Letter from Espargal: 14 of 2011

LAVENDER WITH BEE

This week a vexing wind blew, Portugal asked for a bailout, Sergio installed the bathroom door in the Bijou Ensuite, tolls on the local freeway were postponed, I picked wild beans and we tried in vain to obtain our EU health cards.

Of these easily the hardest to deal with was the wind. It howled relentlessly around the house, toppled tables, stole hats, thrashed the trees, spooked the cats, upset the dogs, and left us restless and ill at ease.

WOODCOCK ORCHID

Even so, we got on with life. On Monday we reported to our local health centre on stage two of our mission to obtain European Health Insurance cards. (I shall spare you the whys and wherefores!) We’d accomplished stage one - getting a letter from UK authorities that we had to hand in here.

MIRROR ORCHID

With some difficulty we found the appropriate desk – unattended. Large signs calling for silence were ignored by the impatient throng that heaved around us. The single clerk tapping away on her computer made it clear that she resented inquiries. Just as we were about to flee the scene, an attendant arrived, peered at our papers and advised us to take them to the Social Security Centre instead.

YELLOW BEE ORCHID

We left the task for another day. More urgent was a visit to the travel insurance agent in order to beat the deadline for a renewal discount. The agent confirmed that we’d reached an age (66) at which the associated health premiums literally doubled. Lacking any means to grow younger and still wishing to travel, I winced, winged and paid up. But I have a sense of being wronged and I’m resentful.

POPPIES

Tuesday morning the fencers arrived to mark out the posts. This they did with the aid of a bucket of white powder that got dropped messily a couple of times in the course of the exercise, sending up plumes of dust. The fencers are to complete the green chain-link perimeter fence (that Jonesy so dislikes) and to move the interior sheep-fencing (that I so dislike). The latter is intended to keep the dogs within an area close to the house. We greatly look forward to the day when we can let them run free securely within the property.

HAVEN'T A CLUE

Our house-sitters, due down a month today, should find the fence a great asset. I warned Natasha midweek that we would again be away for much of May and a bit of June. She too was contemplating a holiday this year, her first, she informed me. She’d received an interim court judgement awarding her sole custody of her son, which means that she can take him back to Russia to meet the family. (Until now she would have required the permission of the long-absent father.)

One afternoon I took the box off the back of the tractor and wrestled the scarifier on instead. In the event I didn’t do much scarifying, mainly as I couldn’t bear to plough in the scattered bean plants that had seeded themselves from a previous year’s crop. I picked the beans instead and we had them for supper. They’re delicious and help to bear out my fantasy that as an occasional hobby farmer I’m entitled to look genuinely agricultural.

On Wednesday our out-going prime minister said Portugal (like Greece and Ireland before it) needed a bail-out. This surprised no-one. More alarmingly, the bonds of a couple of Portuguese banks, ours included, have been downgraded to junk status.

Also that day, Sergio called to say that the bathroom door for the Bijou Ensuite was ready. We are waiting, said I. He arrived half an hour later, at much the same time as Natalia for her English lesson. Fortunately, Sergio doesn’t require any supervision and Natalia is used to interruptions. Jonesy nipped out to take a couple of pictures.

By the time I got there, the door was installed and all that remained to settle was the bill. Now we await only the kitchenette. The kitchen firm has emailed us apologetically to say they’ve been busy. Good for them, I replied; there are many enterprises that would envy them. Our hairdresser complained that her builder husband hadn’t had work in three months.

Thursday Nelson joined us again. There’s plenty of work for him to do. Apart from the continuing clean-up in the new plot, Jones has half a dozen garden tasks for him of a sort inimical to bad backs.

Moreover, a quick inspection of our newly-repaired lower fossa showed that it was brim full. Previously, a slow leak ensured that the surrounding plants lived in perpetual clover, in a manner of speaking.

Now that we’ve fixed the fossa, we have to do something about emptying it. Ridiculous!

We left Nelson at work while we went to the Coral to enjoy a final cuppa with Mike & Lyn, prior to their return to the UK.

Jonesy took the camera along as she wanted to know how to take close-ups. Mike, a camera fundi, was pleased to show her.

She practised on the toasted sandwiches, somewhat to the surprise of the snack-bar patron, before going off to take pictures of the many flowers to be found on the property.

I'm impressed. You may judge the results for yourself from the pictures above.

The dog pictures show the beasts consuming almonds, which they love. We put a basket down for them to raid as we’ve made few inroads into last year’s harvest and the new crop is already heavy on the trees. Within a few minutes the pups too learned the trick of rolling the nuts around in their teeth until they found a vulnerable spot. The only downside was a patio full of broken shells.

I nearly forgot. I had an email from the expat association to say that new legislation is required to impose tolls on the local freeway – and this will have to await elections in the summer. Such news is hardly earth-shattering but in this climate all such titbits are welcome.