Letter from Espargal: 13 of 2011

This week has been pretty special. On Tuesday we became the owners of land that we have coveted ever since our arrival. It’s an adjacent plot that juts deep into our own property. The owners, a young brother and sister, have been as keen to sell as we were to buy but they’ve had to wait until the younger sibling attained her majority.

At 10.30 we gathered in Loule at the offices of the notary, the official who has to countenance all such transactions. She has on her computer a draft of the sale agreement, supplied by one of the lawyers, which she runs through word by word, checking numerous documents and making any amendments as she goes. The text is cast up on a large screen for all to see.

If she’s happy, the buyers pass over the cheques, everybody signs and you’re done – apart, that is, from paying the notary’s fee and, while you’re about it, the registration fee. We left with a deep sense of satisfaction.

For years we’ve traversed the plot, knowing that it belonged to others. We’re still finding it hard to believe that at last it’s ours.

And we’ve been pretty busy working on it ever since. Nelson (our occasional labourer), with a little help from myself, has been clearing the dense undergrowth, preparing a path for the team that’s due to start the fencing early next week. The jungle was almost impenetrable, having lain untouched for the best part of 50 years or more. So his task has been slow and prickly. We have burned off many of the useless cuttings, too insubstantial for firewood and two awkward for the mulcher.

At the same time, our neighbour, Idalecio, decided to replaster our side of what has now become our common wall. The previous (very old) plaster served to create a base for a new right of way that we are creating alongside the wall (from the upper to the lower village). This will replace the current right of way, which runs right through the middle of the newly-acquired property.

This new route is rather shorter and steeper. To facilitate the passage of its users, I asked Idalecio to build a series of steps in the steepest sections. This he did with his customary despatch and backup from Nelson, who scrambled up and down the path bearing buckets of fresh concrete. (As various assistants have discovered, Idalecio’s appetite for fresh concrete is vast.)

Because the pair of them had finished by lunchtime, we spent the afternoon improving the exit from the top corner of our existing property. This comprised a series of steep, uneven steps on which the dogs congregated as we set out on a walk, crowding the gate. Idalecio levelled the steps and built a platform just inside the gate on which the dogs could stand without blocking the exit.

Nelson’s part was to supply Idalecio with rocks (that we’d collected nearby) and numerous buckets of concrete. My part was to back the tractor up 200 metres of bumpy track with loads of concrete from the mixer at the bottom of the property.

That, I must tell you, is harder work than it sounds as the tractor lurches madly over the rocks and threatens to spill its load. Idalecio’s bitch, Serpa, (mother of our two big dogs) helped by imprinting her paws in the freshly plastered steps. At least half a dozen of them bear her signature.

We had to leave Idalecio and Nelson at it while we took ourselves off for our annual check-up with the dermatologist in Faro. Inevitably we returned, much squirted with liquid nitrogen for our youthful sins in the sun.

This treatment had to be reported, together with various other consultations, during the lengthy phone conversation about our medical condition that always precedes the taking out of our annual travel insurance. I have been careful to take out such insurance ever since an acquaintance of ours inadvertently bankrupted himself by having an uninsured stroke during a visit to the US. Until last year, the medical premium was merely expensive. But it seems that crossing the 65 threshold is a signal to the insurance company to double the premiums.

We had been puzzled by discovering that somebody in Florida had made several attempts to call us; we don’t know anybody in Florida. Several websites, offering phone-tracing services, pointed us to a town in the state but wouldn’t identify the actual caller unless I paid them, which I declined to do.

The mystery solved itself one morning when a gentleman with a pleasant American accent phoned – from Florida, he said - representing an upstanding company (we could check it on the internet) with a bargain offer of some kind. I asked him if he would be sweet enough to post the details over to us and promised to read them with interest. Boiler-room cold-calling is nothing new but trans-Atlantic is ridiculous.

And while we’re on scams – I have received a couple of emails advising me that my Facebook password has been reset as requested, and directing me to confirm the new password at a help-site. Since I cancelled my trial Facebook account years ago, I was doubly (and rightly) suspicious. Beware Facebookers! It’s a virus.

My beloved HTC smartphone is showing a worrying reluctance to open documents attached to emails. When I persisted with my attempts, it absolutely froze - and I had to remove and then replace the battery to give it the kiss of life. Mr Google indicated that the problem was not uncommon. Given that smartphones are really just computers with a phone facility, I guess the occasional hiccup is to be expected.

MIKE & IDALECIO

We have had a most sociable week. Monday we enjoyed our usual lunch with May. Tuesday we went to supper with our friends, Mike and Lyn, who are staying with Idalecio. Wednesday we celebrated Olly’s birthday. Thursday’s gone blank. And today (Friday) we lunched at the Coral, sitting out in the sun on the patio.

I ordered Brigitte’s truly excellent tuna steak, wondering as I did so whether I’d brought enough cash to pay for lunch. Faced with the bill, I pleaded poverty, pointing to my much-patched jeans as proof of my indigence.

“Trade in your tractor,” was the proprietor’s unsympathetic response.

“I’d rather trade in my wife,” I told him. This produced a great roar of laughter as, unbeknown to me, Barbara had entered directly behind me.
O well, some you win and some you lose!