Letter from Espargal: 13 of 2013

Every now and then one has an extraordinary encounter, not of the third kind but of the human kind and, in this case, of the canine kind. That’s what we did on Wednesday – five of us: Jones and I, along with Helen and Rob, and Sonia.


Us you know well enough. Helen and Rob are long-standing friends who have bought and are restoring a cottage 30 minutes away, and Sonia is the partner of our immediate neighbour, Idalecio.

MARISA, SONIA & ME
Sonia is a dog person. Like us, she has several dogs, some rescued from the streets. It was Sonia who drew our attention to the work of a Portuguese friend, Marisa, who - with her sister - runs a dog rescue centre high in the hills straddling Loule and Faro.

THE OFFICE
We have long wanted to visit this sanctuary and on Wednesday that’s what we did, winding our way up the steep slope beyond Loule that leads up to Goldra.

Goldra boasts unbeatable views across the Algarve. It’s a great place to live in summer, with its cooling breezes. In winter, it’s frequently enveloped in mist.


There was no mist on Wednesday. The tarred road to the heights becomes a dirt road that leads to twin dog rescue centres, side by side. The first is run by Jan, an English woman whom we met at the gate and to whom we donated a couple of the bags of dog food that we intended for Marisa.

Marisa arrived shortly after we did, carrying a newly-rescued bitch half her size. Between tending her many pooches – she looks after about a 100 at any one time – Marisa told us something of her work.

She’d been at the centre for 15 years, initially as an assistant; later she’d taken it over herself and now ran it with her sister. It was a 24-hour, 365 day-a-year job.

The centre had obviously developed organically, spreading down the hill as need dictated. The dogs were housed in a dozen informal enclosures and a number of individual kennels. Our arrival was clearly the event of the week; we could barely make ourselves heard above the sustained din that greeted us.

More athletic inmates perched themselves on walls or gates the better to observe us and to receive the treats we’d brought along. How the two carers manage to run the place without help is hard to imagine.

According to Sonia, it’s on a wing and a prayer, with no official assistance, precarious finances and a borehole that's often dry. The intake is never-ending and new homes are hard to find. Over the last year, Marisa said, she’d housed about 60 animals.


I was deeply impressed by what I saw. All the enclosures were spotless and the animals were in good condition. Marisa addressed them by name as she showed us around. It’s a work of utter dedication and she has my admiration.


The rest of the week was a bit squiggly. Monday brought the usual English lessons and shopping. On Tuesday I took the car for its annual service and its first official inspection, marking its approaching fourth birthday.

In the meanwhile, I rented a car from Honda and took Jones along to a medical centre for a second tetanus injection. From there we continued to the airport to meet May’s nephew, Ken, who was arriving from Edinburgh to spend some time with her. And finally we fetched May from her house and took ourselves to lunch.

The one great virtue of an inexpensive rental, in this case a Mitsubishi Colt, is the appreciation it brings of the merits of one’s own vehicle. What a pleasure it was to get back into my serviced and inspected Honda CRV at the end of the day and to drive myself home, albeit several hundred euros poorer.

On the home front we are still trying to explain to Barri that she's a girl and Russ is a boy and this isn't how it's done. But this is the way that Barri likes it and Russ doesn't seem to mind. It's a few weeks since we've seen Barri's daddy, a local stray who's her spitting image. We do hope that nothing's happened to him.

Mid week Domingos turned up. Domingos is the local telephone repair man whom we've got to know. I’d reported the phone and internet out of order after a rainstorm the previous evening. Domingos has been to the house several times before and knows the routine. Allow the dogs to sniff him. Don’t pat Bobby – and then come in.

After ascertaining that the fault lay outside the property, he took himself off to find it. An hour later, we had the phone and internet back. Joy! Although these days I can fall back on an internet dongle and my smart-phone, the loss of my router still leaves me feeling disabled.

On Thursday Natasha returned to work, the first we’ve seen of her since her departure for Russia a month ago. From what we understand, she had a good holiday and got her (previously messed up) documents sorted out.

Friday we took May and Ken to Loule to renew her post office box and to Faro to sort out her electricity bill. Then we repaired to Faro beach for lunch and conversation at Rudy’s, overlooking the estuary. It was a near perfect day, sunny without being hot, breezy enough to tousle the trees.

Friday night we joined the gang at the Hamburgo to celebrate Mike's 70th birthday. Seventy once seemed so very old but getting there hasn't done Mike any harm. There's several of us rapidly approaching this milestone.


Here's his wife, Liz, being snapped as she snapped us. She's a former nursing sister who continues to change Barbara's bandages once or twice a week, a service that's greatly appreciated.

THE PARK
The met office says March in Portugal was the 7th wettest on record - some 220mms. The vegetation continues to explode around us. Wild flowers have turned the hillsides yellow. The first tongue orchids are appearing in the park. I've ploughed in the worst of the weeds. Now to see if our bean plants produce the goods.