Letter from Espargal: 29 of 2010

The shutters are closed, the fan is whirring, the dogs are zonked out in their baskets and I’m trying to think of anything other than being bloody hot. But I haven’t got very far. When the temperature starts pushing C40* the body’s stay-cool mechanisms flood the brain’s control room with “get me out of here” messages.

Instead of greeting people with Good Morning or Good Afternoon, one says "Hell, but it's hot". The positive way to look at it, I suppose, would be to feel grateful that we can retire mid-morning inside a heavily-insulated house and stay there till at least mid-afternoon. (I try not to emerge before 5.)

This is more than Steven, Luis and Marco can do. Steven, whose strong South African accent gives away his origins, runs a fencing company that is erecting a 200-metre fence along our southern and eastern boundaries. Luis is his number two, the measuring man. Marco is the worker who has been using my chainsaw to trim the growth along the boundaries prior to the erection of the fence posts. This is not easy work, especially in searing summer temperatures. Nor will the digging of holes be any easier next week. The southern boundary is both steep and rocky, what a mountaineer would refer to as a scramble. Much of the time it’s all one can do to stay on one’s feet.

The fence is intended to contain the dogs within the larger property in due course (once we have purchased an outstanding wedge of land that juts into ours). For the moment, they are restricted to a half-acre area around the house.

Mid-week we ran a reluctant Catherine back to the airport for her return flight to Berlin. She was pleased to receive a call earlier from her husband on an island somewhere on the Yukon river, assuring her that all was well with him and their younger daughter. At that point we were wandering around Faro’s pedestrianized shopping zone, looking for a new battery for Jonesy’s mobile phone (the old battery having reacted badly to a quick bath). The zone is patrolled by police on bicycles – a very good idea - to discourage scoundrels from pestering the public.

Behind her Cathy left two books for me and three ceramic plant-pots for Jones. The latter, to be known as the tripots, were chosen at a garden centre by my wife, who later arranged them in the south garden before filling them with earth and plants. The new plants have been protected from the sun for the last several days by a beach umbrella. The whole arrangement is handsome and we thank my sister for her kindness, in this and many other respects.

The books are Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Glass and the prolific Richard Dawkins’ latest work, The Greatest Show on Earth. I look forward to reading them once I have completed my current tome, Jesus Interrupted, a book by a biblical scholar explaining (among other things) why many of the books of the bible were written by people other than their nominal authors and what it signifies. (I once majored in Biblical Studies – although that was long ago in another age – and I should be hard pressed to present any evidence of my former erudition.)

We noted with pleasure how quickly Bobby, whom we inherited from old Zeferino, adopted Cathy as a member of the family. Unlike the other dogs, which merely bark loudly before loving our visitors, Bobby greets all strangers with suspicion and prefers to keep his distance. But within hours of Cathy’s arrival he had adopted her and frequently sought her company.

When Cathy sat down on the garden steps one afternoon to crack a plate of almond nuts, Bobby and Raymond both took it as an invitation to join her. They love almonds, frequently stealing nuts from a basket on the patio and tossing them around noisily in their teeth until they find a suitable weak spot in the shells. On this occasion my sister made little headway with her task. The dogs leapt eagerly on the shelled nuts as fast as she extracted them from their husks. The moral of the story is not to crack nuts on the garden steps, not if you want them for human consumption.

Our last outing (before Cathy’s departure) was to the new pousada (a fancy hotel chain previously operated by the government) at Estoi. We had often visited the gardens of the ruined palace that has now been converted into a handsome country hotel. As the blurb will inform you:

“The Pousada de Estoi is set in the old 19th century Estoi Palace, which used to belong to the Viscount of Estoi, José Francisco da Silva. The palace took 20 years to build and in May 1909 a huge party was thrown in the gardens to celebrate the inauguration. After the Viscount’s death, the palace remained in the family until 1987, at which time it was acquired by Faro Municipal Council.”

We took refreshments on the patio, with its glorious views across the Algarve plain to the sea. A night or two in the pousada would make for an inviting break. Retired couples qualify for excellent discounts out of season.

We visited several other venues as well but I’d rather show them to you than try to describe them. And we’ve been hard at it with the regular tasks, watering, walking, collecting carobs – all the usual stuff.

Next week, when I sit down to write, it will be September and I can’t tell you how good that will feel. By the way, did you see the glorious full moon? I wondered what it would be like to live on Jupiter - gravity aside - with its 63 moons.

Letter from Espargal: 28 of 2010

This past week (or two) hasn’t much lent itself to blogging because it’s been full of social stuff and social stuff is near impossible to write about sensibly. (For lack of anything else I've put up this rare snap of parts of my wife at rest.) Also, we’ve been doing much the same kind of thing as I've been describing for most of summer and I can't think of new ways to put it.

The news is that Cathy is spending a fortnight with us while her husband and younger daughter paddle themselves down a river in the great Canadian outback. Cathy is pretty much the ideal guest. She brings loads of chocolates with her. She is grateful for the least hospitality. She takes very little entertaining. She spends most of her time deep inside a novel and she tries to pay for everything. Also she waters the garden. One can’t ask for more than that.

Naturally, we have used her presence to justify more than the usual number of outings. We took her up to the mountain-top village of Malhao. This boasts a Buddhist monastery that we didn’t have time to visit but will some day. Apart from that and a few houses, it has a café (filled with old men playing cards), run by a pleasant woman who was pleased to prepare coffee and biscuits for us as we sat with the (inevitable) dogs outside.

Jones insisted on taking a picture of Cathy and me against the backdrop of the hills. If you want to live in a seriously sleepy place with a Buddhist monastery and marvellous views, you can’t do much better than Malhao.

Another visit – I’ll keep them to a minimum – was to Rob, Helen and Kayleigh in the hills of Cortelha. They’ve been braving the heat, albeit with a useful splash-pool to cool down in, to work on their cottage on the outskirts of the village. While Cortelha shares great views with Marvao, it is better known for its splendid restaurant, to which we repaired for lunch.

REMAINS OF THE HAND-OUT

Mostly we lunched at home on the sack of water melons that we received from Idalecio’s family. So heavy was this sack that Cathy and I struggled to carry it between us. That’s to say nothing of the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers that arrived at the same time. I should add that we came across the family as we walked the dogs one morning on the far side of Espargal hill.

CAROBS

They were collecting carobs, a labour at which they spent the entire day. It wasn’t too bad in the shade of the trees they assured us. We’ve started bringing in our own carobs, most of which we’ll be happy to pass on to our neighbours by way of thanks for their many kindnesses.

Prior to that we’d stopped over at Jorge Vieira’s place to renew our supplies. He and his team were hard at work sorting tomatoes and packing them in boxes. We had a few photos for him, which he repaid generously in fruit and veg.

I’ve been looking for a new multifunction printer to replace one that’s limping along. The problem is that a tiny plastic nipple has broken off the cover that controls the ink cartridges. HP can neither repair nor replace the cover and the machine is unhappy. I’ve spent hours reviewing AIO (all in one) machines on the internet and taking stock of what models are available in the local outlets.

I want a combination printer, scanner, copier, fax. There’s no shortage on offer but there’s scarcely one that doesn’t get ripped to shreds in user reviews by unfortunate purchasers. Two well-reviewed models that best fit my needs as well as the space on my desk are not available. So for the moment I’ll continue limping along.

Also playing silly buggers is the safe that we had installed in the house when we built. The keypad no longer accepts the entry code. I phoned a couple of security shops for assistance, to find that they serviced only the models they themselves provided. And since I bought ours on the cheap from a hypermarket – I can’t even find the make – I’ve made no progress. Worse, I can’t remove or replace the safe without knocking a great hole in the wall. Moral of the story: pay the difference and buy from a reputable dealer.

At least I did that when I bought a mulcher some years ago. The ignition switch recently gave up the ghost. Although I had to wait several weeks for the dealer to replace it, he has done so and I can get on with mulching branches once again. The mulch goes into Jones’s grateful garden (where, as ever, she continues to spend long hours day after day).

I can report similar success with alterations to the tractor box and scarifier, both of which I took up to the Dinis the metalworker in Benafim. After spending inordinate amounts of time trying to line the vehicle up with these implements (in order to attach them), I had a rapid coupling device fitted to the hitch at the back of the tractor. The coupling made life much easier but was a poor fit with the implements – until Dinis got to work on them, that is. Now everything fits and couples well.

Our weather has cooled a few degrees, much to our relief, although you wouldn’t think so were you here today. The hot wind that accompanied the July heat-wave made life treacherous for the fire fighters in the north of the country - two were killed – and withered a number of plants in the garden.

One afternoon a great load of fine sand blew in from north Africa, turning the sky a dirty grey (Jones took some stunning pictures) and whipping up a five-minute shower that covered everything – including the car and the newly cleaned windows – with sandy blotches.

Cleaning the car was relatively painless. There’s a mini carwash attached to the service station ten minutes up the road in Benafim. The house windows, large and numerous, were something else. They took Jones (supported at times by myself) several hours to return to their former gleam.

Like most of the other villages in the area, Benafim has celebrated its annual festa with the usual success. Everybody turns out. The teenagers eye one another’s assets while their parents sit around the numerous tables consuming the excellent barbecued chicken on offer (although I prefer the stywe pap). The older folks love a dance. Of course, we went along with the expat gang to share the fun. We generally take a table just above the dance floor, with an excellent view of events below.

We had donated a brandy decanter to the bric-a-brac stall. It was easily the most attractive item on offer and I thought that I might win it back. In the event I had to be content with a small ceramic bowl (Jones liked it) and a keepsake from Morocco.

Friday evening, after our walk, we packed a cold-bag with beers, lemonade and baggy and ascended to the top of Espargal Hill to watch the sun set. Of course, the dogs came along to keep us company. The evening was made in heaven. At the base of the koppie we could see a group of children splashing in a frame pool.

Below us, the hills fell away in a series of swoops towards the distant coast. I dished out biscuits to the dogs. We nibbled the almonds that Cathy had painstakingly extracted from their shells earlier in the day, bashing them between two stones. At exactly 8.15 the sun dipped behind Monchique mountain. Summer is nearly done and autumn will be very welcome.

Letter from Espargal: 27 of 2010

FORMAL BENAFIM SUMMER ATTIRE

I have spent some time trying to think of an opening to this letter that encourages you to read at least as far as the second paragraph – an opening that makes no reference to the weather, our walks, the garden or the animals. But as you can see, I have already failed in this endeavour. It is exceedingly difficult to write a letter about things that have little bearing on one’s life; and harder still to write about those events that touch one most closely. Or, at least, I find it so.

Having said which, I might easily be found guilty of writing too much. I have been going through my correspondence to the family down the years. Apart from the odd letter from the 80s, it starts in January 1994, when I acquired my first computer. In those days, before we had email, I would print the letters out and then fax them from London to our far-flung family. That, at least, was a huge improvement on the photocopies (10p a time) that I used to make in the corner shop and post out to the far ends of the earth.

I’ve spent long hours converting these old letters from their original format into WORD. They are a diary of our lives, a very extensive one, hundreds and hundreds of them. Our ups and downs, successes and failures, comings and goings are all recorded, along with the antics of Mr Mavis, our London cat. Maybe one day I shall be able to turn them into the book that I have been talking about. Or maybe not.

I was once going to write a book about God (I had the title - Benson’s Bedside God-book) but I have never managed to write anything one day with which I felt satisfied the next.

I have just finished reading a book that Cathy gave me, Quantum by Manjit Kumar. It’s an illuminating account, not so much of the discoveries of sub-atomic physics, as of the lives, rivalries and contentions of the discoverers. (Einstein, as you may know, graduated with a poor degree and had the very devil of a job finding work. Some universities didn’t even bother to reply to his letters seeking a position.) One quickly concludes that Nobel prize winners, apart from being bright and lucky, are little different from the rest of us.

RIP DONA KATERINA

Let me return to the hamlet of Espargal. The week began with a funeral, that of Dona Katerina who, for as long as we have been here, has tottered up and down our road on her stick, taking her daily constitutional. She was in her early 90s. Her three daughters (themselves grandmothers) live locally. She passed away suddenly at the end of last week.


We joined the throng that, in traditional fashion, followed the hearse from the church to the cemetery on the outskirts of Benafim. I think that it’s a lovely practice. Mourners are not expected to attend the funeral service although they’re welcome - if there’s room. But they pay their final respects by marching behind the coffin to the grave-side.

For once, the traffic has to wait. It’s a great send-off. RIP Dona Katerina. Afterwards, we retired to the Coral for a late breakfast with neighbouring expats. It took a while. The snack bar is on the cortege route and inevitably a popular post-funeral watering hole.

The continuing heat of summer (to which I have so far managed not to refer) seems only to inspire our insect companions, especially the ants. We have to place the dog-biscuit bowls in a tray of water to give the dogs a 50-50 chance of getting at the biscuits. The several water bowls are patrolled by wasps and the trees are full of cicadas. Truly, the insects rule.

Exhorted by Jones not to drape my perspiration-soaked shirts and vests over the front patio, I have resorted to the washing line, upsetting the ant columns that use it as a highway.

I have to shake these clothes vigorously before putting them on in order to rid the garments of the protesting insects.

On cue, an email arrives from the Portuguese Met Office (to which I subscribe) informing us that this past July has been the hottest since 1931 – 3 degrees above normal with an average maximum of (approx.) 32 degrees. That’s hot (even if it’s not as hot as in Russia, much of which seems to be burning down). I feel that my complaints are vindicated. My upper legs and tummy are still covered in heat bumps, complemented with a bite from a tick that I picked up on a morning walk. Jones plucked the wretch from my back and I crushed it under a stone for its troubles.

The heat did not deter us from making our annual visit to the Sao Bras festa, one of those that we always enjoy (although I was disappointed by the absence of any tractors this year). It’s best to turn up early, both to sit down at a supper table before the crowds arrive and to precede the amplified nocturnal entertainment from the nearby main stage.

We were entertained instead by a band of drummers, who thumped their way enthusiastically down the avenues between the kiosks. Jones returned home with a small ceramic bowl (no surprise there) and a cork bracelet. (Seen in the dog-bowl picture above) We are relieved to see that as cork (sadly) declines as a bottle stopper, it’s being processed instead to make garments and other products.

Natasha was pleased to get an extra day’s work – cleaning our many shutters and sliding doors. She’s anxious, now that she’s passed her theoretical exam, to get on with learner driving and frustrated by some hold-up with the cars. We have to run her back into Loule in the late afternoon as the bus from Benafim doesn’t operate during the school holidays.

We took the opportunity of trying the newly-opened bypass – a second quarter of Loule’s long planned ring-road. It will ease the flow of heavy traffic that gums up the heart of the old town morning and evening. (For absent expats, the bypass links the roads into Loule from Querenca, Salir and Boliqueime to the freeway network.)

The melon man was delighted to receive copies of the latest pictures that we had taken of him – and plied us so generously with grateful fruit that we hardly found room in the car. Yes, we have been eating a lot of melons – watermelons (melancia), round yellow melons (meloa) and rugby ball shaped melons (melao), and very good they all are too. Jones took some more pictures of the pickers which will no doubt ensure us a renewed supply of melons in due course.

As for Jones herself, she continues to spend long hours crouched in the shade of the trees, cutting back, cleaning up and protecting her more delicate plants from the sun. She says she finds it cooler outside. (I don’t.) Most afternoons I join her in the watering. Then after walking the dogs, we retire to the front patio, baggies in hand, olives at the ready, to watch the sun go down. If you’ve heard this before you will know that not much as changed here in Espargal.