Letter from Espargal: 8 of 2010

Friday morning: The sky has gone dark, what we can see of it through the mist. The branches around the upper patio whirl about in a frenzy. Rain slaps fiercely against the glass doors. We are very pleased to be inside, all the more so for having just returned from a long trek through the hills. As we left we weighed up our chances of hanging on to the patchy sunshine; we got home with very little to spare. To have been caught in this tempest would have been most unpleasant. It’s really fierce.

I have just come off the phone to KLM, whose e-tickets for our planned visit to Berlin next month are now 17 days overdue. They were still investigating, Maria informed me. She advised me to wait another week before I called again. One wonders how long it takes an airline to extract its money from its agents. At least, I assume that’s the problem. Strange! I was always under the impression that the Dutch were among the world’s more efficient nations.

We listened to a radio programme about the recent collapse of the Scottish holiday airline, FlyGlobespan. Its demise was due largely to the 35 million pounds owed to it by its agents, rascals by the name of e-clear who seem to have e-cleared off with the loot. One hopes that KLM is not among e-clear’s clients.

Last night we went to Faro to listen to a piano recital by Artur Pizarro, who according to an online biog (http://www. bach-cantatas. com/Bio/ Pizarro-Artur. htm) gave his first recital on Portuguese TV at the age of 4. He played a selection of Chopin etudes. Jones said he was very good. She knows about these things. (I took piano lessons for several months in my youth before deciding, much to my father’s irritation, that I wasn’t going to be a musical prodigy and there was little point in continuing.)

Behind us sat a couple who alternated between coughing and whispering. I fervently hoped that they would put themselves out of our misery with all possible despatch. Several times I was on the point of sushing them loudly.

In front of us, a young man glanced every so often at his mobile phone, possibly desperate for a message from Celeste or Maria or Dolores – this in spite of a fervent plea at the start of the concert for the audience to turn the wretched things off. (The pianist twice broke off from his performance to appeal for silence, saying it was being recorded for broadcast.) Mobile phone addiction afflicts the Portuguese worse than most. Lots of people would rather be separated from their spouses than their phones.

Jonesy is paging her way through a pile of French magazines, left to her by the French family that were staying in the village. They appear (at a superficial glance) to be mainly uppity women’s mags. (The “uppity” applies to the mags rather than the women.) I was unwise enough to comment, after turning a few pages myself, that the publication seemed to be full of women posing in fancy clothes. I’m not sure that I actually said fancy clothes but I used words to that effect. My comment, which Jones interpreted as a sneer, evoked a fierce defence ….along the lines that it was better than looking at porn magazines.

I have to confess, as a simple male, that I have never understood why women should be endlessly fascinated by pictures of other women wearing clothes that the readers either can’t afford or wouldn’t be seen dead in. Does the purchase of new outfits, or the wearing of them, convey the impression to the wearer of a new persona? If women’s magazines featured women driving tractors, I could understand it. I might even buy a few myself.

We listened to an interview with some designer guy who confessed that he planned on Sundays exactly what clothes he was going to wear each day for the rest of the week. When asked to describe what he was wearing at that moment, he laughed it off as a simple outfit, and then went on to talk about his apparel in words that I barely understood. I thought he must come from a completely different planet. If the truth be told, I also know on Sundays what clothes I’m going to wear for the rest of the week but it doesn’t take any planning.

Friday lunchtime: The sun is back. We have just taken Poppy home. She joins our lot from time to time when her owner neighbours take a few days’ break. You’d never know that she wasn’t one of the gang - ditto Serpa, from next door, who often hops through the fence to come on our walks. We must look like the annual kennel outing.

THE BOYS

Yesterday the boys flushed out a rabbit in the neighbouring field. They chased him fiercely towards our property. The rabbit, however, knew the exact location of a small gap under our fence - and vanished through it in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the boys nosing around the grass in frustration.

We had our friends, David and Dagmar, around to celebrate her somethingth birthday. Dagmar and Jones are fond of chick flicks.

In anticipation, we had ordered two recommended chickflicky DVDs from Amazon in the UK. After supper, we sat down to watch one of these, called The Hangover. It was all about 4 guys who go off to a stag night and wake up the next day in possession of a baby, a chicken and a tiger, without knowing how on earth this came about.

As it turned out, the movie was more of a stag night flick than a chick flick. But we watched it through nonetheless. It had its moments.

P.S. My latest favourite words: deed-poll, defalcate & demijohn