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.
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