Letter from Espargal: 19 of 2010

As so often, we are back from the valley and the wondrous wild flowers tossing around in the wind. By we I mean two humans and six dogs. I drive. Jones sits in the back with Ono, Pricks, Ermie and Poppy, our two guest bitches (on her lap); the brothers go in the boot. We find this the most felicitous arrangement.

Jones walks Ermie and Poppy. I take Pricks, the others run free on our hour-long circuit , most of it anyhow. I put them on leads as we pass farmers planting acres of melon seedlings along the route. Ermie dives into every bush she can find, to be tugged out again by Jones. Our procession is something between a zoo and a circus.

Which leads me to think of the Pope’s visit to Portugal. After touring Lisbon in his pope-mobile, he’s been doing his thing at Fatima, where great, flat-waving crowds are in evidence. I have watched the scenes in fascination, wondering how I ever came to spend ten years of my life within such embrace.

It’s like looking in through a glass window from which I once looked out. I wish I could take this guy more seriously - as presumptuous as it is to doubt the credentials of someone who has been chosen under divine guidance.

JONES SUNSET

Another drama that we have followed has been the shotgun romance of the Conservatives and Lib Dems in the UK. I discussed the post-election horse trading with my English class, who are accustomed to Portugal’s system of proportional representation. They found it hard to get to grips with a “first past the post” system or the idea of voting for a person rather than a party.

On the domestic front we are preparing for the arrival of our house sitters this weekend and for our own departure for North America on Tuesday. All being well, we fly via Toronto to the US to join members of Barbara’s family at a retreat on Chesapeake Bay. Then we have a few days each in Washington, New York, Princeton (with Bevan) and Quebec before heading to Vancouver (the Chris Joneses) and finally Calgary (the Bensons).

I hope to be able to check and respond to emails along our route. The next blog will await our return in mid-June. Whether we depart/ return on time may depend on the whims of the Icelandic volcano. There were scenes of travel chaos this week when a plume of ash closed Faro airport for 24 hours.

I arose early one morning on behalf of departing neighbours to check online that the airport had reopened. Happily for them, it had.

There’s a pause as Jones summons me to help find Ermie, who has discovered a hole in our fence and escaped – again! Last time she took off, she made it all the way home. This time we find her gambolling in a field nearby.

Nelson and I spent a day sorting out the north garden, which had disappeared under a jungle of weeds about to go to seed. He built up heaps of cuttings and I of prunings. Jones kept on popping down to ensure that we didn’t rip out the more desirable wild flowers.

It took four groaning tractor loads to shift the vegetation from the garden to the compost mountain. Nelson forked them on to the tractor box and I piled them high.

We could glimpse Natasha on the patio, cleaning the windows ahead of the arrival of our house sitters. The house is full of huge windows that make for as much cleaning as they do light. Jonesy likes big windows even though they’re unPortuguese. The tradition is thick-walled houses with small windows. That way the interiors are cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

I have been to Faro to renew my international driving licence. Although I have never been asked for this document while driving abroad, Sod’s Law says I will be if I don’t have it.

En route I stopped off at Honda to buy a litre of oil, having emptied the top-up bottle that Honda supply with their new cars. I idly took out a fiver to pay for my purchase and nearly fell over when I was asked for 24 euros. It was black gold the salesman assured me. He wasn’t joking. Pity that so much of it is floating around in the Gulf of Mexico.

Twice we have supped with UK friends, Mike and Lyn, who are staying in one of Idalecio’s cottages. They are both keen photographers and have educated us down the years in the Algarve’s wild flowers and birds.

There’s no better way to end the day than with baggies at the Coral, where Jones is arranging a chicken dinner for our house sitters this weekend. Ermie accompanied us to an outside table. She doesn’t like being left alone. The boys wait in the car, impatient for their supper. It’s good to sit in the evening sun and watch the passing show.

This includes, Jose the tractor dealer, who uses one of his display tractors to fetch a piece of heavy equipment from his truck, parked on a vacant lot across the road.

He knows that Jones has harboured doubts about the wisdom of my tractor purchases and he loves to display the text message I once sent him asking what he’d give me on a trade-in. As I point out to Jones, my tractor earns its keep. As she points out to me, the older model I used to have would have done just as well.