We have been entertaining my cousin, Carohn. It's made for a most pleasant week and a break from our usual activities, albeit under skies sunny and showery by turns.
Carohn was due to arrive in Lisbon early Tuesday evening on a flight from the Balkans. The plan was to meet her at the airport and whizz her back down the motorway to Espargal for a smoked salmon sandwich supper.
In the event the French air traffic controllers were feeling a bit out of sorts, as they so often do, and her plane arrived 90 minutes late. Having got fair warning of this delay on my smartphone, Jones and I lingered a while over a picnic supper at a motorway stop just outside Lisbon. We’d left the beasts in the care of Natasha.
Carohn is the eldest of my eight Capetonian Cornell cousins. She’s taking 6 weeks off from her busy life doing research and stuff in South Africa. After spending a few days with us, she will head north to Lisbon and then to Porto, where she will join friends on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella.
Anneke, a Dutch neighbour who walked the route a couple of years ago, has been kind enough to pop around to share her experiences. The road to Santiago is popular, lined with hostels where pilgrims may stay inexpensively. Having several times (some decades ago) shared hikers’ huts with fellow sleepers, I can only wish my cousin well.
At this point, I must pause to satisfy the several impatient dogs who are crowding around my chair, reminding me that they haven’t had their afternoon walk. They are expert elbow joggers. The sun has come out briefly after a day of showers and we can probably make it around the back of the hill before the next black cloud overtakes us.
We’ve escorted Carohn to favourite restaurants and around tiny villages where the car creeps between the walls of the old houses. She loves the views and green valleys, which are much refreshed by a week of showers. And she’s enthused by the flowers and trees, altogether an easy an appreciative guest.
Returning from one outing, we stopped to watch a cycle race, police outriders leading the way and supporting ambulance following on behind. Portugal is a country almost as mad on cycling as it is on football. Cyclists are expected to don the latest gear, shoes and helmets included – before hitting the road.
The peloton that came sweeping up the steep hill to Alto Fica seemed to make light work of it. It was only the sweating, puffing tail-end that revealed just how tough it was. Although I was a daily cyclist in London, the erratic behaviour of local motorists has put me off such exercise here.
A visit to Alte the following day brought us into the midst of a great throng. At Rosa's cafe, where we paused for refreshments, we gathered that the crowds had turned out to attend the funeral of a popular local man.
I bumped into Horacio’s workers, who were chatting to their fellows while they waited to follow the hearse down the road to the cemetery. The deceased man, they informed me, was a 62 year old plumber who had died of leukaemia. He must have been an excellent plumber to merit such a turn-out.
Carohn and I nipped around one night to Leonilde’s house to fetch the bread and cheese that she acquires on our behalf each week. She presented us with a home-made “folar”, the Portuguese Easter cake, insisting that we try some. Then she led us proudly around the back of the house to show us the traditional brick oven, newly restored by her son, in which she’d baked it. It was too dark to photograph. Instead, I snapped Leonilde with her daughter-in-law and Carohn in the room where the grapes are pressed.
As we walked back, we watched the biggest Easter moon ever rising just above the horizon. Yes, Easter is upon us. May it bless us all! On a practical note, it will be only some time after Easter, when we have a spell of dry weather, that the builders will be able to complete the last cobbled patio. For us, fortunately, that’s no problem.
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