out of his way to be helpful and, on reflection, I don’t think this is part of the job-spec of consular officials – not to judge by our previous experiences.

Letter from Espargal: 35 of 2009

It is early in the week. We are sitting, hard-earned baggies in hand, on the front patio at the end of another long carob-picking day. We don’t have much to say. There is little point in trying to talk over the crackling and crunching going on around us. All four dogs, as if pointing accusing paws at us, have raided the almond nut basket in the corner of the patio and are busy demolishing the contents.

As you’re probably aware, the nuts are encased in rock-hard shells. This armoured carapace does not bother the dogs, which roll the almonds around in their teeth until they line them up right – and then shatter them. Even the diminutive Prickles is able to do this. They spit out the shell fragments, leaving them scattered like landmines around the patio floor. (Tramp on them barefoot at your peril!)

It’s almond harvest time; nearly all the carobs have been brought in. The farmers spread nets under the trees before whacking the nuts down.
We came across old Jose heading home with a sack of nuts slung over his shoulder. They weren’t for eating, he explained, not by people; they were for the wild pigs. (His son is the president of the local hunters’ association.) It’s well known that the pigs will go the extra mile for the nuts. The hunters bait known piggy haunts with heaps of them and then wait up overnight in the hope of bagging a porker or two.

Right now, the hunters – who are also farmers - have got it in for the pigs because the animals have been destroying the plastic irrigation pipes in the orchards. The piggies, it seems, have discovered that the quickest way to get a drink is to chew a hole in a pipe.

The authorities, sympathetic to the farmers’ plight, have given the hunters permission to cull the pigs. Whole sacks of nuts have been collected to tempt the piggies within range of the hunters’ guns. It goes without saying that the pigs make fine eating. From the look of things there’s going to be lots of wild boar on the menu.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we were promised rain. We needed it. Temperatures are still mid-twentyish and Jones has reluctantly continued to water her garden. Tuesday dawned heavy with cloud, weighed down with the wet stuff. All muggy day we waited impatiently for the rain. The flies buzzed us; the clouds grew fatter and blacker but barely a drop fell. At 21.45 there was an enormous crack of thunder and the heavens opened. We turned the lights off and took our baggies outside to watch the torrent splashing off the cobbles in great waves of spray.

My plastic rain gauge testified to 15 millimetres in just over an hour. I think the gauge is still accurate after the damage it suffered at Jones’s hands. She knocked a chip out of it while throwing a ball for the dog. Jones says she tested the integrity of the patch she put on it and that the gauge hadn’t leaked. But one never knows. The gauge is cracked as well as chipped. And it wasn’t even our dog she was throwing a ball for! Jones’s aim is not famous. It’s a mystery to me how she manages to win as many boules contests as she does.

Last weekend we went to Salir to hear a flute quartet. Salir is a little town, situated on a hill some 15 minutes away. The Moors built a castle there, parts of which remain in good repair. The concert was given in Salir’s baroque church (most of Portugal’s churches seem to decorated in the baroque style), where the convention is still to sound the amplified church bells or, at least a recording, every 15 minutes.

I don’t know how the townspeople suffer the disturbance, especially as the recording is madly out of synch.
The racket failed to disturb the four young ladies, who gave a performance of “musica antiga”. They might have appreciated a bigger audience but flute concerts are not a big draw in this part of the world. The music was okay although, as we afterwards agreed, 45 minutes had been enough.

Friday afternoon: We are hurtling homewards through the Portuguese countryside on the train, having travelled up to Lisbon yesterday afternoon to apply for new passports. From Entrecampos (Between the Fields) station in Lisbon we walked to the Ibis Hotel. It was a good haul. Jones said she liked being back in the city buzz. I didn’t.

LISBON FROM THE TAGUS BRIDGE

It was our first experience of the Ibis chain (as far as I recall although Jones thinks we might have spent an Ibis night before). Their hotels offer great value for money –55 euros for accommodation plus 7.5 each for breakfast, if you want it. The rooms are minimal; there’s just space to walk around the double bed and to plonk a few items on the worktop that doubles as a desk. Beside it is the usual TV and it costs 3 euros for an hour’s access to the wifi internet link.

Lisbon airport is just up the road. Late into the evening and again from early morning, big jets came whistling low over the hotel on final approach, undercarriages down, lights squirting into the night. I thought as I read my book that it would take only one of them to get it wrong.

I had two disturbing dreams. In the first, after squeezing past two very large friendly dogs in a corridor, I was trying to descend a staircase carrying a suitcase; but the stairs got steeper and the treads narrower until mountain-climbing skills were required to advance further. The final flight was missing altogether. After dropping the suitcase I had to lower myself on to a ladder to reach the ground. There I bumped into a man who suspected that I’d stolen his property and, in spite of my assurances, he rushed off to check whether he been burgled.

In the second dream, we encountered a group of people in our London apartment, one of whom, after speaking to Jones, started to alter the rooms radically. He ripped off doors and pulled down walls, infuriating me no end. He was a bald fellow called Phil. After a confrontation, I grasped him and threw him out. I was mad with Jones for encouraging him. Someone else had spread a thick goo all over the carpets. People were treading it in and making a dreadful mess. I was distraught.

After such a disturbed night we were woken from the deepest of sleep by the alarms in our mobile phones. We struggled to turn them off in the dark. Breakfast was welcome. From the hotel we walked to the embassy. There wasn’t a soul in front of us. The official on the far side of the security window was the most helpful bureaucrat I’ve ever encountered. We struggled with the questions – parents’ ID numbers, their dates of birth, date of marriage – but he made light of it all, filling in the difficult bits himself with lots of “deceased”s and N/As.

DOG TRAINING

We had to say why we’d left the country. Let’s put “family reasons”, the young man suggested. “It’s a polite way of telling them to mind their own business.” He spent ages patiently guiding us through the rigmarole of taking finger prints, all of them. I shall write the most complimentary of letters to the ambassador - using my discretion, of course.

Letter from Espargal: 34 of 2009

It is a delicious, delectable, delightful Friday morning. We are just back from our morning walk. From the loo Jones is admonishing the dogs which, ignoring their own boring biscuits, have sneaked through to the kitchen to eat the cat biscuits instead. The dogs, undaunted by her admonitions, consume as many cat biscuits as they can before she arrives to chase them away.

This has been a dog week, an even more than usually dog (dogged? doggy?) week. We were both of us dreading the arrival of Tuesday morning when Bobby and Raymond were due at the vet to be snipped. It meant ensuring that the pair of them didn’t eat or drink beforehand, which meant that they were limited to the briefest of walks. We felt bad. It’s all very well arguing that castration serves to make a domestic dog a happier, more settled animal. But the fact is that one is mutilating one’s pet.

The dogs, knowing the vet’s surgery well and what a visit there forebodes, resisted entry with all their might. I had to drag them in, then drag them on to the scales and finally drag them through to the pre-op waiting room. Mid-afternoon they were ready to come home. The vet had used minimally invasive surgery which did not require stitches to close the wound. At least the boys were spared the fearsome plastic cones that our previous pets have had to suffer around the necks to prevent them getting at the wound.

But they weren’t happy guys, especially Raymond, who didn’t want to eat – very unusual for him - and every so often whimpered with pain. You can’t explain to a dog why these things happen, that’s it all for the best. We had a big hug-in, he and I, as I tried to dull his hurt and the twinges from my conscience.

Happily, the pair of them seem to be over it. For the last couple of mornings they’ve been careering as ever through the fields on either side of the agricultural road through the valley.

We pass the last of the melons, rotting in their thousands. The season is over and it’s not worth the farmer’s while to pick them. Autumn is here. Our days are cooler. We’ve had some welcome showers, one or two of which have caught us in the open. Afterwards, we’ve had to towel down the dogs and clean their paws of the mud they otherwise tramp into the house.

SHOWERS

Our thoughts are with our South African cousins, who will be returning home after spending the last week of their holiday with friends in the UK. (If you are reading this, cousins, remember how much we are looking forward to hearing about your adventures.)

I am reminded that one of the cousins, Elizabeth, asked me during a drive down the coast whether the Honda had a Tiptronic transmission. No, it was a conventional clutch, I replied, before seeking to know why she’d asked. She responded that it was because the gear changes were so smooth and the engine never raced. This state of affairs I modestly ascribed to the merits of the driver rather than the car. Elizabeth will not mind if I add that she is a car enthusiast, who can look forward to the new Mercedes sports car that awaits her at home.

Still on the Honda, I recently engaged cruise control for the first time, having previously opted for the most conservative setting on the computer “snooze alert”. Shortly afterwards I received audio and visual warnings and felt the car start to brake as the computer reckoned I was closing too fast on the vehicle in front of me. It was quite weird, like having a second ghost driver in the car. In fact one is beeped, squeaked or whistled at whenever the car detects a human failing.

Every now and then I feel like telling the thing to leave the driving to me. On the other hand, it’s all but impossible to run the battery down accidentally or to lock the keys inside. It’s now three months since we got the car and the bottom line is that it’s as magical as ever in spite of its fussiness.

I heard the writer, P J O’Rourke, bemoaning this modern motoring nannying in a radio interview about his new book, The End of the Affair, on why Americans have fallen out of love with the automobile. He blames bureaucrats, bad taste and busybodies. My own feeling is that, like everybody else, the real problem is that they’ve run out of road space.)

For the most part, our days have continued along their usual lines. We’ve picked and given more carobs to our neighbours and been glad to receive loads of grapes, onions and pumpkins in return. It’s a great arrangement. I’ve continued to receive ultra-sound treatment on my problematic tendon from Jodi and invested in a second pair of insoles.

Natasha brought her new notebook computer along this week for me to transfer across the many photos I’d previously stored on my own computer on her behalf. I was glad to do so, feeling uneasy about several pictures she’d taken of young Alex in the bath. It’s really sad that paedophilia (the latest case in the UK is just horrific) has induced feelings of guilt from the most innocent of situations.

Natasha is gradually getting to grips with her computer’s complexities. What she doesn’t yet have is a home link to the internet. There’s a public wifi location in town but it’s far from ideal, the more so when she has to keep an eye on Alex. To her great delight, he’s about to start pre-school, saving her the cost of daily care. He converses with his mother in Russian and his companions in Portuguese. Of his father, who returned to Romania a couple of years ago, we’ve heard little since.

JONES SUNRISE PIC

Here, the media have been full for weeks of politics and politicians, the latter (as ever) either promising to improve our lives or rubbishing their opponents. In national elections last Sunday, the governing Socialist Party lost ground and its simple majority. It now has to decide whether to continue in office as a minority government or to go into coalition. Nobody seems very excited about the options.

In ten days’ time, the population votes again, this time in local elections in which expats are also entitled to cast a ballot. We shall be among them. The parish president (the mayor) has done a good job and we hope to see him re-elected.

On the local scene, Horacio, the builder, has been around to counsel us on how best to deal with a minor leak from the septic tank. Our commuting neighbours, David and Sarah, have just arrived down from the UK for an autumn visit. Our immediate neighbour, Idalecio, is enjoying a week’s holiday – his first, as far as we know - up north. In his absence, we are feeding and tending his dog, Serpa, and his cat. It’s an easy arrangement. Serpa - right - (the mother of Raymond and Bobby) ducks through a hole in the fence to come walking with us most afternoons and is perfectly happy in our company.

The several meals we’ve enjoyed with friends and neighbours included a joint 80th birthday party for two of them, Tom and John, who hosted a slap-up dinner at a restaurant in Loule. When we first arrived in Portugal, our hosts were both still in their 50s. It gives us food for thought.