It's been a leisurely week and there's a leisurely blog to match it. These past few days have been blissfully cooler. The Algarve’s dreadful fires have simmered down – for the moment. The expat community pulled out the stops to support the firefighters with essentials - a sensible policy. You never know when your own house will be endangered.
The end of July looms. It is with some eagerness that I am await it. For after July comes August and once that’s over, we can look forward to autumn, a delightful prospect for sufferers of itchy pink heat bumps, such as I. My earlier rash of bumps succumbed to a week of Witbank winter. Since then a new outcrop has appeared - in places best not scratched in public.
Summer is the season of town and village fairs. The first took place last weekend in Loule's main square. While the goods on offer vary little from year to year, one goes as much to contemplate one's fellow humans as their merchandise – and for a hearty meal from one of the restaurant kiosks.
With us, as well as the usual dogs, we took our commuting neighbour, Sarah. (Her husband’s arrival from the UK has been delayed by illness.) Over supper at benches set out beside the kiosks, I snapped away with our new camera. It’s the first time that we have owned a half-decent model, one capable of zooming in on subjects some distance away.
Between mouthfuls of tuna salad and swigs of cold red wine I had a great deal of pleasure in trying to capture the mood of the event.
Then while Jones and Sarah wandered off, I went to fetch the dogs from the car, pausing en route to purchase a picture of storks atop a chimney from a Ukrainian artist with a knack for producing popular scenes.
Now here's a coincidence. As I was sitting at the computer, an email arrived from Jawsie in Doha (as per earlier blog) with a number of pictures taken by her husband, Maurice, including this shot. Storks are among our favourite subjects. The birds make their homes on electricity pylons and church towers across the length and breadth of Portugal. As one drives south from Lisbon, there's barely a pylon or pole to be found unoccupied.
A pottery workshop created this typical design for us in decorative tiles that we have framed on the front wall of house. The Portuguese word for the bird is "cegonho" - pronounced "seGONyo" - (or female "cegonha"), fittingly elegant, don't you think? "Stork" hardly does credit to such avian grace.
Several of the pictures on our walls have been acquired at such fairs, all for modest sums, I should hasten to say.
Over coffee and baggies on the Avenida afterwards it emerged that Jones and Sarah had also admired a picture of storks by the Ukrainian artist, a more expensive work in a different setting. I suggested that we might trade the one I’d acquired for the one they liked, but Jones declined. She is not a person to spend €150 when €50 will do.
I felt obliged to take more pictures when the Espargal gang gathered at the Coral in Benafim for Sunday brunch. Celso has erected a new fence around his patio and lined it with hedging plants. It looks most attractive, and I have the added diversion of the tractors next door to entertain me. Brigitte prepares the most delicious croc-madames (a fried egg on a toasted ham and cheese sandwich).
We arrived just before a peloton of thirsty cyclists. Portuguese cyclists take themselves seriously. It’s not enough to possess a fancy bike, you also have to have fancy gear to go with it. (A good pair of legs helps as well.) Such outfits distinguish real cyclists from those less fortunate souls who cycle because they have to and not because they choose to.
Jones is watering her garden - as ever - while I wait for the afternoon sun to duck down. You may be aware that I use two principal email addresses, one with Telepac (my ISP) and the other with gmail. Shortly before my departure to Johannesburg, quite out of the blue, for reasons known only to itself, the post office cancelled my Telepac address, greatly to my distress.
This address didn’t simply stop working, it stopped existing – and I lost whatever emails were sent to me in the several days that technicians took to restore it, following my heartfelt pleas. (They called me in South Africa to let me know that it was back up.) So if you haven’t had a reply to an email you sent me around the 9th of July, you know why. (The address is re-established and the post office has promised not to cancel it again.)
Still on cyber themes, don’t open any emails that you may receive from an outfit calling itself “tagged.com”. My curiosity was aroused when one landed in my gmail account the other day as “tagged” was not a scam that I’d come across before. Prudently, I merely googled references to the name rather than opening the email – unlike other unfortunate souls, who suffered for their indiscretion.
Postscript: Jones has been taking more sunrise pics. Here's a good one for you. She observed over lunch, while perusing the paper, that women had now grown more intelligent than men, or so some fellow had discovered. Little wonder that I've been feeling inadequate of late!
And here's the girl herself. Note the slipper on the desk, about to be repaired after Barri's latest depredations. The little lamb in the far corner is a birthday gift from kindly neighbours. It actually conceals a towel.
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