I have just been through my emails and zapped the 28 emails that Google had helpfully dumped into my spam folder. First I skim through them because on occasions Google downgrades a genuine contact. Now and then I find something interesting, perhaps from a kindly West African gentleman offering to make me wealthy. Mostly though, it's the same dull round of sexy ladies who want to meet me, discount offers and revolutionary discoveries that will change my life.
In truth I don't mind suffering this invasion of junk-mail for the sake of being in instant contact with the world. The several restaurants and snack-bars that we frequent now offer free wifi. I confess, not with any pride, that the first thing the pair of us tend to do on sitting down is to haul out our phones and catch up with our lives. Now that I carry my iPad-mini around with me, the temptation to do so is even stronger.
That this is not always wise, I'm aware. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, Channel 4 invited a dozen students to a get-together, sitting them down in a reception room that offered free wifi before showing them what a couple of cyber security experts in an adjoining room had been able to access from their smart-phones. In short, everything - emails, contacts, pictures and a record of places they'd been - along with the opportunity to change or delete any of this information. They were shocked; I am alerted - and wondering whether to invest in Android and Apple anti-virus programmes. Any feedback is welcome.
The week has kept us busy. May was in good form on Monday although she bruised herself in a fall last week and is still very sensitive.
On Tuesday we went to visit Sergio to discuss some minor modifications to the shelving unit he is making for us. He and his assistant were hard at work in their workshop with sanders on a cabinet ordered by another client. It was a couple of minutes before Sergio noticed me and turned the machinery off. He's a true craftsman and a pleasure to watch in action.
I was taken back to my schoolboy weekends when my dad, a talented amateur carpenter, would back the car out of the garage and hunch in similar fashion over his lathe or plane to create chairs, tables and lamps.
Thence to the lawyers to update our wills. The two assistants, Brigit and Vera, occupy the front office. The former grew up in Canada and the latter spent her formative years in Australia. So both are impressively bilingual, switching languages with ease and a command of expression that I can only envy. Anyhow, the lawyers picked through our draft ideas and sent us off to do a bit more homework. In due course we will agree a final draft and then it's off the notary to record and file the wills.
We drove home from the lawyers via Loule's industrial zone where the GLS courier service has its warehouse. I'd already ascertained that GLS had tried (not very hard) and failed to deliver my new Ecco boots - purchased online. Indeed, they were waiting there. I'm an Ecco enthusiast. I have been ever since purchasing a pair on sale during a visit to Germany way back when the world was young. This latest pair - designed for hikers - is wondrously light, comfortable and supportive (I have a lazy foot). It has elasticised laces that don't come undone, even when fastened with just a single bow. I also possess two pairs of Ecco shoes, both acquired in the last millennium, that promise me many of years of good service ahead.
Footnote: what my Ecco boots didn't do was to stop me slipping on a dewy rock as I was descending the property and crashing painfully down a terrace. The dogs leapt in to lick me better again.
No bones broken but both ego and body were bruised. It's a good thing that I'm well padded - too well padded! The diet continues.
Wednesday morning Felismina, our lawyers' former legal assistant, arrived here for a second session trying to sort out our property files. As I have indicated, this has been quite a challenge. In Portugal, four parties take an interest in one's property. The notary oversees and records sales/purchases; the Conservatory registers the title-deeds; the Financas taxes the property and the local council regulates it. All four issue documentation that has to match before the owner can sell.
Each property comes with an article number that changes if one builds or otherwise amends the property. Sometimes, a house has a different number from the land on which it sits. At others, house and land share a number. Additionally, all article numbers in our area were modified this year as a result of the merger of our parish with two others.
THE SKELETON OF THE OLIVE TREE
Thursday Slavic came to work. I have had him spraying the thorny wild asparagus (espargo) that is growing with such abandon across the property. But Thursday's principal task was to cut back the wild olive tree that shades the cobbles at the corner of the house. The shade has been welcome, but not the endless rain of tiny olives, staining and mucking up the cobbles.
THE FOLIAGE PILED UP IN A FIELD
So Slavic ascended the tree with a chainsaw and down the branches came, to be cut up, piled in the back of the tractor and stacked in one of our newly ploughed fields. In due course the bigger pieces will become firewood; the foliage will be burned.
Jones was hoping that I would put some of it through the mulcher. But wild olive branches are both notoriously tough and twisty, as I was telling her, and they're a real pain to mulch - forever jamming up the machine. I'm not enthused.
And thus we come to Friday. The skies are grey with a hint of rain. I have taken a picture of distant Benafim for Paula to show her colleagues in Newcastle. Jones has gone off to pick olives for one set of neighbours and to visit another. Time to put this up on the blog.
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