Letter from Espargal: 40 of 2012

BROWN HOUSE, TOP LEFT
If we lived on the south side of Espargal hill we should now be basking in the autumn sunshine we enjoyed there during our morning walk. Regrettably, we don’t. Like most other Espargalians we live on the north side. And up near the summit, where the house is set, the trees are bending sideways under the relentless buffeting of winds that come straight from the Arctic. Or is it Siberia?

For the umpteenth time I breathe a little sigh of gratitude for the wood-burning stove in the centre of the lounge that keeps the house so deliciously warm. The first thing we did on our return from the walk was to renew last night’s fire. The coals from a big log were still glowing. With our heavily insulated walls and roof and double-glazed windows, the house easily retains the warmth. I love it. So do the dogs.

Here I am tending the stove. That’s the silver stack bottom left. What the picture also shows is just how bald I’m getting. (I tried some photographic hair replacement but Picasa wasn't up to it.) This state of affairs brings me no pleasure. I told Fatima, the hairdresser, yesterday, that she ought to be giving me a discount given the reduced labour involved. She replied that I ought to be paying a premium as it took her more time to find the hairs.

LAGOA WINE CO-OP
We were alarmed on our return from a Christmas fair at Lagoa last Saturday to find several of our dogs larking about in the road. They were very pleased with themselves for being so clever. I wasn’t pleased at all. How the hell had they got out? My suspicions fell on my spouse who, in truth, is not always the world’s most security-conscious person.

So I went to check the gates, expecting to find one unlatched. Instead I found them all securely closed - puzzling and concerning. Next day it was the same story. Closer inspection revealed a hole bashed in the fence. Two hours and a sore back later, the hole was patched and the fence reinforced.

The Christmas fair I mentioned was held in the vastness of the old Lagoa wine co-op. The building had already been taken over as an exhibition hall by a group of artists whose work was displayed on a series of room dividers. Stalls had been erected in front of these so that visitors could admire the background art while they hovered over the usual Christmas nick-knacks.

We liked much of the art. Regrettably, most of what we liked ran to four figures while our art purse runs to two or three. In fact, favourite pieces – by disabled artists - cost us barely a tenner each.

We also liked a range of German stainless steel stove/barbecues, cleverly designed to take a variety of grills, woks and pans. As the stoves stand on wheels they can easily be moved about. They also serve as heaters. The downside, as so often with fancy products, was the price tag.

We are not great barbecuers. I make occasional use of a rickety, portable hand-me-down barbecue. There is no ideal site close to the house to erect a decent one. The best places are up around Casa Nada but the results are hardly worth the effort, especially as Jones does our turkey sausages to perfection in the oven.

MAY - ARCHIVE
On Monday May confided to us over lunch that a representative of the security firm that she employs had visited her to say that she needed a new box of electronic tricks and would have to pay several hundred euros up front. When she queried the amount with him, he reduced it on the grounds that she was an old customer. Reluctantly, she had handed over a cheque. It all sounded very fishy. So on Tuesday we drove to the firm’s headquarters to check things out. A member of staff assured me that it was all above board.

Also on Tuesday we went to Salir to follow up a phone call from the electronics shop that was supposed to be ordering us a new satellite receiver (digibox). The assistant said that the €400 euro model we’d ordered was no longer available and that its replacement would cost around €550.

That’s a lot of money for a digibox, even a fancy one, as I pointed out to her. The model concerned was available from Amazon for barely half the price. She shrugged; she wasn’t in a position to negotiate and suggested we talk to the boss.

STUDY
For the moment I think we’ll limp along with the old unit in the study. The hard disk has some corruption, causing intermittent rainbow flashes on recordings; while that’s irritating, it’s not as irritating as coughing up €550. The dodgy digibox brings in the UK radio and TV channels that we listen to and watch most. It is located upstairs. The clever bit is that we can relay the signals through to the bedroom and downstairs using some nifty plug-in sender/receivers.

SENDER ATOP DIGIBOX
At least we could until one of us inadvertently ripped a plug out of the wall. I couldn’t find a replacement receiver online. So I ordered a similar set that I sat down to install one afternoon. Eureka! We no longer have to trek upstairs with supper to watch the night’s TV programmes. Given that it’s now dark well before 18.00, the evenings are long and much lightened by good TV.

On Wednesday I scarified our fields, which had turned green under six inches of flourishing weeds. The wind was freezing. I had to come inside to find an additional jacket. When I muster the courage, I shall attach the plough plates to the scarifier and prepare the ground for the fava (bean) seeds that we sow each year.

Thursday was Olive, shopping and Natasha.

Friday is letter writing, blogging, checking bank accounts and all that stuff. Maybe finishing off that ironing as well. Tonight the Espargal expats gather for dinner at the local for a pre-Christmas do. The buy-more carols are already echoing around the shopping centres. Jesus would have wept.

Letter from Espargal: 39 of 2012

Hello from Espargal on a damp Friday night in the lead-up to a wet weekend. Never mind that Jones's superb dawn doesn't fit the picture. Jones herself is down in the kitchen fixing a salad supper. On the TV behind me, six choirs are taking part in a competition in which five of them will be disappointed.

It's been a "more of the same" week, which makes for difficult blogging. So I'll let the pictures lead the way. The couch is ideal for taking a siesta - my first of the week - in spite of the persistent fly that's trying to sit on my face. Hence the hat. We got back from an Olive shopping trip in time to light the stove and settle down.

Most of the week was devoted to the great cutback with occasional interruptions by rain. Here we are tending to the trees around the house. In recent years the trees have started to overshadow us. The upper branches of the almonds have soared far beyond our reach to rattle against the satellite dish.

Jones complained that her view was being spoiled. I liked the privacy the trees offered. So, as in most things, we compromised, taking off the tops while leaving the branches to expand sideways. Two vast piles of firewood pay testament to our efforts. We've enough for at least the next two years.

Idalecio's chainsaw flickered rapierlike up and down the trunks of trees, taking off the lower branches. An old plum tree got some overdue attention. Perhaps the hardest job - Miguel's - was dragging the mountains of branches to clear areas where they could be set alight. At last the job is done.

One afternoon we took ourselves to the village of Alte, 15 minutes away, where the spring-fed stream had grown into a brown torrent. Benafim was originally part of the parish of Alte. Now, much to our distress, it seems doomed to be merged with two other distant parishes. We await the final decision from parliament.

We came home slowly via the agricultural dirt road, doing our best to dodge the multiple muddy potholes. Prickles took the opportunity to ride business class. He's the smallest of our seven dogs but he doesn't know it. In his head, he's as big as his ego and, to be sure, none of the others will cross him.

The hillsides between Benafim and Alte are lined with citrus plantations. Much of the fruit is exported - and Portugal sure needs exports. But unlike the traditional olive, carob and almond trees, citrus requires extensive irrigation, inevitably from boreholes. We fear the impact of global warming and a drying climate.

Back in Espargal, the cats await the fishmonger's arrival, heralded by the screech of the truck's amplified horn. The fishmonger buys his fish either from the market or the quayside early in the morning. The rest of the day he spends travelling from village to village to sell on the catch.

And he never forgets the cats. This is what they've been waiting for - although the meal is not always shared.

For ourselves, there's not much to add this week. We saw "Argo" and thought it well done, even if it spiced up history in the interests of drama. That's movies for you!

Jones was pleased to see that the rose she acquired in Ruth's memory rewarded her by producing a bud. We haven't yet had time to settle the pot properly among the rocks. I am becoming an authority on the history and complexities of English orthography. What a mess - and one with no chance of ever being resolved!

Letter from Espargal: 38 of 2012

Any fears we had of a painfully dry winter have been dispelled. As I write, the rain that's falling steadily shows a healthy inch brimming in the gauge. We are heading for the wettest November in years - and the month is barely half done. That's fine by us. In this community, winter's rains nourish summer's crops.

But the first half of the week was made in heaven. For the three days of gentle autumn sunshine, Idalecio and Miguel came to cut back our trees. There are scores of trees on the property, none of which had been pruned for years. We asked Idalecio to treat them as he would his own.

This he did, concentrating on the carobs, the olives and the almonds - the fruit-bearing trees which have long sustained the Algarve. While Idalecio wielded his chainsaw, Miguel dragged the branches away - the leafy ends to be mulched, the boughs to be cut up for firewood and the rest to be burned.

Miguel is an engineer who, like thousands of other graduates in Portugal, is finding little outlet for his qualifications. So he welcomed the opportunity of some gainful exercise in the sun. Among other things he is a personal trainer - as his physique attests. These days, he says, you have to be able to turn your hand to anything.

It was his first experience of driving a tractor. I advised him to take it slowly. The three stages of tractor driving are: learning nervously, gaining in confidence and then frightening oneself nearly to death. Several of our neighbours have had nasty accidents. Tractors have great power and no discretion.

While the workers laboured away, I set about making a fire. This had to be one of the most unwilling fires I have ever lit. It mocked my efforts. The ground is saturated as is much of the vegetation. Time and again my sticks would catch alight, only to extinguish themselves again in a depressing wisp of smoke.

I wasn't ambitious enough, said Idalecio, who took the tractor to fetch the moutains of branches that Miguel had built up. One at a time, he backed them up to the fire, barely visible behind the shunted pile of greenery. In minutes my piffling little blaze became a roaring inferno. It wasn't a problem.

There was hardly a breath of wind and the surrounding trees were at a safe distance. This is the time of year for pruning trees and vines and for burning the offcuts. There's no other practical option. Around the valley plumes of smoke rise into the air as the farmers set to work. Officially one is supposed to notify the fire service.

For the first couple of years, I did - and a fireman came along to inspect the piles to be burned. Then, like everyone else, I just waited for the first rains before setting the offcuts on fire. This week I also did my share of carving Idalecio's severely pruned boughs into useful sections.

Load after tractor-load of wood found its way to the top of the property where a giant woodpile has taken shape. The wood will have to spend at least one summer and maybe two drying out before it becomes suitable fuel for our wood-burning stove. Right now the dogs are gathered around the stove

in a melody of quiet snores as Jones prepares supper and I type away.

So that's where our week has gone, along with dog walks, English lessons and outings for May and Olive. During one outing we came across a discarded sofa, several cushions from which are now dog beds.

Jones, who has taken most of the pictures - including this stunning dawn - remains behind the camera this week. But she's hale and hearty, busy with the usual chores, feeding the cats in Casa Nada before our morning walk and supporting the neighbourhood critters after our afternoon stroll.

Speaking of which, here you see Raymond crouched anxiously behind Dearheart as she laps away at a saucer of milk. Raymond hopes that Dearheart will leave some milk for him. But like a gentledog, he waits his turn. Would that there were more like him.

Next week our garden shapers will be back to finish the job. Meanwhile we have our heads down as the rain falls and the winds howl about the house.

Letter from Espargal: 37 of 2012

Monday:
It’s been a wet weekend. For much of it we’ve had our heads in the mist. After a restorative morning coffee in Loule, I dropped Jonesy at the Chinese shop (there are actually half a dozen) and drove to Sergio’s place on the far side of the town to have four new tyres fitted. Sergio had recommended Michelins instead of the previous Dunlops. That was fine by me. He knew more about tyres than I did and the price was much the same.

ROCKS ON THE ROAD

Although my wheel-spinning days are a distant memory and I treat the car like a real lady, she is heavy on tyres. I’m on to my third set in four years. After barely 30,000 kms the treads are close to the legal minimum and in the wet season it’s prudent to change them early.

THE FORD

In spite of the rain there still isn’t a drop of water flowing under the Algibre River bridge. The odd puddle is all that’s to be seen. The ford is little more than a rocky crossing. The earth must truly have been parched to have soaked up so much water.

We took May to the bank before going on to lunch. Orlando, the bank clerk, knows her well and is ever so helpful. May hands over a cheque, he fills it in and she has merely to sign it. Although the bank will accept cheques written out in English, we have found it best to use Orlando’s services as May’s numbers sometimes go a bit awry.

Tuesday:
I've been engaged in an exchange of emails with Thomson (holidays), with whom we have booked a spring Norwegian cruise. I was concerned because Thomson’s confirmation email omitted both the postal code and Portugal from our home address, threatening the arrival of the tickets that a rep said were to be posted to us in due course.

I was astonished to be told that Thomson's system didn’t accept foreign postal codes and that I shouldn’t have been able to make a reservation without giving a UK address.

Several emails and a phone conversation later it emerged that this was nonsense and that our tickets would arrive by email - a case of not knowing one's bows from one's stern.

RUTH, AS WE REMEMBER HER
Wednesday:
We had news from Cape Town of the death of Barbara’s older sister, Ruth, who had been ailing for some time. Her family had prepared us for the news which, we knew, might come any day. RIP Ruth. You were much loved.

SOME SKY!
Mid-morning Celso (from the Benafim snack bar) arrived on a tractor to fetch a disused wood-burning stove from the Dutch ladies. With him he brought - and needed – muscular help, for the stove weighed half a ton. My part was simply to show him where the ladies lived and to lend moral support.

BENAFIM THROUGH THE CLOUD

This is the time of year for firing up wood-burning stoves (known here as salamandras.) Although temps have barely fallen into single figures, it’s miz in the foggy wet and a small fire keeps the house wonderfully warm and cosy.

We dropped in on Worten’s mobile phone department to query the workings of Jonesy’s new Nokia phone. It’s meant to be a “swipe” phone but it doesn’t swipe easily. A saleswoman reset the screen sensitivity, which has improved things slightly. I would have exchanged the phone for a different model but Jones says it’s been hard enough to learn the ways of this particular model and she definitely doesn’t want to have to start over again with another.

She continues to make strides with the iPad, with which she now frequently sits down to check her emails. Her “what’s gone wrong now” appeals grow ever fewer. For my part, I use the iPad more for reading books and my weekly Economist. What a brilliant device! I’ll be most interested to see how the new Microsoft tablet with keypad shapes up against it.

Thursday:
It rained cats and dogs all night. The rain gauge was overflowing this morning. We had at least 55mms. Nicoline, at the bottom of the village, reported that she had recorded 59.2mms. She’s a retired meteorologist and still maintains a professional weather station.

We drove down to the river to see if there was any water flowing at last. There was – a gushing, rushing, muddy, swirling, frantic, turbulent torrent that swept past us in a race to the distant ocean. The far bank was 150 metres away rather than the usual 20 and the grove of trees on the river bank was waist-deep in water.

The riverbed on which we’d gazed all summer and where I’d stood with the dogs a week earlier, was just a memory. The torrent rushing over the ford offered instant death to any motorist mad enough to try it. Where the stream bed had stood forlorn, great lakes of brown water churned angrily.

Marie and Olly arrived, along with a couple of Portuguese neighbours. They gazed on the scene with equal wonder - a rare sight indeed. A Portuguese lad said the river was overflowing the bridge downstream at Paderne. Idalecio’s dad declared that in his 70 years he’d never seen the river fuller.

On the way home Jones stopped to take a few pictures of the pots gracing Natercia’s patio. The front of the house is a mass of pots and blooms, a delight for all who behold them. Barbara paused for a few words and returned to the car with a box of cuttings. My thoughts turned to the courtyard gardens in old Cordoba.... Memories! FIM