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.