Letter from Espargal: 18 of 2011

Dawn Friday: Our fences are finished. That sentence encompasses more wire, metal and work than you can easily imagine – hundreds of metres of fencing, dozens of poles, litres of paint and the same amount of perspiration. The final result is both pleasing and practical.

We now have one fence around the house and garden, most of it hidden by trees, and another encircling the larger property where the dogs may run to their hearts’ content. Already we are playing the most exciting games of Hide (me) and Seek (them). They leap upon the discovered me in biscuit-expectant glee.

FENCES GONE

At the same time, the old wire fences - that marked the border between our original property and the newly acquired plot – have been ripped out. I took two bulging tractor loads of chain-link fencing around to Steve’s lorry, to be dumped at a scrap-metal yard.

As a result of the changes, the garden has suddenly expanded by half an acre, an unruly half-acre, much in need of attention.

I have spent several hours with a strimmer taking out the worst of weeds that have reigned supreme there these several years past.

GLORIOUS PYRAMID ORCHID AMONG THE WEEDS

More hours lie ahead, as many as I can fit in these next few days before we take ourselves on holiday.

That’s a deadline that has been approaching uncomfortably fast. Our house-sitters are due on Sunday evening. Monday brings my final English lesson. On Tuesday we pack the car and depart (on the first stage of the holiday), all the while trying to think up ruses to distract the dogs, which won’t understand why they can’t come.

The plan is to spend the first 4 nights at a B&B in Cordoba, (an historic Spanish city that we’ve long wanted to visit). From there we take a leisurely drive back across the Portuguese border to the vast Alqueva dam (Europe’s biggest) on which we are renting a boat for three days. (http://www.amieiramarina.com/)

There are numerous towns and villages dotted around the shoreline, more than 1,000 kms of it, where one can moor up, dine or simply wander.

The final leg is a small, once deserted village, Aldeia de Pedralva, in the south western corner of Portugal (http://www.aldeiadapedralva.com/) that has been bought up and turned into holiday houses. Llewellyn and Lucia paid it a visit during their stay – they flew home early on Tuesday morning – and gave it the thumbs up. I overheard Jones saying she’d love to spend a few days there, and obliged. It’s the kind of place where you do very little except walk and read, and possibly visit the wild west coast beaches.

From Pedralva we return home to Espargal for two nights that will prove the first serious test of the Bijou Ensuite; the main house will be fully occupied by our house-sitters and their in-laws. Jones’s little jewel is already quite habitable but she has been pressing for the finishing touches.

Here let me interrupt myself to say that a Dutch couple, who provide a variety of domestic services, have spent most of Friday assisting us, first with those finishing touches and then in the garden, especially the garden extension. With much assistance from my wife and some from me, they performed wonders. The place looks almost ready for the arrival of the house sitters.

The second stage of the holiday, to continue my story, is a Baltic cruise – our first visit to that part of the world. We fly to Copenhagen, where we spend a couple of days before joining the ship. The cruise takes in the port cities of half a dozen countries bordering the Baltic. The highlight is St Petersburg, where the ship spends two full days. It’s the only city where, of necessity, we have booked shore excursions. For the rest, we intend to do our touring ourselves.

I should add that this is my first cruise and Jonesy’s second. (She spent six weeks some years ago escorting an older friend on a Mediterranean and East African voyage.) The company (NCL) offers relaxed cruising – no formal dining and no formal clothes. The vessel sails mainly at night and ties up during the day. I spent long hours researching the possibilities and the reading the reviews before committing us. (I fume over the cruise company ruse of advertising artificially low prices and then bunging on so-called gratuities and fuel surcharges.)

It is likely that we will have only intermittent access to internet and mobile phone comms during our absence, especially in the last week of May and the first week of June. Blog updates may have to await our return home on June 5.

June 5 also happens to be the day that the Portuguese go the polls. Although Portuguese elections attract little international attention, this one will be all about the austerity programme that the IMF, ECB and EU troika are demanding in return for a 78-billion euro bailout.

It’s an election that we will watch with some nervousness, not only because we will be hit by additional taxes but also because of the real doubts about the country’s ability to repay such a loan. The consequences of a Portuguese default down the road, on top of a looming Greek default, would be really scary.