Jones says that she is getting that sinking feeling, that sense of trying to ascend a speedy down-escalator. She always gets this feeling before we go on holiday. That’s probably because she prepares an ambitious to-do list and then finds both that she’s forgotten several items and that circumstances have conspired against her.
For instance, she returned glum from her waifs and strays run on Wednesday evening with the news that Maggie had gone walk-about. Maggie, mother of our puppy, normally spends her life at the end of a chain guarding the ramp that leads to Joachim’s garage. Joachim disclosed that Maggie’s chain had come loose and that his dog had disappeared that morning into the bush, still dragging the chain. He had gone looking for her – in vain.
Jones promptly started hunting for Maggie herself but had to cut her search short as we were committed to join friends at an early evening cinema show – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (quite good fun with a sharp script, as long as you don’t mind improbable outcomes and predictable endings). Happily, a phone call to Joachim the following morning brought news that Maggie and chain had arrived back the previous night, saving us hours of bush-combing. We couldn’t bear to think of her trapped somewhere.
As I write, Jones is preparing the guest room for our house-sitters, who are due down on Sunday morning.
A loud Jonesian shriek had me hastening to the upstairs guard-rail, where I gathered that Mary had leapt on to the newly ironed sheet that Barbara was tucking in to the bed. Much as she loves our animals, my wife finds her patience much tried by them especially when, as today, puppy chews up her orchid. Old Mother Hubbard comes to mind, except that in this house the pups chew up the shoes as well.
As mentioned, we are preparing to go on holiday. We depart on our travels this coming Tuesday, motoring up through Spain to Bilbao over three days and then making a leisurely loop back through northern Spain to Lisbon before flying to the Azores for a week.
Since last I wrote, I have returned from a delightful week with family in Canada. I wondered during the flight home whether customs officials would find it curious that I was carrying two computers. The officials at Faro airport take a particular interest in passengers who begin their journeys outside of Europe, a fact they discern from the baggage tags. In the event, they pounced on a passenger just ahead of me, an American woman who had sat near me on the flight from Frankfurt.
I heard her answering their questions with a nervous, high-pitched “O Yeah” as I went through into the terminal. I hope she had nothing to declare.
I was interested to note that during my brief absence Faro airport had reopened the eastern section of the passenger terminal that was badly damaged during a storm last October. Some areas were still curtained off for further repairs. Beyond the terminal the airport is a heaving mass of construction as car-parks are extended and new buildings, including a hotel, are erected.
At home, after an hysterical welcome from the dogs, I found Llewellyn and Lucia, as well as the latter’s 18 year-old niece, Kelsey, who had recently arrived from Australia to spend a gap-year in London. The trio had enjoyed the better part of a week relaxing in the Algarve –a favourite destination – both in Espargal and at a holiday island cottage. They had two more days with us before returning to the UK.
While I was away, Barbara took the dogs into the park twice a day for exercise and entertainment - theirs. She induced some of them to run around by throwing a ball for them to chase. I thought this a fine idea and, on my return, I tried the same thing.
Ono – our aging top dog – decided to join in and was outraged when young Russ got the ball. Ono promptly (and foolishly) piled into Russ for the first real fracas of its kind. Russ is twice his weight and, while normally the most amicable of dogs, was pissed off at the unprovoked assault. It took some effort to separate the combatants, especially as the rest of the pack were keen to join in. Fortunately, no harm was done, except perhaps for the ego of Ono, whose waning powers bode ill for his premier status.
Dogs, as so often, seem to worm their way willy nilly into my blog. While out shopping we had a call from an English neighbour to say that the two mountain dog bitches belonging to Silvia, a Portuguese neighbour, had escaped and were frolicking around the village square. Because Silvia works, I phoned her dad who lives nearby to report their absence.
Dad hastened to the village square where he failed to find his daughter’s dogs because these (it emerged subsequently) were returning home another way, taking Farmer Faisca’s rooster hostage en route – with Farmer Faisca hotfoot in pursuit. At some point, the dogs released the rooster (seemingly unharmed) and were reintroduced to their electric-fence-protected grounds. I wish that I were able to illustrate this account but I regret that, like me, you have to picture these events for yourself.
I had hoped some time this week to run the scarifier through our fields, which are knee deep in (lovely) wild flowers and (unlovely) weeds. But with showers most days, to say nothing of distractions, the opportunity hasn’t arisen. The showers have been welcome, even if Jones has found it necessary to mop the living floor at least twice a day to get rid of the inevitable paw-prints. We have picked and eaten those of our beans that survived the four-month drought that preceded the wet weather. Very good they were too, as always, however diminished.
In-between times I have been getting to grips with my iPad, which continues to delight me. The only problem I faced was trying to persuade it that I don’t live in Canada as it continued to insist that I include a Canadian province in my Portuguese address when I tried to order items online. In the end, I restored it to its factory settings and began again, which did the trick. I have downloaded a couple of books and the BBC iPlayer app as well as taking out a year’s subscription to the BBC TV library.
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