Letter from Espargal: 22 March 2014

Let me start at the beginning. On Monday my English class discussed the Portuguese government's latest project to encourage citizens to ask for receipts for all transactions - thus constraining the informal economy. All electronic receipts bearing the fiscal number of the recipient will automatically be entered into a weekly draw with a luxury car as the prize.

As tempting as this might be, my pupils, all well retired, uniformly thought this a rascally scheme by a grasping government to separate hard-working citizens from their money.

I was quite surprised. They seemed convinced that paying unnecessary taxes merely fattens further the obese and corrupt pussies in government and they couldn't be persuaded otherwise. One offered to pay all her taxes when there was justice in the land, a tall order indeed.

On Tuesday Slavic arrived at 08.30 and Joao at 09.00. The former came to strim and labour on the road we are building in the park, the latter to link us up once more to UK television transmissions. You may recall that we were cruelly deprived of these when their satellite reception footprint was tightened last month to a narrow circle around the British Isles.

It took Joao two hours to retrain the existing TV dish on one satellite and to set up a second dish aimed at another satellite - and then to link them up to a magic box that he cabled to the upstairs TV set.

Hey presto! Back came a hundred TV stations and even more radio stations, most of the former in brilliant high definition. On the plus side, we have all our channels back - and more - with extra sparkle. On the minus side, we are "borrowing" their signal without official approval and depend on Joao's goodwill and contacts to update the cyber-key each time the encryption is changed.

Also, with four dishes - three TV and one Sat-Internet - now peering heavenwards from the sides of the house, we are starting to look a little bit like the NSA. After Joao had gone, Slavic and I spent the rest of the day labouring on the extended road (pictured below) and fertilising the fruit and carob trees.

I also took the plough to the knee-high greenery that covers our outer fields.

Also that day I heard from Burrows, whom I'd been trying to reach in vain regarding my GPS, stuck in customs in Lisbon. The Burrows man said he'd been ill and out of touch - and would follow things up immediately. He later confirmed that he'd contacted DHL, both by phone and in writing, and that the GPS would shortly be delivered to me. If he had, DHL didn't seem to know about it and continued chasing me for a decision on its fate. I thought of the New Testament injunction about keeping the left hand ignorant of the right's doings.

We celebrated that night with dinner at the Hamburgo. The restaurant had just reopened following the funeral of a relative of the owners and was about to close for another. From Manuel we gathered that four relatives had passed away from unrelated causes in the course of a week - a real shock to the family!

In view of the gradual progress that I am making with my continuing diet, I allowed myself a glass of wine or two. Manuel stocks an excellent range. Come to think of it, I have allowed myself several glasses of wine this past week and felt all the better for them. During a visit to the Apolonia supermarket, I peered through the glass at my favourite whiskies.

But I couldn't bring myself to cough up the huge sums being asked. This is an example of thrift that I hastened to point out to my wife.

On Wednesday I phoned the Internet by Satellite company to ask about the system I'd had installed. I'd been trying to measure by download and upload speeds but getting wildly fluctuating results. That, the technician told me, was because normal testers didn't work on sat technology. He also told me where to find one that did.

This bespoke model gave me pleasing results of 18mb/s down and 6 up, several times faster than I get from my landline link-up. Less pleasing was to hear that there was no way of getting a UK IP address (although Llewellyn is working on it).

The delay caused by VPN transmission via the (comparatively distant) satellite slows the recording of BBC TV programmes overnight to a walking pace. Mr Wikipedia explains exactly why. (Less technically-minded readers are welcome to skip this paragraph.) Hopefully, with our new TV system, we won't need to worry any more.

Thursday I took Jones to the dentist, who took an hour to insert a new post in her damaged tooth and to cover it with a temporary canine. She goes back next week to have a permanent one fitted. She wasn't very happy. She's not a fan of dentists.

For that matter, neither am I. As I explained to him, when he asked if I liked injections, I don't. But I dislike them less than being drilled alive. His receptionist helpfully filled in our medical insurance claim forms for us. But as she put my dental details under Jones's name and vice versa, it all has to be done again.

After lunch I fitted the new Wahl electric clipper blades, which had arrived in the post from Amazon, and stripped the two hairy pups. Even with the new blades this proved quite a challenging task, the more so as Mary, beholding her brother's fate, sought refuge beneath Jones's desk and couldn't be enticed out again. If I say so myself, the pair look a great deal better for my efforts. Even Jones thought I'd done a fine job.

We watched a brief news interview with the idiotic UK couple who won over £100m in the Euromillions lottery. They'll have no more peace in this life. As it happens, we enjoyed a small win ourselves, all of €4.32.

That brings us to today. This morning we went to the airport to fetch Ken, May's nephew, whom, after a brief shopping stop, we dropped at his aunt's. Then, having filled the car with diesel (€60) and paid QuimQuim for the sand and cement they had deposited outside the gate (another €60) we came back to our waiting and welcoming dogs.

I SHOULD CREDIT MY WIFE FOR THE LOVELY PICS

At this point Jones is going out to weed and I must finish my ploughing before Slavic returns tomorrow to continue working in the park.

What a busy life!

That's enough writing for this week, especially as my RSI continues to plague me.