It’s been raining. Jones has been taking pictures of the raindrops clinging to leaves and petals around the garden. You may admire them for yourselves. I regret that I am still battling with the latest Google Blogger software, which seems to prevent one from wrapping text around them. I have reported these difficulties to Mr Google but whether he’ll do anything about them is another matter. That’s by the by.
We have been very busy. Sometimes I think that if I were better organised, life wouldn’t be so hectic. But then I reflect that we didn’t retreat to the hills in order to be better organised. We came to relax and make the most of our retirement. At least, I think that’s why we came. Yet, somehow, life has got steadily busier – or, at least, that’s how it seems.
It’s no secret that our seven (official) dogs and three (official) cats take a lot of looking after. Apart from the walks and feeding and visits to the vet, there are the time-consuming individual attentions. For example, Pricks likes to settle down in front of the fire at night.
But in the early hours he comes upstairs and whines to be tucked up on a chair. He won’t hop up himself lest the chair is already occupied because he doesn’t want to be whacked, especially by an angry cat.
So he goes on whining until one of us arises and does the necessary. The other morning I found him sleeping happily on a corner of the bed (along with Ono, our regular three-in-a-bed companion). “Did you put him there?” I asked Jones. “Yes,” she replied, “because all the chairs were occupied.” So there you have it.
Of course, we could shut Pricks out on the patio. But then we’d either have to shut all the rest out – they wouldn’t be pleased – or shut them in, which would prevent them from getting out for a pee at night. Somehow it seems easier just to get out of bed at 3 a.m. and tuck Pricks in. Are we mad? Probably! We do cover the chairs, however, and the dogs are not allowed on the leather couch, apart from Mary - but that's another story.
As I was saying, it’s been a busy week. On Saturday, Slavic came to work. He spent the morning painting the pergola with wood preservative and the afternoon repairing the old bread oven. After bumming a bag of cement and a load of sand from Idalecio, I explained to Slavic what we had in mind and left him to it. He did a splendid job, as you see. He still needs to do a bit of rendering and patching but the bread oven, which was slowly disintegrating, once again looks like the real thing.
On Sunday we joined friends for lunch to celebrate a birthday (I think – I’m not very good at birthdays) and the sale of their house. Selling houses for anything like a realistic price is the very devil in the present market and reason for a real celebration. I ordered a bottle of excellent red wine to mark the occasion.
Along with May and the usual English lesson, Monday brought a visit to the lawyer who has been dealing with the ruins at the bottom of our property. When we bought these a couple of years ago, we left them beyond the fence on a quarter-acre of land with a view to being able to sell them on. What we wanted was the land that came with them, not the ruins themselves. However, on paper they are still part and parcel of the original plot.
On Tuesday, after coffee, toast and jam at the Hamburgo (we take along our own jam), we went along to Gilde hardware on the outskirts of Salir. Gilde is a brilliant store. Not only does it stock a huge range of really useful stuff, but Isidoro and Eva, who run it, are really helpful. I needed a new roll of 1-inch hosepipe and a fitting to connect it to my submersible pump. The hose is a bit too small for the fitting and the end needs to be heated to soften it. Isidoro first found me a better (separable) fitting and then got out his blowlamp to soften the hose and force it over the fitting. No charge – it’s part of the service.
Wednesday morning brought our annual meeting with our accountants, half an hour away in Guia. The firm specialises in services to expats. I always send them a spreadsheet in advance. With the bankrupt Portuguese government desperate for money and tax inspectors on every corner, it pays to be careful.
In the afternoon I took Natasha up the road to see the local accountant in Benafim. She too has to file a return each year. The accountant files the details online more or less on the spot. Gone are the huge queues that used to fill the Financas offices at this time of year. The great majority of Portuguese earners now file their returns online.
Jones’s third big appointment with the dentist came on Thursday. Happily, it involved a great deal less discomfort than the previous two. With the assistance of a technician who works in an adjoining room, the dentist prepared new teeth and posts that he has fixed temporarily in place. Jones has a few weeks for them to settle and, if she’s happy, he will cement them permanently into place.
I have followed with interest the reports about the mega-hacking of numerous big firms by (allegedly) the Chinese authorities. It would seem that most of the entries were made via vulnerabilities in the JAVA programme, which I have now disabled on my browsers and stripped from my computers. You may be interested to read the Guardian’s take on the subject.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/askjack/2013/feb/08/java-remove-ask-jack-technology?INTCMP=SRCH)
No comments:
Post a Comment