Letter from Espargal: 23 of 2011

Mainly this week I have perspired and swatted vexatious insects. These pursuits, judging by the weather forecast, will continue to be my main activities for the foreseeable. Jones says that I wouldn’t feel so hot if I didn’t think about it.

Well, it’s hard not to think of being hot when there’s a stream of perspiration running into your eyes and down your neck. As it happens, I can tell how hot it is by the number of pit-stops I make on our morning walk. In high summer I can complete our circuit with nary a pause. In winter, hardly a bush is spared.

This week we have stuck to a shorter circuit on the advice of the vet who snipped the two pups last Monday. To our great relief, he used a new micro-surgical technique on Mary, eliminating the need for the miserable lampshade collar that prevents pets post-op from getting at the wound. The following day she was understandably subdued but by Wednesday she was full of beans once again.

Russ, beyond a brief loss of appetite, hardly seemed to notice the small incision he suffered. While they were under anaesthetic, both pups were micro-chipped, as is now required by law.

Also Monday, we went into Faro to hand in my ailing smart-phone to the repair shop. “About ten days” said the young man who noted down its symptoms. In the meanwhile, having lent out my spare mobile, I am reduced to using the bare-bones guest phone.

This is Nokia’s starter model, not that any status-conscious child would be seen dead with it. The phone costs the same as a replacement battery, which tells you something. Using it feels like going back to the horse and cart. The predictive dictionary offers the user bursts of a mandarin-like gobbledegook that suggest the origins of the phone itself.

Tuesday we went to the notary to complete our purchase of the ruin on the adjacent land that we acquired earlier this year. All went well until our lawyer asked me for the print-outs of the tax payments that must be made before a property can be sold. Details of the payments have to be noted on the deed.

I had to confess ruefully that I hadn’t brought them. Fortunately for me, I’d made the payments online and was able to use the secretary’s computer to access my bank account and print off the references. Even so, I’m still kicking myself.

Wednesday is Russian day. Natalia comes for 90 minutes of English and Natasha (a name that is actually the familiar form of “Natalia”) comes to clean. I fetch the latter from the bus in Benafim. If truth be told, she would rather be driving herself in her newly-acquired Nissan Almera but the car is playing up.

At the end of the afternoon I took her around to a workshop near Loule to see if the problem had been fixed. It hadn't. The replacement part that the garage had installed hadn’t done the trick, she learned, and another part would be necessary. All that’s clear to Natasha is that car ownership is proving more expensive than she anticipated. We could have told her that.

From the workshop we proceeded to the house of elderly friends of ours for whom Natasha cleans. Her duties include tending the pool, which needed to be emptied before her other half, Slavic, arrived to scrub it down the following day. While Natasha was familiar with the filtering and back-washing procedures, she’d never emptied the pool – nor were there instructions on how to do so. Having looked after our pool at the Quinta, I was able to set things up for Slavic.

Jones, as well as tending her ever-demanding garden, has been preparing for the arrival of her nephew and family this weekend, as well as extended family early next week. One of her tasks has been to clean the Bijou Ensuite. On removing a drawer, she came across such a tribe of long-legged spiders as never you have seen before, dozens and dozens of them. Jones is not a squealer but for once in her life she squealed.

Let me pause to tell you that while I merely vacuum up an unwanted arachnid, Jones traps the creature under a glass and frees it outside. With a nest of disturbed spiders, all fleeing every which way, such a tender approach is not feasible. She was reduced, much against her instincts, to vacuuming them up as hard as she could go – although, having sucked them all into the vacuum cleaner, she took the appliance outside and removed the bag; thereupon, the spiders poured out again like souls freed from hell. It was astonishing to watch.

My part in the Bijou Ensuite preparations was to install certain objects in the bathroom. We’d bought the necessary at a hardware store the previous week but they’d disappeared without trace. In vain we searched high and low. Jones then recalled that I’d nipped into a phone store while carrying the purchases to the car. Back I went to inquire - all of a week later. The lass behind the desk was pleased to return the objects, which I have since fastened into place.

I am summoned downstairs for final guest preparations. The cobbles must be swept and boys' beds made. (I sure hope the dogs don't mind the guests sharing their patio.) Then the floor tiles must be vacuumed and mopped. The whole place has to gleam. It's a good thing I'm not in charge of the welcome desk.

Letter from Espargal: 22 of 2011

Until Saturday evening the week was going okay; nothing to rave about but we were making progress and had won back a few of the euros we'd bet on the lottery. The garden was being licked into shape. The exuberant crop of weeds in the fields was ploughed under. The pups were starting to respond to our commands - just little things but satisfying none the less.

Saturday evening we had committed ourselves to go the Senior University annual bash. This usually takes place at a posh hotel on the coast; the setting is celeb and the food is really special. This year, however, it was held in the Santa Barbara Centre of Well-being, not an institution with which we were familiar. I spent at half an hour trying to locate it on the internet and another 10 minutes keying the (wrong) address into the satnav.

We found it eventually - after touring much of the Algarve and squeezing into (and out of) a crowded parking lot for what turned out to be a different event. The Centre of Well-being was not the posh hotel. The effects of the economic crisis were all too clear – we felt like Business Class passengers who’d been ushered to the back of the plane.

The hall was noisy, with dreadful acoustics. An amplified fado singer boomed and echoed off the walls. We couldn’t understand a word of the echoey peroration from the guest speaker. The university boss, who’s suffered a stroke, struggled to grasp his notes and speak into the mic – poor man. Jones found herself seated beside an elderly woman who was suffering from dementia.

Queues for the food stretched halfway round the hall. My plate got whipped away so I shared one with Jones. Nobody seemed to notice. A woman who’d drunk too much lurched about and tittered at everything.

When the choir assembled on the stage for some folk music, I tried to video them with my smartphone. This was a mistake. The phone, which has been playing up, promptly entered a vicious circle of reboots. No amount of soft resetting restored it to life. Nor on our return were my subsequent efforts with a hard (factory) reset of any avail. It has to go to the phone doctor first thing on Monday – after we’ve dropped the pups at the vet to be snipped, that is.

Fortunately, I have all the information backed up on computer. But I have to hook the phone up to the computer to access the information - and the phone isn’t working. The pictures I hoped to put up on the blog got wiped during the hard reset. (Hence the plethora of Jonesy sky pics!) So I wasn’t a happy punter when I got to bed at 3 a.m.

When my technology fails I find myself ill at ease, as if in the presence of a sickly friend. Although these events were relatively trivial, they took up a lot of emotional space. I’ve spent Sunday morning keying names and numbers into the guest phone.

The rest of the week just spattered along. Each morning starts with a stiff hour-long hike down the hill with the dogs – 6 of them - and back up the other side. It’s steep, sweaty, rough and rocky – hard work with an impatient dog on the lead. We arrive back as if from a route march. I immediately change my soaked vest and shirt for the previous day’s, which have since dried on the line. (The weather’s been hot and is set to get hotter.)

Each morning, around 02.30, Pricks comes inside – we leave the back door ajar - and starts squeaking beside our bed because the cat is occupying his favourite chair. There’s nothing to be done but to clamber out of bed and turf the cat out so that Pricks can get a good night's rest. We must be mad!

Jones is trying to get the place ready for the arrival this coming weekend of her nephew and family from Canada. They’re to be joined a few days later by 6 relatives from South Africa, who’ll be staying nearby. We’ve been organising accommodation and transport and, of course, the notarised invitations that EU states insist on before allowing SA passport holders to visit.

BRIDGE OVER UNTROUBLED WATERS

I’ve been talking to our lawyer in preparation for the purchase of half a ruin in a couple of days’ time. The rubble – that’s all there is – is located in the property that we acquired a few months ago but it has separate title. Its acquisition should bring our land-grab to an end. Apart from anything else, we’re starting to feel quite poor. (Not too poor to make several sociable visits to the Coral to catch up with neighbours.)

Much of my time has been spent on the tractor, trying to subdue the weeds that ran amok in our absence. Although only one of our several acres is really arable, it’s divided among several steep, rocky and tree-dotted plots. Scarifying is hard work – and quite scary at times. While I was at it, I cleaned up a couple of neighbours’ fields – yours was overdue, Sarah and David, as we’ve long-since consumed your generous jam offering.

The best bit of this tractoring is the swooping of the swallows (swifts, martins?) around the tractor in pursuit of the insects that are disturbed. The birds arrive as if on cue. Their ethereal elegance and agility are beyond my powers of description. I have the sense that a flight of angels is whirling around my head. Not that I get too distracted lest the low branches of the almond & carob trees take it right off.

Letter from Espargal: 21 of 2011

We’re home from the sea. The dogs have given us a licking-good welcome. The cats have returned from the hiding places they take up during our absences. Our house sitters have gone. So too has the rain that fell in generous quantities during their stay.

Jones has been catching up with the neighbours as well as cutting back and watering the garden. I’ve been strimming every blade of grass in sight – more thistles and dandelions, actually, than grass. Our suitcases are back up in the roomy bedroom cupboards. We’ve been through the post and caught up with correspondence. The amazing cruise is just a memory.

But since I have very little else to write about, let me finish my account of that cruise with the “Behind the scenes” ship’s tour that we took on our final day at sea. It lasted well over two hours.

First came an introduction by the “hotel director”, a senior officer who was responsible for 800 of the 950 crew on board. As he pointed out, a cruise boat is really just a travelling hotel and it has to provide all the same facilities. Most important of these, arguably, are the extensive kitchens.

The head chef, who hailed from the Caribbean, conducted us around them, explaining how everything worked. With two thousand passengers (and, of course, nearly a thousand crew) to feed each day, they don’t stop. Food is available somewhere on the ship night and day. Jones and I thought that the meals were very good, with a wide choice of dishes, although we confined ourselves to the buffet restaurant.

The downside was the loud pop-music that boomed out relentlessly from numerous ceiling speakers and, on busy days, the difficulty of finding a table. Whenever conditions allowed, we’d eat out on the open rear deck instead. The liner also had two large “sit down” restaurants and half a dozen (entrance fee) speciality restaurants.

I have to say that the kitchens gleamed. They’re stainless steel throughout on tiled floors. The chef said that on the last inspection, the ship had been penalised one point out of 100 – because some of the kitchen tiles were cracked. Even so, 99% isn’t a bad pass.

Then down to the 3rd deck, where most of the crew live and work. A wide corridor known as Route 95 runs the length of the ship. This deck is also the location of the vast storerooms that hold the ship’s supplies. The ship stocks up once every nine days during the passenger “turn around” in Copenhagen.

Still on the 3rd deck is the ship’s laundry which, like much of the ship, works in shifts to cope with the load.

Apart from bedclothes and passengers’ personal belongings, the laundry deals with up to six thousand linen table napkins a day. We watched in fascination as great machines gobbled up wet napkins and spat them out, dry and ironed, a few seconds later.

Back upstairs then, for a backstage walk-through of the ship’s 800-seat theatre. The only fascinating bit of that, for me, was to observe the magician’s doves and rabbit resting peacefully in their cages.

His cat and his (very large green) snake, we learned, lived with him and his wife in their cabin. Their act was easily for us the highlight of the entertainment, most of which tended to be animated song and dance routines. The ship's orchestra and various musicians did their thing in the numerous bars and lounges, where passengers were encouraged to buy drinks at painfully high prices.

The highlight of the tour was undoubted the visit to the bridge. We were most impressed that the captain, a Norwegian, gave up 15 minutes of his time to explain just how things worked. The ship had adopted an aircraft style cockpit, housing two officers and a range of instruments. A third officer was on watch at the windows.

The Baltic, as we learned, is very shallow. Cruise liners follow carefully plotted and marked channels and even these leave big ships with little to spare. Ours drew 8 metres and the channel we were following at the time in what seemed like the middle of the ocean was barely 18 metres deep.

To the side of the bridge, a desk held a variety of computerised equipment that the skipper could use independently of the cockpit. A shipping ID system enabled him to click on any of the dots on a screen representing other ships and immediately to obtain all the details of their name, home port, cargo, destination and itinerary.

The top toy was a handle that controlled the ship’s propellors, rudder and thrusters. When docking or departing, the skipper had only to point this handle in the desired direction and the computer did the rest. Little wonder that he seemed to berth his 80,000 tonner more easily than we moored our houseboat on the Alqueva Dam.

Saturday morning we arrived back in Copenhagen shortly after dawn. We tied up at the edge of a container port, much to Jones’s annoyance, for she was determined not to pay for either a taxi or the coaches that had been laid on. In the event, a commuter bus dropped us at the harbour gates and we had the choice of a train or bus into town.

The rest of the day we wandered around. Copenhagen has much to offer although we were disappointed by the state of some pavements, littered with cigarette butts, papers and broken glass. Those Danes are not as clean living as you might suppose.

Sunday we flew home. Our suitcases were first off the carousel. The Ferretts were waiting for us in the terminal. The rest you know.

Letter from Stockholm

Thursday 2 June: Stockholm is our final port of call but there’s no room for us in the harbour. We anchor offshore at the port of Nynashamn. Buses are to take us 45 minutes up the highway to Stockholm itself. The ship’s tenders are lowered to take passengers ashore. Jonesy takes photos of the action.

It’s quite dramatic watching the tenders being swung out from the deck and lowered 100 feet into the water. We make our way down to the 3rd deck with hundreds of other passengers. The sea is choppy and one has to board the tender with care.

It’s a catamaran capable of taking well over 100 people. The boat’s nose goes up as the pilot opens the throttles. The twin propellors pack a punch. Passengers disembark at the floating dock and make their way up to the coach park.

We have booked a “highlights” tour of Stockholm. Our coach has broken down, we learn. A replacement is on its way. It arrives and we set off. I snooze most of the way. In Stockholm an elderly guide joins the coach. She is enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Not a building escapes her attention.

We stop on a hill for a view of the city and the main harbour. Stockholm is truly beautiful, a city of islands, bays and bridges. For two hours the coach takes us on a tour of the city, past the buildings of state and government, past parks, across bridges, through the suburbs. We are shown some mega-expensive apartments, one of which belongs to Bjorn Borg. Everwhere, boats are tied up in little bays and inlets.

I am disappointed that there’s no opportunity to get off and wander around. It’s my own fault. I booked the wrong tour.

Back to the hotel to drop the guide and a chance for a welcome beer. I have to change euros for Swedish crowns at the desk. Then it’s back down the highway to Nynashamn again.

NYNASHAMN COACH PARK

Jones and I decide that another visit to Stockholm is a must. We have three hours before we must rejoin the ship. We wander up the road for a look at the little town. As in Stockholm, there are great outcrops of granite to be seen on all sides. It’s a public holiday, Ascension Thursday, and the place is fast asleep.

An old lady is taking her cat for a walk. There’s a little more action at the port where a ferry is loading. I need a pee and Jones has forbidden me from using the bushes. So it’s back to the coach park. We chat to the young women running the visitors’ shop. Their English is good. Jones chooses a few souvenirs. I get another t-shirt.

Back on to the tender for a choppy ride back to the ship and some welcome late afternoon tea (i.e. a pint of Boddington’s ale). More pictures as the tenders are hauled back on board. The operation is swift and practised. We’re impressed.

After supper, we make our way to the 12th deck observation lounge for a malt whisky (our first) and some reflective conversation. Our voyage is nearly over. We have Friday at sea. We have booked a "behind the scenes" tour of the ship, including a visit to the bridge.

Saturday morning early we dock In Copenhagen. Sunday we fly home.

Letter from Helsinki

Wednesday 1 June: It’s another beautiful day. We slide gently into our berth in Helsinki. Other cruise ships are already tied up. We haven’t booked a tour and are not in a rush. First we take a leisurely breakfast on deck. The choice of food in the buffet restaurant is excellent.

Then downstairs to Deck 3 where we are checked out of the ship by the crew, who slide our ID cards through a reader. The Hop-on Hop-off buses are waiting. We hop on. Upstairs, in the open top bus, the commentary is hard to hear and out of sync.

The bus takes us on a tour of the city. Helsinki is bigger than we expect, home to half a million people plus. We love the leafy parks. Some of the locals have found themselves grassy spots to celebrate the sunshine.

We hop off again and make our way to the modern art gallery. The exhibition is a temporary one, not of Finnish art as we expect, but of African art. Jonesy likes the South African artists best.

A few blocks further we visit a church hewn out of rock. The walls are rough red granite. Only the roof protrudes.

The dome is supported by a ring of curved beams. The interior is truly beautiful. Everwhere, tourists are taking pictures, as we are ourselves. We resent their chatter.

Then back on foot through the city centre to the open air market. Jonesy stops at a stall where a woman is selling one-off items of jewellery and designer table wear, made from titanium, steel and aluminium.

The stall holder is pleased to tell us about her craft. She's not at all pushy. We buy a pendant from her. It’s very unusual and most attractive.

Nearby, the city hall has an exhibition of 1930’s pictures. We are taken by a remarkable work of art - a chain-work of giant, linked fingers.

It sits on top of one mirror and below another, creating an illusion of huge depth. Jones tries to take pictures from several angles.


We decide to walk the two miles back to the ship. All the signs are both in Swedish, which we can make out, and Finnish, which is a mystery to us. The shoreline is edged with parks, rocky beaches and marinas. The marinas sit partly within natural walls of large boulders. This place is simply made for boats.

Around us the people of Helsinki are walking their babes and their dogs, sunbathing on the grass or the sands, talking in a language of which we understand nothing.

We feel very much at ease. We stop for refreshments at a kiosk whose owner speaks excellent English. She was born in the US, she confesses. Jones is anxious that we're heading in the right direction. It's ok. We can see the ship in the distance.

When we get back to the ship I reward myself with two cans of Boddingtons’ ale from the Sports Bar. At 1730 the engines rumble, the side thrusters whirr into action, the water churns beneath us and we head slowly out towards our final port of call, Stockholm.

Letter from Russia

Monday 30:
We berth in St Petersburg, the highpoint of our voyage, the only city where we stay for two days. As we quickly discover, the city simply overwhelms one. A potted history: The population is 4.5 million people.

MAIN SQUARE - SNATCHED FROM BUS
The city was established in 1703 by Peter the Great on marshy land. He was a great admirer of things European and hoped vainly to institute a system of canals like those of Venice. Many buildings are slipping slowly into the marsh.

Like Copenhagen and Helsinki, it’s a key port embracing dozens of interlinked islands. The climate isn’t great. St Petersburg enjoys only some 60 sunny days a year and we had two of them.

The first day starts out bright and early in the ship’s theatre; we are sorted into groups. Thence to the terminal building where we join the queue of passengers waiting to be processed. Russian immigration officials scrutinise our landing cards and passports. We're through. To the fleet of buses. Ours is number 16.

Awaiting us are Nadya and Julia, our guides, both 30-something, slim and unsmiling. But like Irina and Tatiana the following day they prove to be very good at their jobs and we warm to them. They lead us around like mother hens, waving numbered flags above their heads. The main attractions in St Petersburg are huge and so is the number of their visitors. So it’s very easy to get lost. The guides wear neck-mics and issue their groups with earphones, which helps.

Our immediate destination is Peterhof, the summer palace of the tsars, situated on the bay - about an hour’s drive. After a "comfort stop" at a souvenir shop (all such stops take place at souvenir shops), we arrive. Peterhof is stunning, utterly overwhelming in scale and its sheer glittering gold-leafed, magnificence.

To protect the extensive parquet floors, laid out in exquisite patterns, we are issued with elasticised over-shoes. For over an hour, we follow Julia through the great halls, corridors and reception rooms of the palace. The building was intended to awe the tsar’s visitors and it awes us. No luxury was spared. The palace suffered during three years of Nazi occupation. Of the damage no sign remains. Refurbishment and restoration continue unceasingly.

After lunch, we make our way past the multiple gilded statues and gravity-fed fountains to the far end of the gardens, where a hydrofoil awaits us. We zip back to the city for a visit to the fortified island at the heart of St Petersburg.

Within its walls stands the historic church of St Peter and St Paul, golden domed like all churches. Inside are the tombs in white Carrara marble of the later tsars, including the unfortunate Nicholas II and his family.

We are led into a small chapel to hear a stunning rendition of Russian a capella singing by a small choir intent on raising money for a new stained glass window. The CDs are expensive but we buy one anyhow. Their harmonies are perfect. Their bass singer hits low notes that I last heard from Paul Robeson.

Back at the dock, the immigration officials check us back in just as carefully as they earlier let us through. This is Russia. Elsewhere, a cursory glance at the ship’s ID-key card, issued to all passengers, has sufficed.

Tuesday 31:
We are on an afternoon visit to The Hermitage Museum, the home of St Petersburg’s art collection. Irina and Tatiana prove just as accomplished as their colleagues the previous day. Once again, the visitor is overwhelmed.

The collection was begun in the then Tsars’ Winter Palace by Catherine the Great for her own private purposes. As it grew, so did the need for more space. After the communist revolution, all private collections were nationalised. This great hoard is now housed in five buildings, including the Winter Palace, all interconnected in a vast complex. We follow Tatiana through an endless series of rooms, upstairs and down.

The Hermitage (so called because Catherine, a French-speaker, liked to think of herself as a hermit, alone with her collection) holds three million objects; only 10% of them are on public view. New buildings are planned to exhibit more of them. Once again, the scale and magnificence of the palace leaves one bereft of words.

The highlight of the tour for many visitors is the carefully guarded “gold room”, the storehouse of hundreds of solid gold artifacts, most obtained from burial mounds across a sweep of Europe and Asia. Tatiana translates the detailed account given to us by an elderly expert.

Finally we are whirled through hall after hall of old and recent Masters. Tatiana points out the two or three most important paintings of each artist and gives us a few seconds to take in another score or so. The tour is designed to give one just a taste of what The Hermitage holds. To get to know its contents would take years.

We sail out of St Petersburg on the most beautiful of summer evenings. (Sunset is after 11 pm) Jones and I join hundreds of other passengers on the ship’s extensive decks. The first 90 minutes of our passage is across a shallow, narrow bay, along a channel.

KOTLIN ISLAND

Then we slow down to pass through massive sea-gates beside the island of Kotlin. On both sides of us, great causeways run a total of 25 kilometres to the mainland. This is a huge flood barrier, intended to prevent storm surges from inundating St Petersburg, a city often flooded in the past.