Letter from Espargal: 28 of 2011

ESPARGAL MORNING

I’m about to draw a great big black line through July. We’ve survived it. That’s half the battle won. Now we can turn our attention to August. Survive that and we’ll have seen off the flaming dragon for another year. Then I can start to relax again – ease back on the sun-cream, stop scratching heat bumps, venture outside before 16.00. I look forward to it. If April is the cruellest month, September is the kindest.

Apropos of nothing – I took the tractor down the road to Vitor’s place for a service, its third - known in Portugal as a “revision”. The vehicle has notched up 250 hours, still a tractor baby if not a baby tractor. Vitor’s young son, Bernardo, came along to watch proceedings, seating himself on the step-up. Next to arrive was his wife, Ana, along with Jose, her neighbour from over the road. There are no “Do not enter” signs in Vitor’s workshop; there, servicing vehicles is a sociable activity; clients, family and neighbours are all welcome.

We agreed, as Vitor delved into the innards, that tractors are dangerous beasts. He had been servicing them for 20 years, he confided, and in that time not a few of his clients had died beneath their vehicles. Or, as Idalecio put it, the problem with old (i.e. 2x4) tractors is that they won’t go in all sorts of places; and the problem with new (4x4) tractors is that they’ll go anywhere – even really stupid places. This I can testify from my monthly visits to top up the water-supply at the dogs’ waterhole on the far side of the hill. It’s quite a scary trip.

After changing the oil, Vitor cleaned the filters with an air hose and gave the grease nipples a squirt. Sorry if this account is a bit long but I’ve got to write enough to fit in at least a couple of photos. And anyhow, there isn’t much else to report. I left my chain-saw with him for an overhaul as well. I haven’t his knack of tuning the acceleration and the choke.

Before putting the tractor away, metaphorically speaking, I went down with Olly to collect some more rocks from the fields for the walls that he is building. Our bit of Portugal is rock-strewn. You quite literally trip over them everywhere you go. Espargal hill is not made of earth with lots of rocks; it’s made of rock with patches of earth. Most farmers are only too pleased to have one remove a few rocks from the vicinity of their carob trees. Olly was kind enough to come back with me to help Jones arrange a couple of large stones in a rockery that she is extending just outside the gates – as this pleasing picture illustrates.

I made a separate trip around the other side of the hill to fetch two more rocks that Jones and I have long gazed at covetingly. (That’s not a word that I’ve ever come across before, either, but Dictionary. com assures me that it’s legit.) We pass them every morning as we dip down the hill and through the carob groves with the dogs. That’s to say, we used to. I brought them back and planted them at the base of the rockery, where they seem quite settled. (Jones refers to this process as “rock liberation”.)

The two pups, Russ and Mary, continue to give us concern with their allergic reactions to either microchip or vaccination. They went back early in the week to the vet, tugging restlessly at their leads in the small waiting room. Half an hour passed slowly, in the company of other equally restless animals. Mary is highly strung and won’t sit still for a moment. Russ caught the vibe. There was little to be done for them other than to continue with a diet of pills.

A RUBBISH BAG - WHAT FUN!

Monday afternoon we took two recently-widowed friends to lunch. I left Barbara at the table with one of them while Olive, the other, came with me to the post office and her lawyer. We returned to find the lunchers still at it – the other guest, at least. She’s a seriously slow eater. Like most Bensons, I fear, I tend to eat fast, a failing for which my wife has often had reason to upbraid me.

Thursday morning we set out on a similar mission, this time with the lawyer to visit the Financas, which require one to report the death of a tax-paying partner within 90 days. That meant an hour of hanging around and 60 seconds of signing documents. Jones and I found time to take ourselves around the corner for a welcome cup of coffee at the Gates of Heaven. Even so, matters have much improved. Some years ago, all trips to the Financas meant impossible queues and a morning or afternoon wasted. These days 90% of such business can be done online.

MAHLER

Our final task was to meet a retired British policeman who followed us to Olive’s house for a security review – given the deaths of both her husband and a large dog. We’ll hear his suggestions shortly.

The Proms are entertaining us with Mahler’s 9th, a symphony that the composer was never to hear played. I recall many years ago overhearing a conversation between my dad and a musical friend of his. Dad, like me, was a great Beethoven fan. The friend was urging him to discover Mahler. I don’t think that Dad did, and I’m not sure that we shall either. But we’re doing our best.

SUNDAY BREAKFAST AT THE CORAL

For supper we dined on a chicken that didn’t cross the road. It was one of three that we saw lying in the street in their plastic coverings as we emerged from a super- market car park.

CELSO - OUR HOST

One had already been squashed out of all recognition. I stopped the car to remove the other two – and was able to save one, leaving it on the pavement for some hungry person to take home.

Jones decided that since our household had as many hungry members as any, it might as well be her. Muttering something about “road-kill”, she leapt out of the car to retrieve the fowl. And a fine chicken it proved to be.

SUNDOWN

We enjoyed the best bits while the dogs feasted on the scraps. We suspect that the birds fell from a large truck that was turning in as we left.

As I was saying, not a great deal has happened this week. And, as I’ve said before, that’s the way we like it.

Letter from Espargal: 27 of 2011

Friday afternoon: I have awoken from my siesta. Bartok’s 3rd piano concerto tinkles away on the telly (I can’t recom- mend it). Jones is occupied in the kitchen. The beasts are slumbering. The puppies have been banished to their pen in disgrace after destroying yet another pot plant. They delight in tossing out the contents and chewing up the plastic holder, an act of vandalism that both irritates and depresses my wife as she searches for the victim's remains.

Of course the weather’s hot but not as hot as that in the eastern US and Canada, which sounds truly awful.

ABOUT TO SET OUT TO LOULE FAIR

The week has wriggled along. We have water again. Paulo the plumber approved the new T-junction that Nelson and I had installed in the mains pipe, ascribing the failure of the old junction to subsidence. He advised us to lift the pipe slightly as we packed sand in beneath and around it. This I did as Jones shovelled sand into the hole. Now it remains only for one of Horacio’s workmen to pop around and replace the cobbles. Laying cobbles is one of those jobs that looks easier than it is – laying them straight and level, that is.

Paulo then discerned that the rumbling vibration that accompanied a running tap was due to a faulty water-pressure control-unit attached to the solar heaters. He promised to return with a new one later in the week, which he did, clambering up a double-ladder to get on to the roof where he squatted lotus-like on the tiles. (I am mildly envious of anybody who is able to adopt the lotus position, my own joints being located in the wrong places.) The new unit cost 26 euros and for his two visits Paulo charged us an additional 12 euros – the kind of price a London plumber extorts for answering the phone. We now enjoy vibration-free showers.

We have done our best to be good neighbours. I have three times taken Olly – he rides side-saddle on the tractor – down the hill to collect rocks for retaining walls that he is building at the bottom of his property. I sit on the tractor making light conversation while Olly heaves the rocks into the box. I find this arrangement works quite well. Then we return to the house to unload them. I lower the box and Olly removes the rocks. After the last run he led me down the steep hill below the house to show me the incipient walls, intended to prevent further wash-aways of the kind that accompanied a violent storm last winter.

Before returning home I nipped down the road to talk to Horacio, who is working on an extension to a house nearby. Horacio remains exceedingly busy in spite of the economic crisis gripping Portugal and I wanted to alert him to my hopes of installing a solar voltaic panel. I shall hear at the end of the month whether our application has been accepted by the energy authorities for this year’s quota. If so, I shall need a builder to construct the heavy concrete base required to support the panel. Horacio thought that he could fit me in. Fingers crossed!

We have also been running around once again with Russ, whose abscess failed to respond to the anti-biotics that we’re feeding him twice-daily on the vet’s instructions. (Jones has to hold Mary, aka Crocodile No. 1, while I feed Russ pill-spiked spoons of pate.) So back to the vet Russ went on Wednesday for a second opinion. The young vet concerned called in her more-experienced partner, who sedated Russ and kept him in for the day to drain the abscess.

On our return we employed one of Jones’s vests to cover the two small drains in a bid to prevent the dog from scratching them out again. Strangely, Mary has developed a small swelling in exactly the same place. Another vet, a friend of ours, thinks that both dogs are reacting either to the micro-chip or their vaccinations. On her advice, we have shaved the area and are rubbing in a hopefully helpful muti.

Before leaving the animals and arachnids theme, I can report that Jones screeched as we were folding a sheet upstairs in the study and dropped it with alacrity. (As I have said before, she’s not the screechy sort.) It emerged that Simon the Spider, who had disappeared from his perch on the ceiling, had taken up residence in the folds of the sheet instead. I could just see his hairy feet poking out.

Simon is large as well as hairy, not the sort of company that one wants in bed. I took the sheet outside and shook it over the balcony. But we’re not sure whether Simon decamped en route and is waiting in a corner for his next appearance. (Jones once awoke at the Quinta to find that the crawly feeling she had on her tummy was caused by a passing centipede, an experience from which she has not fully recovered.)

We lunched one day with a visiting former BBC colleague, Anita, who had holidayed at the Quinta. We wouldn’t have recognised her children, who as tots used to run around the garden. I hadn’t seen Anita or, for that matter, virtually any other BBC colleagues since my retirement from the corporation all of – I can’t believe it – 13 years ago. In the interim, like many of the journalists there, she too opted for redundancy and has since settled in Canada. It was interesting to compare notes. The waters flow by so fast.

Thursday we ran Olive and her daughter, Margaret, out to the airport for the latter’s return to the UK. Olive is still awaiting forms from several UK enterprises – to wind up John’s affairs. We did the round of post office and lawyer with little to report for our efforts.

We have spent long hours in spite of ourselves following the phone-hacking inquiries in the UK. Although we both felt that the whole affair had degenerated into a media feeding frenzy, we remained fascinated. It’s not every week that a scandal claims the heads of top cops and media executives as well as closing a popular newspaper and threatening to land a bunch of people in jail – Britain’s Watergate!

As one columnist complained, more attention was paid to the shaving foam that was splattered in Rupert Murdoch’s face as he testified to a parliamentary committee than to the millions of people threatened with famine in the Horn of Africa. The trouble with distant famines is that they appeal to givers’ finer feelings while a good scandal grabs you in the gut. There’s no drama like watching the mighty hanging on by their finger tips and then toppling into the void as the odds mount inexorably against them.

I am making my way through a book, War Games by Linda Polman, on the dispersal of aid to refugees, mainly in Africa – with the inevitable militia rackets, wasteful do-gooder schemes, publicity stunts and inter-agency rivalries. It makes for depressing reading. There seems to be no mission, no matter how lofty or well-intended, that doesn’t fall prey to the baser instincts of human nature or that isn’t exploited by villains for their own ends. I guess ‘twas ever thus.

Let me end with this fascinating picture of a companionable warthog that has taken to bedding down on cold nights in a bar in a Zimbabwean game park. I cannot vouch for the story but the picture speaks for itself. According to the report, the barman hands the animal the pillow on arrival. If he’s absent, it merely fetches the pillow from a couch itself. Why not?

Letter from Espargal: 26 of 2011

FRIDAY EVENING. The sun is going down on a hot week in a western sky slashed pink and grey. Turn around and there’s a luminous orange moon rising regally over the eastern hills. Accompanying this glorious spectacle is the opening night of the BBC Proms which, excepting an instantly forgettable opening premiere, it is proving delightful.

What more could one ask, you might think. Well, one could wish for the instant elimination of the junior “musical” group from Lisbon that has rented our neighbour’s property for the fortnight. Their horrendous amplified racket penetrates the thickest walls, rending the air day and night with thumps, bangs, howls and wails. Our tolerance and, I suspect, that of other neighbours has been tested to the limit. As I write, Jones and I are both wearing headphones with the sound turned right up in a bid to drown them out.

I suspect that hell is a bit like that – no flames and trident-wielding fiends – just beautiful things that are irredeemably polluted, a suggestion of what might have been had the serpent not had his devious way in the Garden of Eden.

Anyhow, putting aside the next world for the moment, most of today has gone into assisting Olive with matters arising from her husband’s death in this one. We fetched her and her daughter, newly arrived for the UK, for a round that began at Almancil post office and continued via the bank and the undertaker to lunch at the local and a host of Skype phone calls from our house in the afternoon. Later we dropped in on her lawyer to request an authorised English translation of the death certificate – as required by institutions in the UK. We’re nearly there.

SATURDAY MORNING

We got home to find that a wet patch on the cobbles beside the house was getting steadily wetter, despite the hot sun and roasting temperatures. A check at the pump-house revealed a racing water meter. I’ve turned the water off and phoned the plumber. With luck he’ll be here in the morning, along with an occasional worker who has agreed to dig up the cobbles to expose the pipe. Digging things up, like lifting things up, is regrettably anathema to my back.

(SATURDAY MORNING: Nelson and I found a faulty connection which, after a trip to the hardware store, we replaced with a new one. It's not leaking....yet! I await the plumber's inspection and approval of our work.)

If I haven’t been digging things up, I have at least been putting them up. That’s to say I have been raising fences. The reason for this is that Mary, resenting the restrictions of the puppy pen, has been leaping the fence, leaving brother, Russ, peering dolefully through the wire.

PUPPY DAMAGE

I should explain that while the pups are free to roam around the garden most of the day, we put them in the pen overnight and when we go out. Otherwise they either get into the house, where they raise hell, or out of the gates as we leave or return. While the pen is spacious, with numerous shady spots and ample shelter, it’s still a pen. And Mary, spotting large rocks either side of the fence, made a bid for freedom by standing on one rock and launching herself over to the other.

So I spent an afternoon raising the fence and blocking access to the launch site, standing back when I was finished to admire my handiwork with that “job well done” feeling. Then I returned the pups to the pen. Mary paused only long enough to consume the biscuit bribes (required to entice her in) before, as our backs were turned, making her exit once again.

To our astonishment, she was still getting on to the launch rock and simply jumping that much higher. So I spent a second afternoon raising the fence once again – this time a full meter. So far, so good.

One morning we found the dogs barking loudly in the old pig pen at a yellow green snake. I called them off. Jones peered at it from the safety of the track and opined that it was just a sloughed off skin. We shall never know because when I went to look later in the day it had gone. Another two-meter specimen that was being disturbed by the dogs shot up a tree in the twinkling of an eye. I was most impressed at its speed and agility. Even though the tree was small, I couldn’t spot the snake in the branches. Not that I looked too closely.

NO SNAKE PICS BUT HERE'S OUR SPIDER

On Wednesday afternoon Desi came to clean in the place of the absent Natasha. Desi is Dutch, 30ish, shapely and attractive. Also she drives a substantial Nissan 4x4. That’s as much as I can tell you about her. She’ll be standing in for Natasha until the end of August.

Also on Wednesday we took Russ to the vet as he had developed a large lump on his shoulder. The vet identified it as an abscess and prescribed antibiotics. The usual suspects, Ono and Prickles came along for the ride. The latter refused absolutely to approach within 50 metres of the veterinary surgery, clearly remembering the unpleasant things that he had suffered there a week earlier. Prickles compensates for such cowardice by hurling vociferous abuse at passing dogs from the safety of the car.

Wednesday night we went with friends to The Lemon Tree restaurant in Almancil to celebrate Jones’s birthday and that of another neighbour. The venue was a cut above the local, the sort of place for a special night out, and all agreed that it was a fine meal.

I was recounting to Pauline, the other birthday celebrant, that while I led an enviably relaxed conscious life, in my unconscious I frequently found myself back in the monks and trying to get out. Pauline helpfully responded that I must have unresolved issues – although she didn’t say how one set about resolving them. Blow me down; the very same night I dreamed that I was being recruited into the monks once again – and was saved only because no road could be found on the map to the monastery from wherever I was. I wish I could get the monks out of my system.

If it’s not the monks, it’s the BBC, where - with a bulletin looming - I can never find a desk to sit at or a computer to work on. This situation, ironically, applies in real life to many of my former colleagues at the World Service, scores of whom are being made redundant because of the cuts to the corporation’s income. How very scary that must be! I’m ever so grateful to have worked there in the good times.

Letter from Espargal: 25 of 2011

We have done a lot of partying and said farewell to our guests – in that order. I have become an authority on what to do if you die in Portugal. And I’ve nearly finished learning about the seven solar nuclear processes involved in the formation of elements. I knew that we were children of the stars but not we got to be that way.

AT THE STATION

As ever, it’s hard to know where to start; maybe with the farewells. These went off okay given the difficulty of getting 5 people to the railway station and 5 more to the airport on time on Thursday morning. The expression “like herding cats” came several times to mind.

NANCY, JANE & THEIR MUM
Don’t misunderstand me; everybody was lovely and the kids – pre-teens - were uncomplicated, caring and affectionate. It was just that each person had a slightly different agenda: a question, a conversation, a missing item, retrieving a garment from a suitcase – and Chris danced around trying to get the show on the road on time which, to his credit, he did.

We set off in convoy from the superb little house 5 minutes away that the visitors had rented for the week. That was Jones, the dogs and I in car 1, Chris & greater family in car 2 and the cousins in car 3 -first to the petrol station to top up, then to Loule station where half the party was catching the train to Lisbon, en route to Paris and Johannesburg (time there for pictures and a few tears) and finally to the airport.

The airport was chaotic – both very busy and in the process of radical remodelling – an unfortunate combination. I directed Chris and Jane, who were following me in the hire cars, around to the rental park, only to find that the entrance had been blocked off as part of the reorganisation.

RE-ROUTING WARNINGS INSIDE THE TERMINAL

With time running short, the poor things had to re-circle the airport to find the way in – along with a lot of other bemused and frustrated souls. Anyhow, they made it in good time for last hugs and squeezes before vanishing off through security, on their way to join family in the UK for a week prior to their return to Canada.

Although both families had to travel near halfway around the world to meet in Portugal, there was no doubting the success of their efforts. They jelled instantly, both the adults and the young cousins, and had the most wonderful time together. It was a pleasure to join them in various activities, including several hides and seeks with the dogs. They’ll not soon forget their summer holiday, nor the pools, beaches, waterparks, go-karts and suppers out that made it so special.

Their South African origins were revealed by an anxious question one evening: they’d omitted to lock their hire car, which was parked inside our gates; would it be safe, the questioner wondered? We hardly ever lock anything, I assured her - one of the benefits of living with 6 dogs in a tiny Portuguese village at the further reaches of a dead end. Not that life in these parts is crime-free; several people in the lower reaches of the village have been the victims of thefts and burglaries.

My thoughts, like our visitors, have been much abroad for our family, like theirs, finds itself scattered across countries and continents. My Canadian brother and his wife have just taken delivery of their dream motorhome. Although they’re experienced motor-homers, they’ve spent the week under intensive instruction on the RV’s many systems.

What a difference from the little caravan they used to tow around behind a 1600cc Ford. These last several years they have become snowbirds, fleeing the bitter Canadian winters to roost in sunny California. Judging by the pictures, they won’t have to make too many sacrifices en route.

My sister, Cathy, is newly returned to Berlin from South Africa, where she attended a memorial service for Iris (Mum’s sister and the last of our aunts) and caught up with our extended South African family. I have just read her fascinating account of the visit, with its unsettling details of small-town cremations and the desirability of encasing the coffins of loved ones in concrete to prevent grave-robbers from digging them up for resale (minus the corpse). (My sister chides me for making no mention of the happy family reunions and the wonderful encounters with wildlife on game farms.)

Much of my time has been taken up assisting Olive, one of our old friends, with the bureaucracy entailed upon the death of her husband John. One has to meet both Portuguese requirements and those of the British institutions that inevitably become involved in the follow up. To register the death in the UK, the British Consul in Portugal helpfully invites relatives of the deceased to complete forms (available online) and to forward these with the associated fees to the government. Gone are the days when you can simply die and get away with it.

This unpleasant business of death was a subject Jonesy once raised with the friendly shepherd who used to graze his flock on the hills around the Quintassential. The lambs would gambol merrily as the ewes concentrated on feeding themselves. “How can you bear to sell these lovely creatures to the butcher?” asked my wife. “Why!” he replied with surprise, “they are born to die”. It’s a line I have often reflected upon.

On Friday we went to a memorial lunch for our friend and Quintassential neighbour, Joyce Shubrook, meeting again many of the people who, in happier times, had helped celebrate the diamond jubilee of her marriage to Tom. “Say when,” I instructed Tom on that occasion as I filled his glass with cognac. “When it covers the ice,” he replied, ignoring his wife’s disapproving eye.

En route to the lunch we stopped at the home of a friend who has recently had a solar voltaic module installed. This is a biggish panel of arrays that costs some 20,000 euros and follows the sun around the sky to feed energy into the Portuguese national grid.

I’m interested in following suit. During our recent travels through Spain and Portugal, we saw vast farms of these arrays – along with armies of wind turbines. I’m all in favour. It makes so much more sense to harvest the sun and the wind than to burn fossil fuels or rig up nuclear power stations.

Oh, and that book, if you were interested, is: The Magic Furnace by Marcus Chown, subtitled The Search for the Origin of Atoms. The bottom line is that we really oughtn’t to be here at all, so complex and unlikely are the inter-related laws of physics that have led to the kind of universe we inhabit. You probably knew that anyhow.

Letter from Espargal: 24 of 2011

JONES DAWN

Friday morning: Choppy waters! It hasn’t been the best of weeks. Still, it’s had its moments. On the bright side Chris Jones and family flew in from Vancouver – via Gatwick - last Saturday afternoon pretty much on time if pooped by the journey. It’s a long flight across Canada and the Atlantic, and longer still with children on a budget airline. Some warm hospitality and a night’s sleep restored their spirits, Marie’s pool refreshed them and the dogs quickly adopted them as part of the family.

ON THE ROCKS

Chris is Barbara’s nephew. He and his wife, Jane, emigrated from South Africa to Canada several years ago; their children are Luke (10) and David (4). With luck I’ll post on the blog some of the photographs that Chris and Jane have been taking.

The family keenly anticipated the arrival from Johannesburg last Tuesday of Jane’s sister, Nancy, and party – three adults and three children – for most of whom we had booked a holiday villa close by.

JANE, NANCY & THEIR MUM

Nancy works for an airline, which was due to fly the group into Lisbon early Tuesday morning via its European hub. After much head-scratching - this is the holiday season and the trains are crowded - we made rail reservations for the final leg from Lisbon to Loule. We knew that the party would have to scramble from plane to train. But we reckoned that if we met them at the airport, we could get them into taxis and 10 minutes down the road to Oriente Station. They’d let us know that they were travelling with cabin baggage only.

PETER WITH SISTER, JANE

Enter Robert Burns with his lines on “the best-laid schemes”. The airline cancelled its overnight flight to its European hub. Nancy phoned to say they’d be arriving a day late. I called Portuguese Rail; “you can exchange the rail tickets,” a nice lady said, but you can do so only once. Back we went to Loule station.

BJ WITH KIDS

Wednesday morning at sparrows, after a restless night, Jones and I set out for Lisbon, Ono and Prickles on the back seat as ever. It’s easy driving on the magnificent toll road that links the Algarve to the capital. We were about half way there when we had a text message from Nancy: their connecting flight to Lisbon was also delayed “for (dubious) technical reasons”.

RELAXING IN LOULE

Let me keep this short. The delay was about three hours. The visitors missed their train. But we thought they might make the afternoon train instead. I waited at the airport; Jones waited at the station booking office, ready to purchase new tickets the moment I sent word.

TB WITH THE KIDS

At last, the group came through into the concourse. We hastened to the taxi rank, where the queue moved with snail-like indifference to our impatience. I exchanged anxious texts with my wife. Our train leaves in 15 minutes, I told our taxi driver. He had us at the station in five. Jonesy was at the entrance, clutching the tickets. Up the escalators we went, two levels to the main line. With some satisfaction and relief, we bundled the visitors into their railway carriage. Then we drove ourselves home.

Am I making too much of such a mini-drama? Well, it took up a lot of emotional space. I should conclude by saying that Chris and Olly met the travellers at Loule station and brought them back for a glorious reunion. They are now as happy as clams in their holiday house, the cousins revelling in one another’s company and the pool as much as the adults. The weather continues torrid; temperatures have been in the mid-30s all week.

Still on the bright side, I have my smartphone back. Its vital organs have undergone a total transplant. It was obviously in a bad way. Happily, the phone was still under guarantee and the repair has cost me nought. What a pleasure it is to have it at my finger tips again instead of wrestling with primitive 20th century technology.

Having said that, the week brought more than its fair share of unwelcome news. Cathy has flown from Berlin to South Africa for the memorial service for our last surviving aunt, Mum’s sister, Iris, on whose farm north of Pretoria we enjoyed many happy holidays as children.

JOYCE, AS WE REMEMBER HER, WITH TOM

Closer to home, one of our first neighbours in Portugal, Joyce Shubrook, has died, several days after suffering a stroke in the wake of a heart attack. Joyce and her husband, Tom, really introduced us to life in the Algarve when we bought the Quintassential back in 1987. For decades they had been the mainstay of the local branch of the expat association.

JOHN IN HAPPIER DAYS

Another old friend and neighbour, John Vincent, who has been in poor health for some time, is being admitted to a nursing home near Loule. He and his wife, Olive, had been hoping to sell their home near Almancil and return to the UK, where their families live. Given the current state of the market, they would be very lucky to do so.

The pleasure of entertaining our visitors has been dulled by these unsettling events.

GRANNY WITH DAVID AT ZOOMARINE

Saturday morning: We joined the gang for supper at the Hamburgo last night. They had spent the day at the Zoomarine park and were in great form as they showed us their pictures and related their adventures.

JANE DUSK OVER ESPARGAL

Towards the end of the meal, I had a call from Olive. She said the doctor had just phoned to say that John had died. It was a mercy but not a surprise. He had gone downhill rapidly, as was evident when we visited him at the nursing home yesterday. We will assist Olive with the funeral arrangements today. Rest in Peace Iris, Joyce and John.