This – if I could nail the moment to the floor – is Thursday night. It has been a very busy Thursday day. Yes, I know that’s redundant. We set out at 11.00 to take Olive to the bank, the post office and the shops. You might think that easy enough but you’d be wrong. The first challenge is to get ourselves out of the gates while keeping the dogs in.
Since the electric motor unit controlling the left gate gave up the ghost earlier in the week, we’ve had to open the left gate by hand – my job; Jones bribes the dogs to stay in the yard while I take out the car. The right gate still opens with the remote.
That’s to say, it did, until we came home to find that puppy had chewed up the remote, as well as demolishing in seconds her indestructible new toy.
But I run ahead of myself. As I say, we set out to fetch Olive. En route we stopped in Loule for coffee and a cake at the “Barclays” café, so-called because it’s situated near the bank (avoid Barclays Portugal like the plague – a story for another day). This café does the best rice cakes in town; we always share one and we stop there as often as we can.
THE CHEWER
Then we continued to fetch Olive from her home near Almancil. The banking and the shopping were straightforward, calling only for a little patience. Fetching the mail from the post office box proved more challenging. Olive couldn’t find the key to her postbox (because it was still hanging in our key cupboard – yet another story!). So we had to persuade a member of the post office staff to fetch the contents from the box.
The contents were problematic – various querulous statements and allegedly overdue bills that had to be sorted out promptly – for Friday is a holiday – Republic Day - and we’re away next week. So instead of dropping Olive back home and returning to Espargal for my siesta as planned, we carried on to the Algarve Forum on the outskirts of Faro.
An hour later, all was resolved: her phone bill, her internet connection, her electricity bill and her computer cord. It felt like hard work, especially a long phone call in Portuguese on a bad line to the electricity supplier. If she ever won the lottery, I informed Olive, I wanted half. Olive said sorry, she didn’t do the lottery.
On Wednesday, Sergio called twice. Sergio is a beefy Ukrainian who works for Segurdecor, the Loule company that installed our electric gates. In the morning, he arrived in response to my SOS to ascertain why the motor no longer opened our left gate. (I strongly suspect that it was because the dogs had been leaping up on to the motor arm to look through the gates!) It would be necessary, Sergio told us, to disconnect the motor drive and take it into the workshop. Go right ahead, we said.
In the afternoon, he brought it back – repaired. The boss had replaced a damaged cog and checked the motor; it was fine. This was music to our ears. But, once the unit had been bolted back into place, it still refused to open the gate. With a sigh, Sergio disconnected it a second time and took it back to the workshop. Later he called to say it was graunched and would need replacing. Did we have €500 for a new one?
Also on Wednesday, we joined friends for lunch at the Hamburgo in Benafim. It was lovely to sit in the shade of the bougainvillea and quaff leisurely beers over easy conversations. They didn’t seem to mind that we’d arrived half an hour late - because Sergio had turned up just as we were about to leave. Sod’s law!
LAST YEAR'S PICTURE
At the adjacent table, the archaeological team from the University of Jena was also having lunch. Afterwards, we took the friends around to the dig in an Espargal field where the bronzed young Germans were shifting rocks and sand. Archeology is hard work. I take them icecreams once or twice a week, a gesture they greatly appreciate in the Algarve sun. Jones is convinced that I have fallen in love.
On Tuesday we drove to the “lagar” on the outskirts of the town of Sao Bras. The word “lagar” translates as “press”. But the lagar in question is a small factory, where all sorts of agricultural products are processed in time-honoured fashion. Here people bring the remains from the pressings of grapes and figs, to be turned into liquor – and olives to be pressed into oil.
With us we had two plastic sacks of pomace (in Portuguese 'bagaço') that Leonhilde had given us, the residue from her wine pressing. After weighing the contents, an assistant at the lagar informed us that these entitled us to two litres of baggy – Jones’s favourite tipple – to be dispensed from a tap at the base of a giant tank. Thank you, we said, passing over two five-litre plastic bottles, and could we purchase 8 litres more. The price is really a bargain – a couple of euros a litre.
I went across to the office to pay the bill. The manager hauled out a book from under the counter to note down the purchase with his pencil. Spotting bottles of medronho on display, I asked to buy one - to present to Llewellyn, Barbara’s brother, whom we plan to see in London in a couple of weeks.
Yes of course, said the manager, going on to indicate that one could save several euros by purchasing an unfranked bottle if one didn't need a receipt. We came away with three bottles instead of one. As we returned home with our booty, we reflected on the principles of rural economics and the ethics of paying taxes. (There’s been an outcry over the income tax increases just announced by the Portuguese government as it tries to balance its ailing budget.)
On Monday, we joined May and her nephew Ken – down from Scotland – for lunch, with Ono and Pricks between our feet under the restaurant table. May is our other widow lady; we generally take her shopping and to lunch at the start of the week.
We have advised her that we shall be away for the best part of a fortnight. We are setting out on Tuesday to spend several days in the north of Portugal before returning to Lisbon – where we’ll leave the car at the airport - and spending four days in London.
Regrettably, the trip clashes with the start of the new academic year at the Senior University and will disrupt my English lesson schedule.
Our weather continues summery. After a couple of days of rain – when we celebrated our first fire in the stove, for cosiness rather than warmth – the sun has returned with a vengeance.
Jonesy is watering her garden once again and the bees are crowding around our water points. We took an afternoon, Jones on one side of the fence and I on the other, to cut back a honeysuckle hedge that had gone completely bananas. Jonesy assures me that it will soon enough grow again.
I have hung bird-seed fingers from the trees in the hope of attracting more birds to the garden but the birds have ignored them. Only the sparrows sport noisily in the trees, as usual. Of the rest we hear more than we see. The doves call for much of the day and at sundown there’s the plaintive whoo of the owl from the valley.
At that hour, after feeding the dogs, we sit back on the front patio to contemplate the day, Jonesy over a baggy and I over a whisky. I have bought a real whisky glass, a lead crystal tumbler, the better to enjoy my evening tot. It’s a
"remainder" that I found marked at half-price in town. Lead crystal is painfully expensive. On the other hand, it seems to age whisky to a mellowness well beyond the reach of other glasses.
It’s time for bed – for puzzled dreams of being back in the monks or of roaming disconsolately around the BBC newsroom. Or maybe of snuggling up to Jones – with the big hairy gooseberry, Ono, snoring gently on the bed between us. P.S. Mary has just demolished a new watch that Jones intended as a gift. Only the plastic strap remained. Jones got down on her knees to listen to Mary's tummy in case the watch was inside her. Happily, we found it elsewhere. (It may be a while before the next blog!)
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