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 TIMEI 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.
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