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.