The sun is rising a little earlier than it did last week (nibbling away at my sleep-ins) and setting a little later. Not much else has changed. After a flutter of rain at the weekend, the skies have returned to their familiar deep blue and the temperatures to their comfortable January range. On our walk this morning Jonesy tried taking various pictures to illustrate the depth of this blueness, with some success, as you may judge. She’s become quite a dab hand with the camera.
On our return she attempted to snap the dogs catching the biscuits that I tossed to them. This proved more difficult as the catchers are lightning fast and the camera isn’t. Four of the six dogs are adept at such catches. The other two just look at me hopefully as the biscuits bounce off their heads.
As I was saying, the days are sunny and warm. This was noted by the accountant, whom we visited last Tuesday to submit our annual tax returns. He remarked on the (modest) income we now derive from the solar panels and said we weren’t the only clients who’d invested in them. What he couldn’t tell us was whether any tax allowance was made for such income. I somehow doubt that there’ll be any benefit, given the plight of the cash-strapped Portuguese government.
Afterwards we took ourselves a kilometre up the road to the shopping complex at Guia for a mini-raid on the new Iceland supermarket. Just outside the door a young lady was standing beside a table on which a number of items were laid out. It was clear from the badge on her lapel that she was collecting for charity. But she wasn’t the type to pester passers-by and the public was happy to look the other way. Like a statue of the virgin, the poor girl just stood and stood. So we made a contribution, more in sympathy with her plight than her cause.
Another morning we dropped in on the council to try to assist a Portuguese neighbour, old Chico (and his extraordinary partner, Dina). I should interrupt myself to say immediately that the real credit for helping Chico goes to his immediate expat neighbours, whose kindness borders on saintly. My part was just to talk Portuguese to the authorities.
The problem is that Chico’s water has been cut off because he hasn’t paid the huge water bills that he’s run up over the past two years. The trouble, Fintan tells me, is not that Chico uses a lot of water, it’s that he forgets to turn off the tap that’s filling his barrels. Chico has now received a notice threatening him with the seizure of his goods if he doesn’t pay – not that the authorities would find much to seize.
I explained the position to the clerk, who called in his boss, who called in the departmental head. The three of them were sympathetic. The question was how to reconcile the situation with bureaucratic rules. The head said that she would see if she could get the bill reduced to manageable proportions and let us know. In the meanwhile, Chico and Dina lurch 100 metres down the hill to the well with 5-litre plastic bottles and stagger up again, a bottle in each hand.
To celebrate some good news, Olive took us to lunch at the Lemon Tree restaurant in Almancil. It’s rather nice, a notch up from the places that we generally frequent. One sits in the sun-filled courtyard and briefly basks in the illusion of being important and well-cared for. The waiter, mishearing my wine order, returned with a bottle of the house red. So we sent him back to fetch the reserve. One has to set a standard after all.
Just beyond the restaurant, a couple of storks are raising their family on top of a dizzy chimney. I mention this only because it gives me the opportunity to put up this rather pleasing picture. The rest of the pictures are to Barbara’s credit.
Another luncheon was up at the family-run Hamburgo in Benafim, a regular pit-stop.
It was a relief to find a goodly crowd at the tables because the Hamburgo, like so many restaurants, has been hard-hit by the economic crisis – not to speak of the recent rise in VAT, which it’s had to absorb.
MANUEL & DAUGHTER, SELINA
In the good old days, Manuel would easily serve 30 lunches and an equal number of dinners. The previous night, he disclosed, a single diner had turned up. The restaurant was now dependent on its lunch trade and even this was much reduced by the disappearance of the building crews who had previously been a mainstay. Times are really hard.
I popped into Honda one afternoon for the replacement of the troublesome relay that has been playing silly buggers with the air conditioning. I wasn’t sure exactly what a relay looked like. Rui showed me the little plug-like object before he removed the lid of a mysterious plastic box under the bonnet and replaced the faulty unit. I confessed in embarrassment that while I had once serviced my own cars, these days I hardly knew which part of the engine was which.
On Wednesday Natalia and I worked on her phrasal verbs (which she at first pronounced “frazzle” verbs, much to my puzzlement). I had to look up phrasal verbs on Wikipedia to remind myself of their nature and variety because, like fishes and dogs, they come in many shapes and sizes.
One thing I have learned with Natalia is how impossibly unpredictable English pronunciation is. I frequently have to peer at a word in her book to make out what she is trying to say. The spelling gives little clue to the sound. Nor can one easily tell where the stress falls in a word. Portuguese is so much more consistent in these respects.
Nature is in its spring glory and so is our garden. The shoulder-high rosemary bushes lining the paths are in bloom and humming with bees. And closer to home, the purple irises compete in the beauty stakes with the white roses. What a lovely place to live!
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