Letter from Espargal: 47 of 2010

The year is nearly done. It's going out not with a bang or a whimper but a splash. By 13.30 on 31 Dec, 1098 mms of rain had fallen on Valapena in 2010, beating the record 1077 mms that fell on the Quinta in 1996. That's above waist-high - a lot of rain. Still, the weather has not been too unkind. It dried up for a couple of days after Christmas when our guests, Llewellyn and Lucia, had booked a holiday cottage on the island of Armona, just off the port of Olhao, an hour away up the coast.

Jones went along with them for a brief stay while I managed the household. Visitors park near the jetty in Olhao and take a 20-minute ride on a ferry to the island. There are no roads on Armona. The only vehicle to be seen is a beach sweeper. The beach is what Armona is all about. One can pull one's luggage along the concrete path that straddles the island or simply stroll along the sands.

It was a 15 minute hike from the jetty to the rental cottage, which won our guests' approval. Of neat houses there are several score, perhaps a couple of hundred, grouped closely together. Armona is small. Not many people were around just after Christmas and only one or two the several restaurants were open, plus the island's single shop. For anything else, one has to repair to the mainland.

Jonesy and guests had some welcome sunshine on the day they arrived; I lent Llewellyn my connect pen to give him an internet link during duller moments. He's a high tech operative and spent some time introducing me enthusiastically to a few of the "apps" downloadable to the HTC smartphones that we possess in common. His already groans with downloads - dictionaries, radio-links, a compass and much more.

Jonesy spent just the night at the cottage. I drove to Olhao to fetch her the following afternoon. She thoroughly approved of everything except the mode of transport over some shallows during a walk along the beach. We'd love to spend a little more time at holiday locations such as Armona - if only we can work out what to do with the zoo while we're away. Armona pictures are courtesy of Llewellyn.

Back at the zoo, the puppies had taken up most of my time. They're not a breath of fresh air; they're a gale - 5 kilos plus each of destructive energy. I spent an hour carefully cleaning their patio in preparation for my wife's return, only to find that they'd celebrated by dragging down a pot-plant from a table and scattering its moist contents everywhere. The plant itself had vanished.


Every object in view is tested to destruction. Anything that can be ripped to pieces, is. An old basket is steadily disintegrating and their mattress is barely resisting the attacks on its fabric. They had their first visit to the vet mid-week and were very well behaved, apart from being sick in the car. We have taken to letting them run free with the other dogs. So far, so good.


The brothers, Raymond and Bobby, treat them good- humouredly, although Raymond is keen to join their games and his big paws tend to knock them flat - prompting loud squeals. Ono and Prickles prefer to keep their distance. There is much lip-curling as the pups exceed the bounds of canine decorum but that's only to be expected.

The big event of the week was the arrival of the giant pump-truck and the supporting cement truck to complete the repairs to the lower fossa. The pump truck maestro had visited us earlier in the week to make sure that the truck had room to put out its massive anchors and that it could reach the forty metres to the further end of the fossa.

Happily it could, because the alternative, using a cement mixer, would have been lengthy and laborious in the extreme. Once the driver had secured a spot and anchored the truck, he set about unfolding the vast meccano of the pump. It was like watching some humongous articulated snake slowly unwrapping itself. Section by section, the truck lifted its delivery system into the sky and then lowered the further end over the fossa where Horacio and his men were waiting with a vibrator.

That's the flexible pipe at the end of the pump that you can see dangling out of the sky.

It was at that point that I had to make my excuses and go off to fetch Jones. So I didn't see the concrete actually being pumped in. But I understand that all went to plan. It took six cubic metres of the stuff to fill the space between our leaky fossa and the shuttering that Horacio's men had spent days erecting.

They needed the better part of a day to dismantle it again. The fossa is most unlikely ever to leak again, although, as I pointed Horacio, the repair has created a problem for me. Until now, the fossa has emptied itself; from now on, I shall have to have to attend to the emptying myself.

Then there was Christmas. I regret that I'm a Christmas spoilsport, against my will, because the last thing that I want to do is to dampen other people's celebrations. I find it hard to come to terms with the raw commercial- ization of what was once a special event for me - 10 years in the monks leaves its scars. That's by the by.

My wife and our guests had taken great trouble to make the day a special one - and I thank them. Gifts were unwrapped over brunch and much oohed and aahed over. Llewellyn and Lucia committed themselves to prepare Christ- mas dinner and did magnifi- cently. Our friends and former neighbours from Cruz da Assumada, David and Dagmar, completed the dinner table.

Let me take leave of the year beside this picture of sunset over Armona. It's hard to know what chance of fortune led us here to Espargal but we remain daily grateful for it. For all life's ups and downs, we have been blessed with good- neighbourliness and generosity beyond all expectation. As 2011 rolls into town, I pray it may treat us all gently.

Letter from Espargal: 46 of 2010

I haven't much to say and I shall try to let the pictures say most of what I have. It has been wet and it promises to be wetter before the old year bows out. The valley is partially flooded. Fortunately, the dogs don't mind.






The pups have taken to walks with a fierce energy that belies their size. Trying to walk the pair of them is demanding. They're into bushes and behind rocks in an instant. The rest of the zoo (cats excluded) is getting used to having them around, which helps a lot.





Llewellyn and Lucia braved the icy roads of the English Midlands to reach Birmingham airport on time, which was more than the baggage handlers did. Even so, the two Ls made it down - albeit with a few hours' delay. The first stop was the Electrico on Faro beach.





Loule's Christmas lights are always worth seeing. Llewellyn took this fine picture, one night after supper at O Manel, along with a few others that there isn't room for.



Well, I suppose that I could squeeze one more in.














This also comes from his camera. It shows the stony hills that we wander for an hour most mornings. It also shows Jones marching up them.





And if you wanted to see another shot of those hills, well here you are. They are fine hills, best avoided only on Sundays and Thursdays when the hunters swarm over them.


Not everybody gets to spend time wandering the hills. Here are Helder and Isenho, working hard on Christmas Eve to complete the shuttering around the bottom fossa before the cement trucks arrive next week.

This is our official Christmas picture, snapped by Llewellyn. Don't mind the boots. It's warts and all. Yes, that's us. And if you look carefully, you'll be able to count six dogs. Several of them are available at a discount. Don't hesitate to get in touch.

Happy Christmas

Letter from Espargal: 45 of 2010

Saturday: This is the state of play:

The day has been wet; about an inch of rain has fallen. Thunder is rolling around the distant hills. Dawn came late and dusk came early. The solstice must be right around the corner.

The animals are snoozing around the fire, except for the pups, which have been warring noisily in their enclosure on the patio.


Jones has taken some food down to the stray dog that lives in the field and is now brewing up soup for supper. (She's been making wondrous soups from Ermenio's donated pumpkins.)

This morning we did the shopping: this afternoon we lunched with friends at the Folclore in Alte, very pleasantly, I might add. The restaurant’s reserve white is a treat.

On the telly behind me Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn have blown up the Guns of Navarone for the umpteenth time. If those names mean nothing to you, you’re too young.

Pause here for a head-scratch. That was the easy bit. What to say next? I am taken back to the thank-you letters that my mother required me to write as a child for the birthday 10-shilling & 1-pound notes that arrived from kindly relatives. Sometimes even a fiver!

“Dear aunt (or grandpa),” I would start. “Thank you very much for the money you sent me…..” After that, the composition was a struggle. “Is this enough?” I would inquire of mother after managing a spidery sentence or two. It seldom was. Mother would suggest topics of likely interest to the generous relative. I couldn’t see the point. The punishment was hardly worth the reward.

Back to the present. As ever, one way and another we’ve been pretty busy – pressed to stay up, in fact. I’m quite good at shrugging off till tomorrow things that don’t get done today. Jones is a more driven soul.

She says she feels as though she can’t keep her head above water. I tell her to cross some stuff off her list but she feels she can’t. Mainly it’s those pups that have kept her so tied up – and me for that matter. Life would be much easier if we were able to keep them outside but neither the season nor the weather has been cooperative.

I’m not going to go on about the pups but I should tell you that they’re growing up fast. They’re a handful – smart, lively and quick, with very sharp teeth. We had some interest in the male from a couple but they were unsure about how big he would grow and we were unsure that we wanted to separate them. So it looks as though they will stay. We’re thinking of calling the male Russ T Nale and his sister, Mary M Aluca. We agreed that Barbara should give them their first name and I the rest.

The Bijou Ensuite is coming along. Idalecio has finished tiling the mini-bathroom and we’re now awaiting the delivery of the floor tiles before installing the utensils. The fossa man dropped in mid-week and advised us on the best tank for our purposes. It should arrive early in the new year. With luck the electrician should be here sooner. Idalecio and I spent the better part of two days, first finishing off the timber work and then putting up a ceiling acceptable to Jones.

To explain - Casa Nada already had a ceiling, panels of blue insulation resting on eucalyptus beams and carrying the roof. The panels are a bit discoloured and while they perform a valuable function, they don’t look great. Jones was all for (having us attach) tongue and groove wooden strips below the beams. I was against it as there is hardly room to stand on the mezzanine platform and we’d have lost another six inches by doing so.

We compromised by hiding the blue insulation with thin black panels that Idalecio supplies with his under-floor heating. They look good. Well, I think so and Jones feels she can live with them.

From a hardware store – we’ve made numerous trips to hardware stores - I bought (121) glass bricks. We barely fitted them into the car. Idalecio is now using them to create a partition in the adjacent room.

This will separate a basic kitchen for the Bijou Ensuite on one side from the tractor and implements on the other. That, at least, is the idea.

Ahead of us we have a mini-pause from some of our duties in the run-up to Christmas. This is usefully timed as (Barbara’s brother) Llewellyn and Lucia are due down on Tuesday. We hope that they make it.

You will be aware that Britain is semi-paralysed by snow and ice. We have been hearing the most miserable tales from bleary-eyed going-nowhere passengers at its congested airports. The Brits do not sound grateful for the white Christmas they were dreaming of. Here in the Algarve, although overnight temps sink deep into single figures and the rain is a pain, we do not complain.

Hard as I find to believe it, 2011 signals the start of our ninth year in Espargal. It’s the best place I have ever lived. The lovely environment and a pleasant community counts for a lot. So, of course, does relative financial security and good health. My day starts off with coffee and toast on my bedside table, which also helps. (“Do you get coffee and toast in bed every morning?” asked one incredulous female visitor. “No,” I replied. “Sometimes it’s tea and toast!” That shut her up. Well, it’s a man’s world, isn’t it?)

It’s nice to turn over and get a little more sleep. I don’t make a fuss if I can’t because big dog is nuzzling me under the duvet to get up and go walking. As you should be aware, every day has to begin and end with a walk. How we are ever going to manage this with six dogs I can’t imagine.

I hope that we are shortly able to purchase a piece of land that juts into ours, which will permit us to complete several hundred metres of fence around the property. That will give the dogs a couple of secure acres to run in.

Like many of my fellows I have to empathise with the Sugarplum fairy in the New York City Ballet who “looked as if she’d eaten one sugarplum too many”. (You must be aware of the controversy caused by critic, Alastair Macauley’s acerbic pen.) Jones continues well and enviously slim, even if she finds her plate too full and sometimes disapproves of the sexagenarian face that frowns at her from the mirror. She often complains that I make her out to be an eccentric. But she declines to write blogs in her defence. And, anyhow, you know her well enough to judge for yourself.

There we are. We haven’t sent out Christmas cards. But we shall write and thank all the lovely people who have sent them to us, whether in the post or via email. We hope that Christmas 2010 brings you all the blessings and cheer that you might hope for.

Letter from Espargal: 44 of 2010

Although I do my level best to put off Christmas festivities until at least December 24, the intrusion of Christmas carols into the men’s toilets at shopping centres leaves me in no doubt that the dreaded season is upon us once more. Since last I wrote to you I have relieved myself to the strains of (among others) COME ALL YE FAITHFUL and I’M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS, cursing heartily all the while, somewhat to the puzzlement of my fellow peers.

It really offends me that carols have been hijacked by retailers as a marketing tool. I now clutch my wallet meanly and shudder every time I hear one. Carols have infested even the huge hardware store, Leroy Merlin, where we have spent considerable sums this past week obtaining many of the bits and pieces required for the completion of the Bijou Ensuite, Jones’s (name for her) pad in Casa Nada.

Idalecio and I have been hard at work for several days in the same. As you may see for yourselves, we have completed the staircase that leads from the ground floor to the mezzanine platform. A very fine staircase it is too, as it should be considering the price of its mahogany steps (recommended by the workshop).

I can’t tell you how many calculations these stairs involved. What I can tell you is that creating wooden stairs requires three measurements for each tread if one is to ascend in safety. Each has to be levelled along its length and its breadth as well as being aligned with each of the steps above and below it. As we discovered during the construction, treads are inhabited by malevolent spirits that upset the previous measurement each time one tries to take a subsequent measurement. That we managed to construct such fine stairs in spite of these spirits is commendable.

However, the spirits did strike gleefully back. It was only when we reached the near top of the stairs did we realise that we were one tread short (I’d ordered 9 and allowed for 10) and had to go shame-faced back to the carpenter to request another; not that the carpenter minded. All that is now history and the stairs bear testimony to our skills and our efforts. Idalecio has been hard at work too in the mini-bathroom under the stairs, creating the walls, floor and drains. We have already acquired a loo and basin to grace this room in due course.

On the fossa front there has been no progress. The delay is due mainly to the rain that poured down for much of the week, muddying the fields, sweeping detritus across the roads, swelling the river and swamping parts of the valley. It is also due to the builder’s transfer of his team temporarily to a more urgent task (with, I ought to add, our blessing).

I did make some concessions to the Christmas season by taking Jones to Loule’s festive fair, an event at which we joined our neighbours. As usual, we had to navigate our way around the local suits, who were blocking the aisles as they admired the vendors’ handiwork and applauded the children’s choir for the TV cameras.

With few exceptions the items on sale bore a close resemblance to those we’d viewed last year and the year before. That didn’t stop us from acquiring a few. Jones patronised the nursery stall and Kenny’s (home-made) soap stall while I concentrated on the chocolates.

You would hold me to account if I did not bring you up to date on the puppies – or should I say the little dogs – for they are rapidly growing up. They are now seven weeks old and very lively, anxious to explore the world around them. They resent their confinement to the end of the patio and spend a lot of time squeaking to be allowed out of their enclosure. We let them run free as often as we get a chance. They then tear around the patio or engage in noisy tussles on the dogs’ mattress, their favourite place.

I take the other dogs two at a time on to the divan at the end of the patio to acclimatise them to the puppies’ presence. This is no easy task. The puppies try to scramble up on to the divan (which they can’t quite manage yet) while the older dogs gaze malevolently down at them, curling their lips in unmistakeable warning.

Jones has dug two small collars out of our dogs’ box, which I am about to fasten on to the pups. The idea is that we should take them outside to do their business each time we feed them (as set out in Jones’s puppy bible). In the meanwhile we continue to mop up litres of puppy pee and scoop up mounds of puppy poo each day. We have tried to take the pups up to an outside run as often as the sun shines which, this past week, hasn’t been very often at all.

Donations of newspapers from neighbours are gratefully received. Jones keeps a roll of toilet paper handy for various ablutions. It’s a favourite toy of the pups, which do their best to drag it off the chairs on which she places it for safety.

If Jones didn’t have enough to do caring for her present brood, she has also adopted a stray that’s been haunting a field in the village for several weeks. Each afternoon, after our walk, she slips down the road with a bag of dog-food to put out for the animal. (Jones quotes the French dramatist, Jean Anouilh: "There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me from being happy.")

PUPPY LOVE

At Loule fair we confided to the organiser of an animal charity which we support that we were now caring for six dogs (plus) at home. She knew the feeling, she replied; she was looking after 20 as well as managing the charity kennels. No thank you!