Letter from Espargal: 40 of 2011

I write on a fine Friday morning. Through the glass doors of the study, beneath a mild blue autumn sky, the wind is playing in the tree tops. Jones is doing her thing outside (sweeping up the olive pips on the cobbles, she reveals later). I have allowed myself 30 mid-morning minutes on the bed in submission to a cold that I presumably picked up on the flights home from Berlin, this in spite of much careful hand-washing en route.

Life is back to normal – or should that be abnormal? Our house sitters, Ian and Anne, have departed. They enjoyed several balmy days on the west coast before returning here last Sunday. We had warned them of impending bad weather although as we sat down to supper there was no sign of the expected high winds and heavy showers. A doubting Jones, having left the garden unwatered, questioned the accuracy of the forecast.

Her doubts were soon blown away. The storm broke about midnight and rattled around our ears until dawn. There was a welcome 40mms of rain in the gauge in the morning, the first real rains of the season.

IAN'S PICTURES

On Mondays we take May to lunch and I have English lessons. It was at the restaurant that I caught a snatch of a TV report about storm damage to Faro airport – and texted a warning to Ian and Anne, who were flying out that afternoon. But I had no idea just how bad it was until I received urgent inquiries from family in Germany and South Africa.

Ian later emailed me pictures he had taken, showing the gaping holes in the roof of the terminal. Exceptionally high winds – some reports spoke of a tornado – struck around 5am and wrought havoc. Several people inside the terminal were injured by falling debris. The roof at the front of the terminal buckled as well. Anne said that when they arrived that afternoon, the place was chaotic. They were lucky to get away, albeit with some delay.

To add to the misery, electricity supplies to much of the terminal were cut and all the usual shops and snack-bars were shut. For the next two days television reports showed people being bussed around while travellers complained of the chaos, lack of information and absence of facilities. It was a good time not to be going anywhere.
The damage will take months to repair – luckily, at the end of the tourist season.

Wednesday brought another storm and another dump of rain. TV news showed widespread damage as streets were turned into rivers and buildings were flooded. Here in Espargal, I’m relieved to say, apart from the dogs’ muddy footprints on the floor and a scattering of stones that were washed down the road, no harm appears to have been done.

Although the evening temperatures are barely into single figures we have felt ourselves entitled in the circumstances to light the first fires of the season. Our new salamandra has proved an excellent purchase, nursing a few glowing logs for hours and emanating a sense of cosy contentment.

What’s more, after several fires, the glass door remains almost as clean as it was on delivery, much to Jones’s pleasure. She couldn’t abide the little circles that I would clean in the three glass panes of the previous stove (in order to see the flames) and hated the messy business of cleaning them properly.

She and I have spent much of the rest of the week bringing in almonds. We must have 20 almond trees on the property and I feel guilty that most years we have simply left the crop to rot where it fell. The dogs love almonds and spend happy hours crunching the nuts to get at the tasty seeds within, scattering the shell remnants across the patio in the process.

I put down nets and whacked down the nuts while Jones set to collecting them. We were careful to keep the bitter ones separate from the sweet ones. A bucket of almonds is surprisingly heavy and a sack takes the two of us to shift. Some of the locals painstakingly extract the kernels to sell, breaking the shells with a hammer.

Others either sell the nuts whole or keep them for home consumption. We shall have a sack for our farmer neighbour, who arrived at the gate one evening with a generous supply of tomatoes, beans and marrows.

Natasha let us know that she could not work her usual morning as she had to meet a court official concerning the sole custody she is acquiring of her son, Alex. (Nothing has been heard for several years from his Romanian father.) We gathered from the Natasha that the official had visited her apartment to see the conditions in which Alex lived.

ON ROCKS BELOW THE HOUSE

Natasha had asked me beforehand to complete the monthly wage receipts that I’m meant to give her as proof of her continuing employment. The wage book resides in Natasha’s folder in my upper filing drawer. But when I looked it wasn’t there. And it wasn’t misfiled in another folder. Nor was it anywhere else that I looked, upstairs and down. I just about took the house apart, with a growing sense of disbelief. I checked both with Natasha and the accountant in Benafim that neither had their book in their possession.

CHASING MOLES

In the course of this search, I became aware that both of my “mobile connect keys” had also disappeared, which was equally frustrating as my broadband has been playing up for weeks, in spite of several complaints to my provider (who has now promised to fix it).

It was at the end of two days’ searching that I visited the Bijou Ensuite, where Jones and I had spent two nights in May while the Ferretts were house-sitting in the main house. There, in a kitchen cupboard, I found both the book and the missing connect keys. Like the biblical shepherd who returns to the flock with a missing lamb, I felt a great sense of relief.

JONES CLOUD PIC

I am nearing the end of a book - The God Impulse by a neurosurgeon, Kevin Nelson - on the cerebral nature of near-death experiences and similar mystical phenomena. Very interesting, especially as it helps to explain the (auditory hallucination) “voices” I hear as I am falling asleep. (Really just comments, snatches of distant conversations such as: “For thousands of years, this has sufficed”. Indeed, you may wonder!) It apparently all has to do with a misfunctioning Waking-REM sleep switch in the brain stem.

PS. For some time I have been training the dogs to sit while I place a biscuit in front of each of them – and to wait for my command until they eat it. Ian took the following pictures as I went through the exercise. Little Prickles can’t really see the point of either sitting or waiting. The pictures speak for themselves.

Okay, this is nearly the last dog picture. "You have to sit down too!"

PICS FROM IAN - THANK YOU

Letter from Espargal: 39 of 2011

We have spent a week in Berlin and Dresden, our first visit to the latter. I tried to write about it in retrospect but it didn't work. So here it comes in diary form.

Tuesday 11 October: Out of bed at 0300 with scratchy eyes. Don’t think we slept a wink. Dress as quietly as we can. The dogs pretend to sleep but follow us anxiously to the front door. Sorry fellows, you can’t come! I've booked parking at Faro airport. Thence to Lisbon, Frankfurt and finally Berlin, where Cathy, Rolf and daughter Erica are waiting at Tegel airport.

My case arrives but there’s no sign of Barbara’s. Rolf leads us and a forlorn Greek girl to the lost luggage dept. Delivery tomorrow morning, says an official. Then home in a taxi to a warm welcome.

The newly converted guest apartment is 5-star – large, pristine, comfortable and fully-equipped – including a large bottle of Johnny Walker Double Black. It’s situated just below the Gohdes apartment on the first floor and the wifi connection from upstairs is lightning fast. What more could one ask?

Wednesday 12: We wake to eerie silence. The apartment overlooks a boat basin. No dogs come whining to go out or nosing under the blankets for a walk. We follow Cathy on a minor shopping expedition, looking for my Ecco boots and fancy socks. We find some books instead. Back for lunch.

Barbara’s case has been delivered. The contents are topsy turvy, with dried figs and other sweetmeats scattered amongst the clothes. No doubt the food aroused the suspicions of the customs men who turned the case upside down looking for drugs.

Rolf makes us his special brand of soup, thick enough to stand a spoon in. It’s delicious. To the cinema to see “The Guard”. Great film! The Berlin light festival has just started. Lights play up and down the facades of public buildings. Crowds throng the streets.

Thursday 13: Up at 7 to catch the train to Dresden. There’s a half hour delay due to sabotage of the line, the work of some new anti-establishment group. An oriental traveller opposite us falls into a deep sleep, blasting us with unrelenting snores for the rest of the journey.

Arrive Dresden and stroll a kilometre up the wide pedestrian mall, past hotels and stores, to the old town. We spy a glass edifice where VW assembles its luxury Phaeton model. Our hotel, the QF, which Cathy has booked online, is on the vast main square, much of which is still closed off for restoration.

Centre stage is the Lady Church, Dresden’s most famous attraction. We check in and find our rooms. They are stunning, the stuff of films. This is the life. After lunch a 90-minute bus tour brings us back to the centre just in time for our booked visit to the Green Vault, treasure house of August the Strong.

Like everything else in old Dresden, it has been painstakingly rebuilt following the razing of the city in 1945. After an hour of treasures our eyes start to glitter too. Unpack and try the hotel wifi. No luck. A receptionist gets me online but it’s a struggle. We find a busy restaurant for supper, then desert it for another when waiters ignore us.

Friday 14: Cathy texts me saying that she has booked 12.00 tour of the Phaeton assembly plant. I’m delighted. First to the Lady Church, which has arisen from the ruins to renewed glory. Can’t believe my eyes. I’ve never seen the likes. The interior is overpowering - part church, part Hollywood set and part Escher impossible building – and yet the most beautiful church I’ve ever been in. And I’ve been in a lot. For once visitors are hushed rather than engaged in a photographic scrum.

We walk 30 minutes across town to the VW plant, set among gardens, fish ponds and trees. A 16-storey glass tower houses the cars awaiting delivery. A VW guide leads us to a central raised platform overlooking the assembly area. Her English is good and so is her knowledge of Phaetons.

The main market is China, she tells us. 56 are produced a day, each to order and specified to the owner’s taste. The next biggest market is Germany.

The car is hand-made. Nothing is actually manufactured on site. All the parts are delivered to the plant for assembly, the body shells in trucks, the rest in special VW trams.

Beneath us the whole (polished wood) floor of the factory slowly revolves as spotless white-clad workers assemble each car. No pictures please - respecting the rights of the workers and any owners who may be on the floor! Parts arrive on driverless trolleys that whine downstairs for restocking. Every part is barcoded. The light is soft, there’s no noise to speak of.

Afterwards we’re taken down to examine a Phaeton. The car is understated, deliberately so says the guide. There are 18 adjustments possible to the driver’s seat. I try them all. Even so, I’m more comfortable in the luxury Touareg 4x4 beside it. The driver sits higher and there’s more headroom – not that I’m likely to buy either.

Phaetons start in Germany at €68,000, our guide informs us, although you can spend a million if you want to.

Wander back through park. Along the main avenue numerous mobile kiosks are selling produce. I try several shops for the special hiker’s socks that I like (short-cool, sizes 41-42) with some success.

Then to Augustinum gallery to brush up on our art. As ever, there’s lots we like and lots we don’t. Cathy talks knowledgeably about the artists, impressing a supervisor with her expertise. I hunt for a card of a Georg Kolbe painting that has so impressed me. No luck.

Supper in another restaurant leaves Cathy feeling ill. Hurry back to the hotel where she spends an up and down night. I enjoy a couple of fine whiskies in the bar and whistle at the bill! Silly fellow. Trouble is that Rolf has accustomed to me such luxuries.

Saturday 15: Cathy misses breakfast (a pity as the hotel breakfasts are superb). I get a supply of Imodium from a pharmacist to dose her. She spends a recovering morning in her room while I visit the Transport Museum next door and Jones goes for a walk along the river. The great square is occupied by dozens of groups, being lectured in several languages by guides holding flags or brollies. They couldn’t ask for better weather.

We decide on an afternoon boat trip up the Elbe to the summer palace of the ruling Wettin family at Pillnitz. So do hundreds of other people. The boat, the Dresden, is a 100-metre long paddle steamer built in 1926 and revamped after the war. She’s in fine condition.

The engine room is open for all to view the great pistons driving the twin paddles. The banks are lined with cyclists and walkers. A bride and groom pose for photographs. Out of the wind and in the sun I nod off. We stop twice to let passengers off and on. The return journey, downstream, takes half the time.

We rescue our cases from the hotel. I try to revisit the Lady Church briefly but it’s closed for a concert. So it’s back to the station, pulling our cases behind us, clickety clack across the cobbles. We return to Berlin on a Hungarian train with uncomfortable seats. At least no one is snoring.

Cathy leads us expertly up several flights of stairs to the S-Bahn track that will take us home. The wifi connection at the apartment has slowed to a trickle. Rolf explains that he has a limited highspeed download allocation each month, a limitation with which his daughter is still coming to terms.

Sunday 16: Up early to visit the Pergamon special exhibition. Rolf has obtained the last tickets for 09.30 entry. We have previously visited the adjoining Pergamon museum, home to many of the exhibits from the ruins of the ancient city in Turkey. I have no idea what to expect. Up 5 flights of thigh-punishing stairs to a metal platform in the centre of a circular hall.

A vast canvas forms the perimeter of the hall, with fine detail of the city of Pergamon as it must have been at its height. Dogs bark and birds call. There are thousands of figures in the temples, halls, stadia and steps of the city. It’s impossible to know how the gigantic image has been created or cast on to the walls. The lights fade to reflect the scene by night before an artificial sun rises again. This is magic.

Rolf cooks us a splendid Sunday lunch. Since retiring he has taken over the cooking from Cathy, an arrangement that suits them both. And an excellent cook he makes. Younger daughter, Anita, who is moving from Berlin to Mannheim to further her PhD studies, brings us up to date on her life. Afterwards, I go for a walk with Erica and Rolf. Erica is a born-again Christian. We have a lot to talk about.

Monday 17: Sleep in. So nice. One could get used to living like this. We join Rolf on a lazy foot tour of our favourite places in Berlin. Up past the Dom and the great buildings on Museum Island. Then down along Unter den Linden to the chocolate shop, where we retire upstairs to drink rich chocolate coffee.

Then it’s back home via twists and turns that emerge on the boat basin beneath the Gohdes apartment. After lunch and a snooze, we set out on foot to visit the apartment several kilometres away that Anita shares with two friends. It’s four floors up and there’s no lift. On the other hand, the building is set among wide leafy streets, close to a park and a canal. Location, location!

We sit down to cakes that we chose en route from one of Berlin's many cake shops. Jones has a weakness for Mohnkuchen - poppyseed cake - so do I. Anita shows us around the apartment and introduces us to a flatmate. An hour later we emerge to catch the U-Bahn into west Berlin on a shopping cum light-festival viewing expedition.

We gawk at the Meissner porcelain in the smart Ka De We store – Berlin’s Harrods. Statuettes are priced in four figures. Not today, thank you. Down the road, my clothes shopping, jeans and undies, is successful; so is supper in the busy stube overlooking the Sony Plaza. I really like the 1912 special brew. It comes in small (half-litre) and large (one-litre) measures. This is Germany, the waiter reminds us. The light festival doesn’t amount to much. It doesn’t matter.

Tuesday 18: Shower, pack and prepare to catch the bus to Tegel airport after lunch. Cathy prints off our boarding cards. We try to leave the bathroom and apartment in the same immaculate condition that we have found them. Lucky the people who will follow in our footsteps because there is no finer accommodation in Berlin.

Wednesday 19: We're home. The dogs gave us an hysterical welcome. We gave them an early walk. I needed to be back for the electrician who was due to connect the solar panels to the national grid. No sign of him. Natasha arrived to clean and Natalia for her English lesson. Later emerged that the electrician had called while we were out and completed the connection. I was delighted to watch our home grown electricity flowing down into the village. Anne and Ian have taken themselves off for a few days. They did a grand job of looking after hearth, zoo, garden and home. Thank you.

Letter from Espargal: 38 of 2011

I reflected at the Vilarinhos “lagar”, as bagaçeira gushed into the 5-litre plastic bottles that we’d brought along, just how easy it is to make liquor and how difficult it is to stop people doing so, whether for moral or fiscal reasons.

Some brief explanations:

Bagaçeira, more often referred to in this house as “baggy”, is a liquor distilled from the pomace (bagaço) that remains after grapes have been pressed to make wine or vinegar. Baggy is also Jones’s drink of choice, preferably with diet coke, a couple of ice-cubes and a generous squeeze of lemon. A “lagar” is a “press” or, more generally, a place where olives or other products are processed.

That’s enough explanations.

As is customary in these parts, Leonhilda, a Portuguese neighbour, having picked and pressed her grapes, invited us to deliver the bagaço residue to the lagar, where it could be traded for bagaçeira. Together we heaved two heavy plastic sacks of this residue into the boot and set off with her (and the usual hounds) for Vilharinhos, 30 minutes away.

There the residue was weighed. It entitled us, said the weigher, to 4 litres of bagaçeira, an amount that he scribbled on a scrap of paper before directing us to the office. At the counter we asked to buy 11 litres more - at €2.5 a litre, a quarter of the retail price. No problem.

There’s no bottle store at the lagar. One makes one’s way, clutching another scrap of paper, past the huge boilers into the vat room – just the taps protrude - where 5-litre plastic bottles are filled in a matter of seconds. And so we returned home with enough baggy to see Jones through much of the winter.

That’s if winter ever comes. There’s no sign of it. Sunny day follows sunny day with no prospect of rain and afternoon temps around C30*. We had looked forward to trying out our new salamandra but we haven’t had an evening cool enough to justify even the most modest of fires.

With luck, when we do have that fire, there won’t be the faintest trace of soot around the stove – the bane of Jones’s life. Horacio and two of his workers came around one afternoon to wrestle off the chimney top and seal the gap between the stack and the brickwork with high temperature cement. (Note: Dear Chris, this cement is mixed only with water and therefore probably doesn’t qualify as concrete.) They had the very devil of a job, perched on ladders and needing to remove a bucket of windy soot in the process.

Wednesday was a public holiday – the 5th of October – celebrating the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy in 1910 and the declaration of a republic. This was unfortunate – not the historical events but their celebration on a Wednesday because, as I learned from the EDP lady who phoned me, the EDP does solar panel connections only on Wednesdays. So we missed being connected up to the grid on the 5th. And since we are going to be visiting family in Germany next week, we shall have to wait until the 19th. That’s equivalent to throwing away €10 a day and it hurts.

On Thursday, after English lessons, widow duty and shopping, we headed over to Messines to see how our German archeologists were getting on with their excavation. The site is large and they’ve made great progress. We found them busy recording and sketching the details of the dig.

On the Friday, they said, they were coming to Espargal to do the same at the site in a field just below the village. We informed neighbours who had expressed an interest. And after breakfast with the gang at the Coral, we made our way to the site. It heaved with activity like a disturbed ants’ nest. All 18 members of the group were busy dusting, brushing, sweeping, cleaning and generally preparing to record their work.

This they do partly with detailed sketches (that are later digitized) and partly using photography. It’s no ordinary photography. A fancy camera is attached to an elaborate tripod whose central metal support rises 18 metres in the air via a series of tubes within tubes in order to take aerial pictures from a near vertical position.

Happily, I’d rung before we arrived to ascertain the number present – 18 – and was able to arrive with a full complement of icecreams for the group.

On these the workers fall like wolves upon lambs, as I said to them, although I’m not sure that they followed the metaphor. Whatever the case I am able to state without fear of contradiction that we are far the most popular visitors to the site.

Dennis Graen, who leads the team, was telling us of the background research that they do, for example analyzing pollen (when they find any) to learn more about the plants and flowers prevalent at the time. They have obtained sufficient financing to return to both sites for the next two years. These are of particular interest because little is known about Roman farms in the hinterland rather than along the coast where much more research has been done.

From Henning, another member of the group, we gathered that the university language experts had thus far failed to identify the writing carved into a stone that the team had discovered at the Messines site. “It’s probably Klingon,” he observed drily. Obviously, the Star Trek series is also shown in Germany.

On the domestic front we have had mixed success bringing the pups inside the house overnight. They like to be with the other dogs (and me) and resent being thrust into exterior darkness. Mary still quivers with excitement each time she sees a cat and is hard put to leave it alone. On the other hand, the pups settle down overnight and are far less inclined to bark, a habit which – at 0200 hours – we find most irritating.

Regrettably their destructive energy shows little sign of abating. Anything they can get their teeth into is ripped apart. Jones has spent more hours than I can recount patching mattresses, covers, quilts and blankets, all to very little avail. She’s says she’s had enough of it. I can’t argue with that.

This is what remains of what was recently quite a good chair. The seats, which had been chewed to destruction, have been replaced with planks that Jones is planning to cover. We are grateful to be leaving the zoo in the hands of house sitters who are experienced dog people. A glance at the Faro airport website tells us that they have just landed. Enough unto the day.