JONES CLOUDS - LOTS MORE TO COME
We are preparing for the arrival from the UK on Sunday of our regular autumn house-sitters, Anne and Ian, to whom we will hand the reins while we jet off to France for a week. Before that, I've English classes on Monday afternoon, the first of the new term. Tuesday morning we drive to Lisbon airport, thence to fly to Marseille, (European capital of culture 2013). We particularly want to see exhibitions there and in nearby Aix-en-Provence, where we've booked an apartment - and then whatever else the region has to offer.
On the way home we'll stay a couple of nights in a recommended boutique hotel in Evora, an ancient city east of Lisbon (to be avoided in summer when it sizzles and winter when it freezes). With the journey in mind, I stopped midweek at our tyre supplier just outside Loule to have the car tyres balanced and rotated.
We hope to welcome Sunday's guests with a barbecue, using our new gas-fired Weber. Having watched my brother grill salmon to perfection a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be an idea to practise on Barbara first.
So, one drizzly evening - it's been a dull, damp week - I fired up the gas and laid out salmon steaks and chicken breasts on silver paper to grill, just as he had done. I am pleased to say that the results were consumed with relish. By whom and with which relish is not important.
Much of the week has been taken up by profound bureaucracy, prompted by a new requirement for owners to record details of their properties. This entailed two trips to the Benafim office where a very nice and patient man is helping residents to fill in the appropriate forms. On the first he was engaged with another resident whose affairs were clearly just as complicated as ours and I was advised to return the next day. When I did, he showed me the basics and left me with a sheaf of forms to fill in.
These I presented, along with a drawerful of files, to our lawyer's former legal secretary, a woman who had been involved in some of our purchases. The trouble is that down the years we have bought up all the small parcels of neighbouring land that we could find and afford, with the help of various lawyers. (The first was a crook, the second a thief, the third emigrated and now we're on our fourth.)
And then we had some of the boundaries changed. And every change creates a trail of paperwork, some of which has vanished into the ether. So the pair of us had a hard morning trying to trace the provenance of parcels of our estate. Some of the missing documents I was able to download from the Tax Office and the Property Registry. We're making progress.
The Portuguese media have been full of the local elections, in which the opposition socialists have trounced the governing right-of-centre coalition and even the communists have something to boast about. As ever, voters have punished the governing party for the austerity programme it's imposed on them. We went to vote in downtown Benafim after our usual expat Sunday brunch at the Hamburgo.
Two men who entered the small voting hall still engaged in political conversation were promptly shushed by the presiding official, a woman who was having none of it. (The Portuguese professional classes appear to be pretty much gender balanced!)
In the event, the independent candidates who want to demerge Benafim from other villages to which it's just been attached, did exceptionally well, winning three of the nine seats on the parish council.
As the other six are divided (four and two) between the Social Democrats and Socialists, the Independents will hold the balance of power. Their aim is to restore Benafim to its former status as a separate parish and I have so say we're sympathetic. I have no desire to be part of two distant villages.
We have been invaded by both great columns of tiny ants and millions of small articulated, black worms. The latter arrive annually with the rains, but seldom in such vast numbers. It's quite impossible to negotiate one's way down the contour path without trampling upon them. Those that can, climb the house walls to nest in the upper reaches. Needless to say, we are not keen to have them as fellow residents. Many appear to be dormant but when weed upon (dogs!) they wriggle like mad and then wrap up tightly.
As to the ants, they scurry in great parallel lanes to and from the
holes that have been exposed by the rain, to what purpose only they know and they're not telling; for they don't appear to be carrying their normal burden of seed.
On Monday afternoon, as we were returning home after dropping May, an approaching car flashed its lights. I slowed right down as the weather was miz to misty and we were travelling on a sweeping stretch of road with a couple of blind bends. Around one of them I came across several men grouped around a prone motor cyclist sprawled in the middle of the lane. His bike and helmet lay nearby. Two of the group came from a nearby ambulance but they were evidently only transport drivers as they made no attempt to assist the groaning man.
Given the danger from approaching motorists, I stopped the car on the verge, grabbed an emergency triangle (all cars have to carry them) and hurried back up the road to flag down traffic. Ten minutes later an arriving police vehicle made my services redundant. We drove on home with that renewed sense of mortality that comes from such incidents.
Having downloaded FlightRadar24 on to my iPad Mini, as described last week, I was nudged by my London brother-in-law in the direction of a rival app, Plane Finder, that he prefers. This I promptly downloaded as well, even though at €6 it was twice the price. To be honest, I can't find much difference between the two. But I'm fascinated to be able to glean instantly the details of any plane passing overhead - in fact of any plane I care to lock onto. Mike Mackrill, my FightRadar mentor, says the next step is to invest in a radio scanner to follow the control tower - cockpit conversations.
Wednesday night's emails brought a five-page contract from our French hosts, more or less requiring us to sign our lives away and threatening us with the guillotine should any trace of smoke be found in the apartment we're booked into. I'm sorely tempted to reply that if they find any smoke, it's because the place is on fire. But there's probably a penalty for sarcasm too. Doesn't make one feel very welcome!
P.S. NO BLOG THIS COMING WEEK!
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