Letter from Espargal: 39 of 2009

It’s Friday night. The first fire of the season is flickering away in the stove, welcome as much for its cheeriness as its warmth. The heat from the tall chimney stack pervades the study as I scratch my head at my desk in search of news. (What luxury it is to be warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s hot!) Evening arrives early and the nights have grown both long and chilly.

JONES DAWN

The onset of autumn means that we check each day to see what’s on TV that night. We have the choice of several dozen channels on both the Portuguese and British satellites. Our tastes run to documentaries. There is a small problem, however, that the pair of us have taken to dozing off like a couple of nodding donkeys, especially when I settle down after supper with the dogs on the floor in front of the TV. We might easily be mistaken for a couple of OAPs.

I made a point of sitting down to watch a programme on black holes the other night and woke up just as it ended, little the wiser for my efforts. Much the same thing happened with a new series on early 20^th century Britain. (I had no idea that the Suffragettes movement was associated with so much violence!)

Jones, who’s up at 5 each morning, faces an even tougher task staying awake in the evenings. Frustratingly, viewers outside of the UK are denied the opportunity that UK viewers have to watch BBC programmes again via the internet. We have taken instead to looking up the early-evening repeats of our favourite late-evening programmes in order to watch the bits we missed first time around.

The week has kept us both busy.
I have spent most of it assisting Nelson to clean up the Park, an acre of hillside that rises steeply above the house. It’s part of the green buffer that surrounds us and guarantees our privacy against future development. I love the Park. It’s not exactly wilderness nor exactly garden but something between the two - a terraced area strewn with boulders, dotted with trees and somewhat overgrown with natural vegetation. Which is why, with a little prodding from Jones, Nelson and I have been hard at work there.

TEA BREAK

I encountered Nelson when he was assisting our neighbour, Idalecio, with wall building. (The first name “Nelson” is commonly found in Portugal, derived – I assume – from that of the English admiral). When I called him up last weekend, he leapt at the opportunity of a couple of weeks’ work. Unusually, Nelson is of gypsy stock – unusually in the sense that one seldom comes across gypsies living or working outside of their own tight-knit communities. He’s a steady and reliable worker. Once he knows what you want, you can leave him to get on with it.


Explaining what I wanted him to do in the Park was complicated. It was easier to show him which trees I wanted pruned, which wild shrubs cut back or ripped out, which weeds ignored (because I could more easily spray them). He said this kind of work was new to him although he was well accustomed to clearing under the carob trees. We built heaps of discarded greenery on the terraces, to be either mulched or burned. I took the shredder down on the back of the tractor to mulch the branches while they were still green and tender.

As I was labouring away one afternoon, I received a phone call from the helpful consular official in Lisbon who had assisted us during our recent application for new passports. He was phoning to thank me for the complimentary letter that I had written to the ambassador on his behalf, he said. On the authority of my compliments, the ambassador had come down to congratulate him and his section chief for the quality of their service to the public. He was very pleased with such praise, as was I to hear that he had been commended for his efforts.

The following day I received a letter from no less a person than the ambassador him/herself, T.S Profit-McLean, thanking me for taking the trouble to write. It’s a lovely letter (I suspect that the ambassador is female – and Google confirms this), one that I shall keep – all the more special for being addressed to “Ear Mr. And Mrs. Benson”. All that awaits now is the arrival of the new passports.


SHORT CUT HOME - UP THE BANK

A pause here to check the Euromillions results. I regret that, as usual, we have won nothing. I run the expat Espargal syndicate, not very successfully, not if the bottom line is the criterion for success. This much, at least, we have in common with many of the world’s banks. The difference is that the government shows no interest in bailing us out, nor am I paid handsome bonuses for losing my investors’ money. Still, to buy hope at just two euros per investor per week is not a bad price.


The one brief consolation of my “episode” last week was that I briefly attained my desired weight – 85 kgs. I tend to hover irritatingly just on the wrong side of 90 kgs. Fortunately, I have a relatively kind image of myself. In my mind’s eye, I am rather slimmer and better looking than the real thing, as I am reminded from time to time by an incautious glance in the mirror.

I can’t say that I’m happy with the situation. One grows tired of having one’s trousers slip down the bulge and having to haul them up again. It would be so nice to be able to merge the image with the reality. To this end, I have for the time-being (however long or short that may prove) stopped taking alcohol.

TEA ARRIVES

As fond as I am of the occasional glass of wine or beer, this self-denial hasn’t proved seriously challenging. It was really just a case of staying on the wagon on which my “episode” landed me willy-nilly. Experience with numerous boxes of chocolates has taught me that I generally have sufficient strength not to start but insufficient, once I have, to stop. Already, I can see the pounds just slipping away – in my mind’s eye that is. The scale is taking rather longer to catch up with the situation – what economists refer to as a lagging indicator.

JONES SUNSET

Jones has just finished casting an eye over my letter and given it her limited approval – even though it’s “not a very exciting letter”. Well I’m sorry. It hasn’t been a very exciting week. When we win the Euromillions, I shall write a very exciting letter indeed, probably from the 1st class section of a flight to somewhere seriously exotic, being pestered with caviar-covered biscuits and glasses of chilled champagne. “A drop more champers for you, Mr Benson?” they will ask. “Just a drop,” I’ll reply. Won’t it be luverly!