On Friday we were shorn, Jones and I. Here it might be useful to make a gender cultural distinction. While the men I know, those with any hair to speak of, have it cut, women of my acquaintance have theirs “done” – a far more important, demanding and generally expensive process. In Jones’s case, it was cut rather than done – and cut shorter than I can remember it.
Her hair had been getting on her nerves, prompting complaints of “I can’t do anything with it”. As mine was also down around my ears, where I don’t like it, I made an appointment with Fatima in Loule. We’ve been going to Fatima for years.
She’s really a man’s hairdresser but will also attend to women who don’t need perms and all that stuff. Along with her Jones took a picture of what she wanted to look like by the end of the haircut. You may judge the results for yourself. I’m still getting used to them. Her hair certainly shouldn’t bother her again for a while.
In the car at Loule’s parking garage we left Ono and Prickles, the usual travellers, along with Raymond, whom we had just taken to the vet. Raymond has a problem with his paw – an expensive problem. For the next ten days he has to take a course – his second - of anti-flammatories and antibiotics, after which the vet will re-examine him to see whether he needs minor surgery.
On Friday we also quietly celebrated the arrival of the autumnal equinox. Roll on autumn; our new salamandra awaits.
On Thursday we had an artistic and archaeological outing. Our UK friends, Mike and Lyn, who are staying with Idalecio, joined us for a trip that took in a dig near Silves, and two galleries. First stop was the dig, a project that now occupies the whole team from the University of Jena, members of which have also been excavating in the fields just below Espargal.
I should confess that I have managed to make a rod for my own back. On one occasion last year, I took the diggers a box of icecreams, a treat that they greeted like manna from heaven. I’ve done the same thing on hot days once or twice at Espargal. The arrival of these icecreams has brought the dig to a halt and the sweaty students more visible pleasure than I can easily describe. The bottom line is that I now lack the courage to visit the dig without the “magnums” to which they so look forward when they see us coming.
We stopped at a café near the site to arm ourselves with the necessary. As the students saw us making our way down the path towards the site, they actually started clapping. How can one resist such a hero’s welcome? After handing over the icecreams, we chatted to the group leader, whom we’d met last year, as well as to the visiting head of the Archaeology department. The group is excavating a large Roman farm house that might easily, we understand, have had 100 workers.
The most fascinating discovery is a slab with an inscription in a language they have not yet identified. They speculate that it may be Punic – an extinct variety of Phoenician, people who traded along the Iberian coast for centuries before the Romans arrived on the scene. How it came to be at the site is intriguing in itself. The university’s ancient language expert has examined the inscription without being able to identify the language or translate it, a situation – one student confided – that had left him most unsettled.
Our next stop was the gallery of the artist Paula Will in Silves (a city that was for centuries the Moorish capital of the Algarve). Paula greeted us enthusias- tically and showed us around. She’s half Portuguese and half Scottish. We have one of her works and would gladly have one or two more. Jones especially fancied one of her fish paintings.
Then finally – after a spot of lunch – we continued to the Corte Real gallery on the outskirts of Messines, where I snoozed in the car with the dogs while my passengers looked – most satisfactorily they reported – around.
On Wednesday we went to the lawyer to try to sort out our properties. After our bruising experience with unwelcome buildings arising around us at Cruz da Assumada, we have tried to establish a mini green belt here at Espargal. Our initial purchase was of two adjacent properties. In the subsequent years we have acquired another 5 properties, half and acre here and half an acre there until we felt relatively secure.
They don’t amount to very much, perhaps 5 acres in all. But they are sufficient to protect our backs from unwelcome construction. Three different lawyers have been used in the process and several important documents are missing from my files, which means going along to notaries and property registers to secure them.
Tuesday has vanished into oblivion.
On Monday an inspector arrived to check that the satellite tracking station, aka Jodrell Bank, was fit for the purpose. He was led here by members of the firm that had carried out the installation, with whose work he was evidently well acquainted. The firm's MD, who was present, said that problems were rare and we certainly had none.
After ascertaining the potential electricity supply from the panels and checking the wiring of the new boxes in the electricity pillar, the inspector wished us good day and went on his way. Now we await the contract, due in the post in a week or so, and finally connection to the national grid.
On Sunday we went along to the village of Alte, which perches (clearly visible to us) on a hillside 15 minutes away, for a sort of church procession cum harvest festival. At least that’s what one of the stall holders led me to believe that it was.We arrived early to find half a dozen neglected stalls set out in the village square.
Moments later, two fellows in strange dress came trotting down the cobbles on horses, followed by a parade of worthies that included several statues borne aloft and a straggly band. This, with the assistance of Google Translate, is the Alte Parish’s explanation (slightly modified) of the occasion.
“Sunday closest to September 17:
That day, in the churchyard of the Church, the Knights dressed in white turban and starring the head, cite the "Loas," prayer in verses Nossa Senhora das Dores (Our Lady of Suffering). The procession leaves the Church with the images of Nossa Senhora da Assunção (Our Lady of the Assumption), Nossa Senhora das Dores and S. Louis.”
And so it was. The worthies, mainly female and mainly sexagenarian plus, paraded sedately past us while Jones snapped away and Ono, Prickles and I looked on. They followed a 30 minute circuit through the town that took them back to the church where they had started out.
Jones, meanwhile, bought one or two small items from stall holders who were doing no other business and who confessed to her that times were tough. It’s not that we need any telling. Hardly a day passes without news of some new austerity measure or tax to diminish the deficit. We retired to the river to wash down the cake we'd bought with a drop of medronho.
Some other things happened at other times that I will probably remember later and stick up in due course. But, for the moment, that’s it.
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