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 SLAVICWednesday 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- ATESIt 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.
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