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.