Letter from Espargal: 40 of 2009

You have probably noticed that some weeks positively spurt ahead. Others splutter like an old moped reluctantly grunting into life. This past week has lurched uncertainly from one day to another, as if confused about which direction to take.

For some reason, I had a strong feeling that we were going to clean up on Euromillions. I just knew that our time had come. Maybe it was because of all the publicity about the £45 million that went last week to a couple in Wales and to a syndicate in Liverpool. Just to make sure of a win, I put on an extra tenner and then waited expectantly to collect the loot. I accepted that 45-million was a bit over the top. Anything in seven figures would prove acceptable.

Inexplicably, as I recounted to our neighbours at a bbq here that same night, we won narry a cent. We didn’t even come close. Our numbers seemed to come from an entirely different system of enumeration. The neighbours are in the syndicate that I manage. I have several times complained to them of the poor quality of their choice of numbers but it hasn’t helped.

One morning, as they passed on their morning dog-walk, Ollie and Marie pointed out a flock of large birds circling in the sky. That’s unusual. We quite often see a pair of eagles but 20 or 30 large raptors is a rare sight. We wondered what they were and whether they were preparing to migrate. Marie thought they might be buzzards. They were spotted too by other neighbours, who opted for vultures. Other than spectacular and a welcome sight, I don’t know what they were. The only large birds that I’ve ever seen gathered in flocks in these parts are storks.

We have been preparing to have the interior of the house painted. Jones thought that it was time and I had to agree. There are networks of tiny cracks in the walls, along with the inevitable scars of living. The local painter has inspected the site and come up with an acceptable quote. He’s an excellent painter, who expects the job to take about a week. All that remains to be settled is the starting date. He was hoping for the third week in November but the date has been sliding as dates so often do.

Whatever the case, we’ve been packing away our books and files. With Natasha’s help, we put took them down from the shelves and loaded them into cardboard boxes that we have piled in the centre of the bedroom. This task is the next-worst thing to packing to move house.

One is reminded just how many objects one has accumulated and how difficult it’s going to be to downsize one of these days. Jones has selected some books to give away.
FIGHTING GLOBAL WARMING

As much as I approve of this, it’s a bit like trying to fight global warming by buying a smaller car. Apart from anything else, we are both very fond of our books and reluctant to give them away. We haven’t even started on the pictures or innumerable trinkets.

What we have started on is sowing our annual crop of beans. You might think that this is the simplest of activities, dating – as it does – back a few thousand years. But it was not the case. Before sowing one’s crop one has first to plough the necessary furrows. To do this farmers attach shaped steel plates to the teeth of their scarifiers – saving themselves the additional expense of buying a separate plough.

But the plates that I bought for my previous scarifier proved to be unsuitable for my new bigger scarifier. Neither would they fit on a neighbour’s scarifier. The neighbour, Leonhilde, offered to lend me her plates. She guided me around to a nearby village to fetch them from friends to whom she’d lent them. These new plates bolted on satisfactorily.

All that took an entire day.

Thereafter it was several hours’ work to drill the fields and sow the seed. The furrows are anything but straight. But given the slope of the land and the numerous trees that one has to avoid, I make no apologies. Anyhow, seeds do not care whether they are sown in straight or crooked furrows. All that matters is that they are plonked down in a trough with a handful of blue fertilizer and then raked over. After that, one simply waits for April when the handsome bean plants produce wonderfully tasty beans - favas.


It helps to get lots of rain and to do a little weeding. We were promised rain this very weekend. The clouds gathered as expected and have hovered over us for several days. Apart from the weeniest spattering, a bit like a sprinkle of holy water during a church service, we have nothing to show for the clouds. We hear enviously of the rains that have pelted down over the UK.

Our weather continues worryingly warm. One hardly needs a jersey while working outside during the day. If things continue like this, we will soon be denied the annual right of feeling cold during winter. I’ve continued to make a small fire each evening but I would be hard pressed to justify it.

Our worker, Nelson, has not shown up this week. There was a gale blowing the first two days, which would have made for miserable labour on the exposed hillside. By midweek, when the wind had abated, the poor fellow had developed a bad throat – possibly part of the flu epidemic that has afflicted Portugal as much as anywhere. I’m hoping that he’ll be back this coming week, as it’s going to take several more days to finish cutting back in the Park and getting rid of the piles of greenery.

I am nearing the end of my book, The Mind of God, by a favourite author, Paul Davies. It is subtitled: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning. While I have enjoyed the book and dropped pleasantly into slumber after reading a few pages each night, I do not pretend to understand it. At least, it makes a useful base for Jones to put down my coffee and toast on the bedside table each morning.