Letter from Espargal: 5 of 2011

Quite a lot of stuff has happened this week one way and another; I’m talking about Espargal rather than Egypt. On Monday afternoon, after my English class (inevitably concentrating on the Middle East) I dropped in at the offices of the architect & surveyor who had come around to assess the value of the plot we want to purchase.

FENCE BORDERING THE PROPERTY

The valuers ran through the 6 page document that they had prepared, explaining the basis of their assessment, before coming to the bottom line. That amounted to quite a lot of money but not as much as I feared it might be, so I emerged from their offices with a sense of relief.

LOTS OF WORK AHEAD

The plot is divided into two unequal parts, each of which belongs jointly to two people. Midweek, all the parties concerned (and the neighbours) converged on the property, either to place the necessary stone markers at its borders or to ensure that these were correctly sited. Two of the owners, cousins who live in the village, accepted their valuation and agreed to sell us their part for the amount specified. The other pair, a young brother and sister, were evidently disappointed, having been led some years earlier to expect more.

There was much whispered conversation among family members before the spokesman came to ask whether we’d be willing to raise the price a little. We were. The sum agreed, hands were shook all round and the matter is now in the hands of the lawyers. We afterwards spent an hour with ours, who explained to us the oddities and complexities of the deal; these will push back the completion by several weeks. But we are confident that it will go ahead and delighted at the prospect. Ever since our arrival here nearly a decade ago, we have wished to acquire the land, which juts into the heart of our property.

While this was happening, Ersenio and Aurelio continued to work their way steadily from one end of the garden to the other, laying the pipe that will link Casa Nada to the distant fossa. It was a huge job – first to dig the trench, then to install the pipe, and finally to fill the trench in once again. Not only do they do a meticulous job, they take care not to damage the garden and to leave the place in the same order that they found it. Steps and beds are restored and debris is carted away. The only sign of their labours is the cement repairs.

The plumbing done, they set about laying a concrete floor in the old stone shed beside Casa Nada – intended to provide shelter for the dogs - before hanging the gates that Fintan was kind enough to give us (albeit at my suggestion) since they were just rusting up against his wall.

Hanging gates is no easy task. It took the workers several hours to get them right. The wretched expanding bolts either refused to expand or vanished into the reinforced concrete pillars. But right they now are – and after a little rubbing down and painting they will look very handsome indeed. I took Fintan around to admire the gates when he popped up to bring Jonesy a sympathy card and some treats.

That’s another story. The heavy mahogany treads for the Casa Nada stairs had become somewhat dusty and dirty with use, which upset my wife. We tried sanding them down – to little effect. As one of our neighbours, Mike Brown, is a hobby carpenter with a well-equipped workshop, we wondered whether he might sand them down for us and give them a protective coating. He agreed. A few days later we picked them up in pristine condition (them, not us).

To get at the shopping heaped up behind the treads, I took the latter from the boot and laid them one at a time on the front patio table. (My neighbour, David, earlier picked up 5 in an impressive show of strength but his back is in better shape than mine.)

Jonesy decided to take the treads up to Casa Nada, but en route she let one slip and put out a foot to save it. This was a bad mistake. Two of her toes have ballooned up in protest and the foot itself is swollen. She may yet need a medical examination that she is not keen to have.

For the first time in years she has been forced to sit at home while I take out the pups that can generally be seen hauling her across the fields.

Pause there to mix myself a good-night magnesium drink in the hope that the leg-cramps which have tormented me these several nights past will leave me in peace. I have been almost tempted to stop drinking red wine at supper.

BIG DOG

Cramps aside, one is also liable to be woken either by big dog who has popped into the bedroom to say he needs to go out for a pee - or by small dog who has just come upstairs to find the cat occupying his favourite chair in the study. Prickles is very single-minded and his whining is quite impossible to ignore. The only solution is to clamber out of bed and move the cat. It’s a good thing we’re fond of animals.

NEW PATH DOWN TO THE FOSSA

We discovered last weekend, when Jones tried to phone her sister in Cape Town, that the landline was out of order – and probably had been for several days. Cunningly, the phone continued to pretend that it was working, going through the motions of dialling out and giving a ringing tone to anyone who called in. Sorry if you tried to reach us. We really had no idea.

MID-WALK WATERING HOLE

A helpful PT technician came around to sort it out. After restoring the line, he spent 15 minutes re-establishing the link between the upstairs and downstairs phone sockets (which had been knocked out by his unhelpful colleague who had earlier changed us over from an ISDN to an analogue service). After testing the line, the man declared that our phone was noisy but said he could probably get us a new one. True to his word, he reappeared one afternoon with a smart new phone and took the trouble to install it. Wish there were more like him!

WALKING WOUNDED

With the phone- line up and running again, we visited the PT office in Loule in a bid to restore my broadband connection. A most pleasant young woman (who, it emerged, lived just down the road) spent 45 minutes going through the bureaucratic motions before discovering that there was a hitch, and promising to let us know as soon as it had been resolved. In the meanwhile, my Vodafone connect pen continues to work overtime. (A second visit to the office has proved equally futile.)

I note with alarm, apropos of nothing, that Malawian legislators are making it a criminal offence to pass wind in public. What, I asked Jones, is her understanding of “public”. As a precaution I have decided, with regret, to remove Malawi from the itinerary of the first-class around-the-world trip that I plan to take as soon as we’ve won the lottery.