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.
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