This week has been marked by arrivals. Natasha arrived on Monday to give a final shine to the place ahead of the arrival on Tuesday of my sister, Cathy, and husband Rolf, who flew in just before the arrival of another heat-wave on Wednesday.
“Our” German archaeologists have also arrived although they are working on a dig half an hour away until the end of September, when they come to Espargal.
So that’s enough arrivals to be getting on with.
Rolf joins us at 08.00 each morning on our trek through the hills while his wife stays behind for an hour’s peace and quiet. Although she is resisting her husband's attempts to convert her to the iPad, she is more than happy to catch up on the world and emails with an old-fashioned laptop.
Rolf is a serious walker, newly returned from a 10-day hike through the Alps. While the Algarve hills don’t compare with the Alpine crags, they are rather more accessible and do very nicely for a morning walk; Rolf has been suitably impressed.
Between outings, he has also
been of great assistance with the bringing in of the last of the carob crop while Cathy has been helping Jones with the daily watering of the garden. There’s no sign of rain; temps are still in the low 30s. I have found that they tend to fall markedly in the 2nd half of September into the mid-20s – my kind of weather.
But it’s not happening yet, in spite of the appearance of the African blood flower (paintbrush lily) that emerges from the ground each autumn as the weather changes. We are still taking water around to the mid-walk refreshment station for the benefit of the dogs and the bees (and wild pig!).
With the looming threat of a fuel strike by one of the major suppliers, I took the tractor into Benafim one afternoon to top up both its tank and my spare fuel containers. At the same time, I checked my tyres. (Tractor tyres are filled with water to give the vehicles greater weight – and run at much lower pressures than other tyres.)
JONES SKY: As I withdrew the air-pressure nozzle from a back tyre, the valve disintegrated and a jet of water spurted over the forecourt. Denis, the service station manager, managed to stem the flood. By screwing the valve cap back on, I was able to contain the leak while I crawled up the road to the tyre shop.
There Filipe jacked the tractor up and replaced both rear valves, soaking himself in the process, even though he whipped the old valves out and the new ones in with a flair born of long practice. I tipped him generously. A flat back tyre on a tractor is really bad news, especially if the tractor is stuck on a hillside.
On Tuesday morning, en route to the airport, we stopped in Loule to fetch our new spectacles. Jones is still getting to grips with her latest prescription. We both use “progressive” lenses. My new pair darkens in the sun sufficiently to relieve the fierce Algarve glare. I also have back-up sunglasses; Jones shuns them.
During a subsequent visit to Loule, I stopped at the shoe-cleaner’s stand on the pavement during an idle moment to get my (very dusty) boots shined.
The shoe-cleaner had all his gear neatly arranged on a piece of cloth, including an old metal cup full of water.
Into this he dipped a piece of sponge with which he carefully removed the dust from my boots, informing me that polish otherwise didn’t stick properly.
It took him all of 20 minutes to clean and shine my boots and a splendid job he did too. Although he had pointed to a sign saying €2.50 when I first sat down, he accepted the €5 note I offered him without proffering any change, and I didn’t quibble. It was certainly a €5 performance.
Jones couldn't resist the offer of "West Ham United" duvet covers at a local shop for €2 each. With the help of a neighbour, she has converted them into dog basket covers. They are very smart - for the moment at least - and the dogs certainly seem to be fans.
One morning we took Cathy and Rolf across to the site where a German archaeological team are once again at work, continuing their excavation of what appears to be a substantial Roman villa. To their frustration, the remains lie across the boundary of the neighbouring property, the owner of which has refused them permission to dig.
Even so, there’s plenty of villa to be found on the side they’re excavating. Following an historic find last year - a marble tablet with a Hebrew inscription that has aroused international interest - they have come across mainly ceramics so far this time round.
They showed us a number of fragments, readily identifying them as “Attica 4th century BC” and Spanish - and, when we looked dubious, explaining the distinctive colours and styles. They were looking forward to the arrival of a digger to remove the surface layers of soil and rocks above the next section to be explored.
Did you watch anything of the Paralympics? We saw very little, other than the efforts of the amazing blade-runners. What we did watch, however, was the closing ceremony. As with the finale of the Olympics a few weeks earlier, we were impressed by the colourfulness of the event and the sheer imagination of the producers.
No comments:
Post a Comment