Letter from Espargal: 38 of 2010

Jonesy expressed her frustration this week that she simply didn’t have enough time to attend to everything on her “to do” list. My suggestion that she curtail her list was not considered helpful, nor was my observation that she should be grateful for having such a varied and interesting life. Her problem is that she goes to bed each night wishing she'd done several things that she hasn’t.

One of the reasons for this (overcrowded list) problem is that new items add themselves to her list as fast as she ticks off the old ones. Another is the expansive nature of some of the items. Take olive picking and salting, for example. Everywhere you go in Portugal, olives are served with meals and drinks. Most places and neighbours prepare their own. Olives, unlike apples and oranges, cannot simply be plucked from the tree and eaten. Among other things they have to be slit, soaked in salt for days (weeks or months, depending on the process) and then repeatedly rinsed.

During visits to Portuguese neighbours (which she makes regularly) Jones has learned the art of treating olives and her first experiments have been most acceptable. Edible olives come from grafted trees, of which we have a number on the property (along with lots of ungrafted ones). Jones has been raking down the olives into nets spread out beneath the branches and gathering up the fruit. The many defective olives (stung or bruised) go into buckets - to be delivered to a press and traded for olive oil).

The virgin fruit is collected separately, to be treated, stored and later served. The question with this process is when to stop. Jones has spent hours at it – with a little help from myself – and could easily spend as much time again. The same is true for the crop of nuts on the almond trees. To our shame, both these crops have gone largely to waste over the last several years (although we have faithfully garnered our carobs). We are only now getting around to them.

Equally time-consuming has been the feeding of the two puppies, the ones that disguised themselves as kittens last week. We’ve moved their little box into the downstairs bathroom, a venue to which my wife conducts herself several times a day, milk bottles in hand. (So occasionally do I.) The bigger of the puppies, a black bitch, is quite a good feeder and pee-er. Her smaller brother is much harder work. They both tend to wriggle about furiously at feeding time, as if competing with unseen siblings for the mother’s teats.

To overcome this, Jones has taken to wrapping them in swaddling cloths when she feeds them – a hint she gathered from a friend who raised 4 kittens in similar fashion. Any day now the pups’ eyes will begin to open and then we’ll have a whole new ball game. Other members of the household have so far shown a restrained interest in the sounds and smells emanating from the bathroom. That interest is likely to become much more intense in the weeks ahead. Lest you be in any doubt, we should be delighted to hear from anybody who might be interested in adopting a puppy or – even better – two puppies.

WEE WEE TIME

I too have had a busy week. Apart from the usual stuff – English lessons, socialising, shopping, banking, boot repairs (2 euros) by the old man who sits in his little room near the senior university – I’ve spent hours ploughing the fields (ours and neighbours) ahead of the rains due this weekend. As I write, the skies are grey but of the wet stuff there’s no sign yet.

I’ve sown an early crop of beans and peas and fertilised/ forked over the fruit trees. The afternoon weather’s been warm, we’ve perspired profusely as we worked and we’ve been pestered by small, persistent flies. From time to time I remove a glove the better to whack the most irritating ones. A mid-afternoon cuppa delivered to the tractor has been a real treat.

Our evenings are starting to grow cool enough to warrant the first fires of the season. We’ve not made any yet although Jones has been pleased to have the electric blanket back on the bed. Our clocks go back this weekend – a week ahead of the Canadians (and I suppose the US).

On the banking front – as mentioned a few paragraphs back – I nipped into two branches midweek to renew savings deposits. All such deposits now are for fixed terms. The schemes I grew up with of simply putting extra cash into “the savings account” at a variable rate are long since gone. Now one must choose anything between 7 days and several years, with a list of conditions attached. For “no risk” deposits, rates are pitiful.

Most of the time I do such banking on the internet. But as the year-end looms, some banks here offer special 60 or 90-day deposits at much better than usual rates (not that even these cover inflation after the tax bite). The reason for this generosity, I gathered from a banker, is to flatter the bank’s bottom line ahead of year-end reports – not exactly reassuring. As in many countries, the Portuguese (minority) government guarantees savers’ deposits up to a certain amount. But that’s not saying much – not when it is going through the agonies of trying to pass an austerity budget.

Natasha’s friend, Slavic, joined me for a day’s work, a very useful one in which we completed a host of jobs that have long awaited attention. I gather from him that he works as a builder, with a useful knowledge of house electrics and plumbing. His cementing and rendering skills certainly impressed me.

Among other things we loaded the tractor with a huge pile of firewood to be cut into small sections. One of the branches caught in the fence as we approached the house and the whole load came tumbling off – which accounts for this second picture.

Soup for Friday lunch at that point, followed by a brief siesta. I was wakened by an express train whoosh as a squall hit the house and instantly soaked everything on the lower patio. Not that we’re complaining; rain is rain however it comes and right now it’s welcome. The garden is painfully dry after nearly three weeks of sun- shine. On the other hand, it’s the kind of autumnal weather that most people would die for and we’re well aware of it.

Letter from Espargal: 37 of 2010

This week we find ourselves the reluctant foster parents to two keening kittens. We heard kittens crying as we walked on Thursday afternoon. While I distracted the dogs, Jones went for a peep and found four of them scattered around in the bush. Of mum there was no sign. She went back to leave food for the mother but found it untouched the following morning.

So we ummed and we aaahed. Sadly, unwanted litters are all too common and we suspect that this one had been dumped, as often happens. In the end Jonesy decided that she couldn’t just leave the kittens to die and went back for them. She found just two - cold, tangled in foliage and trapped under a rock. With a tin of enriched milk powder from the vet – 21 euros please – we assumed parental duties, sticking milky teats into their kittens’ squalling mouths and tickling their tummies to make them pee. Other members of our extended household are curious to say the least.

Midweek we celebrated 31 years of marriage with a visit to Faro fair. We go every year although we’re not sure why – as much for a dog-free outing and a tasty supper as for anything on show. Apart from the cars and tractors (in which I’m always interested) and possibly some furniture and clothing, the stalls are packed with glistering tat.

I find them slightly depressing, ditto the blaring music that fills the adjacent fair ground with its whirling dippers and scare-yourself-stupids. Wrist-watches go for 5-euros and clothing (“new collection”) for not much more. In spite of bottom basement prices, few people were buying and stall-holders were looking glum. The food was good, mind you, and watching people watching one another was fun.

A great deal of my time has gone into acquainting myself with my new smart phone. It’s very clever indeed. Configuring it and updating it with contacts has taken hours. Every so often I pause to consult the lengthy manual (which I downloaded). The most fascinating bit is to have the internet and my emails at hand at my bedside overnight and in my pocket during the day.

Until I acquired this phone (an HTC Desire with an Android heart), I’d had bought only Nokia models. As you are probably aware the Finnish company is lagging behind the smart-phone leaders (I see that Apple has recently overtaken Blackberry) and paying a heavy price. It’s scary how a small slip in the high tech stakes can leave such a vast enterprise in trouble.

Also in trouble this week was me when my new MS Office Suite refused to open several important (to me) spreadsheets. I’d been updating these records using a Beta version of MS Office 2010 that runs out at the end of this month. To avoid being caught short I downloaded the least expensive final version of Office 2010, which would have nothing to do with the spreadsheets, nor could I restore them by other means. I suspect the cause of the trouble was the corrupted hard disk that I replaced last month. I had a bad morning as I sought out my most recent uncorrupted back-ups and re-entered the missing data.

Well advised as bloggers are to exercise discretion in reporting the activities of their neighbours, there are things to be said. Our immediate ex pat neighbours, Sarah and David, are basking in the glow of a recent balloon flight in the Alentejo, a sprawling plain that lies beyond the mountains to the north of us.

Catching the balloon meant waiting (some time) for the right weather and then hightailing it northwards at sparrow-fart for a dawn take off. We were not around to witness the event. But the “Just landed, fantastic!” SMS from Sarah spoke for her elation and the pictures speak for themselves. The organisers provided an in-situ picnic at the landing site; i.e. wherever the balloon comes down.

Before I leave Sarah and David, let me report that we trotted over to inspect a wall that they have built to enhance their privacy. (They are great builders and seldom found without a trowel in their hands.) The wall obscures the view of their yard from the new house that has been built next door. It was at Jones’ suggestion that S&D included a number of coloured glass bricks in the wall, and an excellent suggestion it was, as you may judge for yourselves.


Sarah warned us when we went around for dinner not to lean against the structure as the plaster she had just applied to the bricks was still wet. A very practical sort Sarah is.

Still on the theme of neighbours, my tractor was called into use to remove a large quantity of gravel from the common entrance that leads to three houses - belonging to Chico & Dina, Fintan & Pauline and Olly & Marie.

The gravel, it emerged, had been ordered by old Chico as a mark of gratitude for the many favours done to him and Dina by his expat neighbours. It was intended to surface a parking/turning area which Chico had already had levelled in the field beside Fintan’s house – eliminating the need for the complex backing manoeuvre which Fintan has to perform to exit the property.

While I drove the tractor, Olly and Fintan did the shovelling. I would gladly have joined them at the oars were my back not so opposed to it. Not that I shirked! Driving a tractor backwards, while raising and lowering the box, is an underrated activity. Olly noted that the job might have taken less time had I been at the wheel of a larger tractor, a remark that I hastened to convey to Jones (who wasn’t impressed).

The post script to this report is that a day or two later Fintan got trapped in his own gravel and was grateful to be towed out. His SOS call arrived as Jones (the dogs) and I were attending the opening in Benafim of a small monument, constructed by Horatio, to honour a local benefactress.

All the council and parish bigwigs were there in their inevitable black suits, making speeches, uncovering plaques and being videoed for the regional news. Jones scrambled around taking some pictures of her own before retiring with neighbours to the Coral for refreshments.

The owners’ son, young Joey, was disappointed to learn that I wouldn’t be able to join him in a game of pool. Jones was hopeful that we might be able to return for the religious procession later in the day but with the kittens squalling to be fed every two hours and a host of tasks awaiting us, I have my doubts.



P.S. Our neighbours visited us this evening to admire the kittens at feeding time. After peering closely at the little souls, they informed us that the beasties looked more like puppies than kittens. And when we looked more closely we thought they were right. O Lordy! What now?

P.P.S. The following morning - at the sharp end of some emails asking whether we were going blind! Well, we were convinced from the start that they were kittens. And when you believe something, it colours yours perception......okay. No excuses! Will have to visit the vet again to some puppy food...ouch!

Letter from Espargal: 36 of 2010

Some weeks you know that you’ve been running around and pretty busy but you have to think really hard to recall where and why. That’s how things feel. It’s a lovely morning, disturbed only by the occasional bark of the hunters’ guns in the valley below us. The tree tops in the garden beyond the upper patio are waving around lazily in the breeze. In the distance, Benafim lies sleepy and white on the hillside.

The dogs are stretched out in their baskets after a brisk hour’s walk over the far side of Espargal hill. On the walk we admired, as we do each day, the thousands of tiny white flowers that now dot the hillside. Jones, unusually, couldn’t identify them so she looked them up.

Their popular name turns out to be “autumn snowflakes” (Leucojum autumnale) and that’s pretty well what they look like. They are glorious – and bring to mind the line from Gray’s elegy: “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” Here, at least, their sweetness is not wasted.

On to more mundane things; Steve and Luis arrived yesterday, as promised, to finish the fence – as much of it as can be finished until we are able to purchase the wedge of land beside us that juts into our property. They installed a gate beside the cisterna, intended to give us easy access to Banco’s Broadwalk, the pedestrian right-of-way that runs along the bottom of garden. They have put in gates at the fence’s other extremities as well so that we can get in or out at any of the paths that border the property.

Friday I spent some time helping friends to renew their computer’s anti-virus program before accompanying them to Faro beach for lunch at a favourite fish restaurant. We sit on the patio, just a few feet from the (now largely empty) dunes, with the dogs under the table.

In fact, it’s been am unusually sociable week, with meals out on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It’s fortunate that in these parts such outings are generally as inexpensive as they are enjoyable.

Thursday brought an early morning visit to the coastal town of Albufeira to tie up some legal business. Albufeira, when we first visited it 20 years ago, was a pretty fishing port that was starting to attract tourists. These days it’s a maze of developments, highways and traffic circles – not our scene at all. Happily, we were following friends who knew their way around.

SORRY, NO PICS OF SLAVIC

Wednesday I spent burning off much of the clippings and cuttings that had been piling up all summer. These more than doubled in size as a result of the cutting back that Steve and Luis had to do to clear a path for the fence. Helping me with this task I had Slavic, a (Ukrainian) friend of Natasha. The leafier branches are mulched and the heavier wood set aside to be chain-sawed into useful lengths. But that still leaves piles of thorn bushes and impossibly tangled wild olive branches to be burned. There’s no other way of dealing with them.

Tuesday I joined Nelson to finish the house painting that had been interrupted by the weekend rains. The upper part of the house needed a second coat. To apply this Nelson climbed the ladder with a roller attached to a long extension pole. I remained below to take the pole from him and dip the roller in the paint before passing it back up. The system worked well. We chatted away as we worked, mainly polishing our Portuguese (me) and English (him). As a result of our efforts the house looks superb. Long may it stay that way.

We did have one hitch when an additional 15-litre can of paint that I ordered turned out to be the wrong colour – the fault of the supplier who had mis-keyed the colour code into the mixing machine. He apologised when we took the can back and replaced it. How often did that happen, I inquired. Not often, he replied; it was only the second time in some years. It was an expensive slip nevertheless - good paint costs a whack.

Monday brought my first English lesson of the new academic year. There was a good turn-out, along with a pleasing mixture of new and old faces. The class includes (once again) the sister of the state president, a woman who used to teach at a school in Loule. The president himself, Anibal Cavaco Silva, is expected to run for a second 5-year term when elections for the office are held in January. Portugal has an unusual political setup. There’s no upper house of parliament and the president, who is semi-executive, exercises a revising function.

After much researching I have acquired a new phone, a widely-recommended touch-screen model made by HTC. (I was not familiar with the manufacturer but a little googling indicates that it’s a serious player in the mobile market.) “What was wrong with your old phone?” inquired Jones, who doesn’t understand that there are more reasons for getting a new phone than replacing a broken one.

Anyhow, it’s a very clever phone indeed. I boldly transferred my chip across to the new phone only to transfer it back when I found myself completely out of my depth. Since then I’ve spent hours reading up on the technology and getting to know the thing. It’s one of these multi-purpose machines that maps, emails, internets and generally runs your life if you give it half a chance. I’m very pleased with it and will be more pleased still when I get to understand how the rest of it works.

We have acquired a wooden chest and two (Windsor style) wooden arm chairs from neighbours who are down-sizing. All three items sit on the lower front patio, the chest holding gloves, clippers and doggy-items and the chairs us. I find them really comfortable although Jones is in two minds about the fit of old-style chairs into a new-style setting. The (solidly-built) chest replaces a kit item that we bought a while back but which was not up to the job. It turned out to be made of mdf and especially didn’t like being sat upon. In fact it didn’t much like anything apart from being looked at.

Still on a wooden theme, I have created a large new shelf for Jones in the capacious pantry cupboard to take some of the kitchen items that will have to surrender their current lodgings to the dish- washer next month. Jones does not have a particularly high regard for my handyman skills, possibly because I do not exercise them as frequently or skilfully as she might wish. So I was particularly careful to measure the shelf exactly and to get the supports level.

BORROWING POMEGRAN- ATES

It looks good and will do the job. Jones has pronounced herself pleased with it (as well she might). If I haven't spent much time telling you what Jones has been doing, it's because she has as ever been oiling the Valapena machinery which would otherwise long since have ground to a halt.

Letter from Espargal: 35 of 2010

Here is the news.

A damp and cloudy Sunday evening is fast becoming a damp and cloudy Sunday night. The three cats have just had their second cat-biscuit supper (or it may be their third). The dogs are licking themselves dry in their baskets after a trudge through the mud. More accurately, they romped around in the wet bush as merrily as ever (and were toweled down at the door). It was Jones and I who squelched our way after them in the wake of the heavy afternoon downpours, treading with care and scraping glugs of mud from our boots on every suitable rock.

Steve and Luis, who had hoped to complete the fence and gates, have gone home. They had the satisfaction of having finished the fence and installing two of the four gates – albeit with the frustration of having to return later to install the other two. Although they worked through the showers they were defeated by the rain, which simply poured down. To console them, I invited them around to the front patio where I paid them for their troubles and poured comforting shots of good whisky. Jones brought tea and biscuits and we chatted pleasantly as the waters spattered off the cobbles around us.

I am now seated at the computer with an inch of Ardbeg in a small glass beside me for inspiration. Jones is downstairs with a baggy and coke. And thereby hangs a tale.

Jones has made several visits this past week at the home of Leonhilda, a Portuguese neighbour. The rear of Leonhilda’s house contains a capacious wine cellar. To this, Leonhilda, her family and friends had brought as much of the grape harvest as it could contain. (Virtually everybody around here has a vineyard.)

The first light pressing of grapes went into one barrel and a subsequent heavier pressing into a second, along with a measure of liquor to encourage fermentation. The process left a soggy heap of husks – skins and pips – known as bagaço, which was loaded into large plastic sacks.

On Wednesday evening, after Natasha had finished cleaning, we repaired around to Leonhilda’s house to fetch the sacks. They were seriously heavy. We struggled to lift them into the boot of the car. Once it was done, Leonhilda and I took our seats in front while Jones and Natasha squeezed in beside the dogs at the back.

Natasha we dropped off in Loule before continuing on to the outskirts of Sao Bras where, we had been informed, one could trade the bagaço in for a quantity of bagaceira, the liquor distilled from the husks. Our informants had spoken truly.

Up a narrow lane off the main road we came across the sprawling premises of Pecoliva, where we were directed to scales on which to offload our cargo. I can’t tell you what our bagaço weighed but I can tell you that it qualified us for 8 litres of bagaceira. Leonhilda had brought along several empty 5-litre plastic water bottles into which the liquor was decanted from a vat.

As Jonesy is rather fond of baggy (and I’m partial to it myself), I ordered another 5 litres to take home with us. This cost me 13 euros – which works out at 2.6 euros a litre. By the time such liquor makes its way into the shops, it retails at about 12 euros a litre, giving one a good idea of the mark-up that such things are subject to for no purpose other than enriching the middlemen.

As we were busy with our baggy, other clients were arriving with sacks of olives and dried figs. A man who introduced himself as a friend of the owner showed us round. The dried figs were being traded for fig liquor (which, as we can testify, is quite an acceptable tipple) and the olives for olive oil.

Our guide took us on a tour of the premises. One building housed the huge olive oil vats. Behind another was a mountain of olive husks, a material that was dried and turned into fuel to fire the distillery. During the harvest, he informed us, the place ran day and night.

Great machines crushed and steamed the products being fed into them at one end while, at the other, streams of bagaceira and olive oil spurted out. It was a fascinating tour – a glimpse into a world of which we were vaguely aware but had never observed.

What else?

Well, there’s the painting of the house! It’s nearly done. We – that’s Nelson and I – might have completed it on Thursday afternoon but we hesitated in the face of the wet weather forecast. A lunchtime shower convinced us that we should call a halt. As it happened, the shower blew away and the weather remained dry until Friday afternoon when a depression arrived from the Atlantic and soaked the country. With luck, the sun will be back early next week and we’ll finish the job.

Friday night we had planned to go to a music recital with neighbours but the weather was truly awful and I wasn’t enthused. To be honest, the recital (bassoon and harpsichord) wouldn’t have enthused me in any weather. Jones and the neighbours went along with my suggestion that we take ourselves to supper at the Parrot in Salir instead, which we did. (The Parrot – properly the Papagaio Dourado - is one of several favourite haunts where 12 euros buys one an excellent supper.)

Saturday we drove to Tavira, a lovely old harbour town (full of Roman remains) about an hour east of us. Our mission was to attend a bazaar being held to support a charity that takes in stray animals and tries to find homes for them. Portugal, sadly, has a glut of ribby strays that haunt the streets and the countryside. We found the bazaar easily enough but had more difficulty finding anything useful to purchase. I came away with a haul of jams and chutneys and Jones with some cards.

From Tavira we repaired to nearby Olhao, another old port town. We had hoped to take a ferry from the harbour to the island of Armona – visible a few miles away – where we were interested in assessing some holiday accommodation. In the event, we found the winter ferry timetable less than helpful and, not wishing to pay 40 euros to hire water taxis, we went to look at the new Ria shopping centre in the town instead.

There, after a bite of lunch, Jones, much out of character, was enticed (by huge discounts) into a clothing store from which she emerged with new trousers, blouse and jersey along with a receipt for 25 euros – truly a bargain.

Returning to my theme, I have just noted our rainfall for the last 24 hours – 21 mm, the better part of an inch – giving us more than 2 inches for the weekend. It is the first serious rain of the season. However inconvenient to painters and fencers, the rain is welcome. The Algarve has been painfully dry, burned brown by the searing heat of summer.

AUTUMN CROCUS

Over the next few days a miracle of renewal will take place. A carpet of green shoots will emerge from the earth, at first barely visible. In a week the carpet will be ankle high. By the end of the month the region will wear its bright green autumn colours. Jones, instead of watering, will start weeding again.