Letter from Espargal: 26 April 2014

POPPIES IN THE FIELD

Today (Friday, as I write) is April 25 - the 40th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. In Portugal there is no bigger day. There isn't a town that doesn't have a main street named Vinte Cinco de Abril.

Even the estrangeiros, who know little of what's happening beyond their enclaves, know what this public holiday signifies.

The nearby town of Alte is holding all kinds of festivities over the weekend. We shall probably go along. First the rest of the week!

Monday began badly. Mary hadn't been eating over the weekend in spite of the delicious meals and morsels with which we tried to tempt her. So we took her to the vet first thing, stopping once to shake out the plastic cover she'd sicked up on.

The vet diagnosed hepatitis, reassured us that she had a good chance of recovery, put her on a drip and shut her into one of the wire kennels at the back of his recovery room. There, with heavy hearts, we left her. I don't think I'd have made a good father trying to cope with a sick child. You can't explain why to a child or a dog. I can barely imagine what those South Korean parents are enduring.

It is raining and May has decided not to come to lunch. Her nephew, Kenneth, is due down tomorrow.

Tuesday I tried to walk through the front door - rather than the doorway - and bounced off painfully with a great clang. The door is made of steel and doesn't give. The nick on my knuckles in no way reflected the hurt in my hand nor the sense of injury that I felt.

What made that noise, asked Jones as I came upstairs to seek a patch. I did, I told her, holding up my bruised hand as evidence.

Still, it was a lovely day and we'd had a most refreshing walk through the fields. The wild flowers are truly in their glory. The vet said Mary was improving although she still wasn't eating. We had coffee with Mike and Liz at the Ponto de Encontro (Meeting Point) in Benafim. Telma, who is behind the bar, makes the best coffee in town. She really goes out of her way to please. We try to return the compliment.

Wednesday: Mary is said to be still improving but not yet ready to return home. We hold thumbs that she's back by the weekend. We miss her.

I spent an hour combing the veld and peering up into the branches for a sign of the missing Cusack helicopter, reminding curious locals of its loss.

No luck, even if the western views across the valley to the sea alone justified my wanderings around the hillside.

Another hour went on strimming the heavy growth around the trees and the field edges beyond the plough's reach. Much of the greenery is waist high.

We lunched beside the river in Alte, mainly to stay out of Natasha's way as she mopped and hoovered downstairs.

(Her house purchase has fallen through. The risks of buying a place with unlicensed extensions were just too great.)

I threw olive pips at a bold tabby cat that was trying to muscle in under the table, under the noses of three of our dogs, if you don't mind.

I've killed off today's crop of gmail spam. Google helpfully dumps it all into the spam folder for me.

I quite look forward each day to seeing whether the spammers have thought up any new lines.

I fell for one a few weeks ago. When asked if I was the Terry Benson who lived in where-ever, I replied in the negative and promptly got an invite to pop round nonetheless.

Apart from occasional invites to improve my education, it's sex and riches on offer. Lines of busty babes proclaim themselves anxious to share their all with me, while semi-literate West African philanthropists fall over themselves to shower me with riches: to wit -

Mr Mark wish to notify you that his Late client made his inheritance in your favour. He needs your urgent attention. Please contact him as soon as possible via this email: osbornefmark@outlook.com

How about this one, hot off the press:

Attn My Dear ,
I have been trying to reach you on your telephone about an hour now just to inform you regarding the delivering of your fund with the dhl company Benin agent, he will need your information to complete the delivery of your package Email and call diplomat Mr. Kevin Anthony with this email(d_k_a33@yahoo.gr) he is in john f Kennedy international airport new york with your {ATM Visa Card} worth of your $3.8m you can email him with (d_k_a33@yahoo.gr) also call him with this (917 )503 0037 Reconfirm to him for verifications

Thursday: Jones went for a haircut. She looks good. Fatima always does her hair to perfection. While she was in the chair, I walked the three dogs, one at a time, around the island in the Avenida.

Russ (below) has decided that he wants to be a car dog like Ono and Prickles. The only trouble is that he takes up a lot of room.

Prickles gets squeezed on to the floor or, more often, upgrades himself to a front seat where he insists on getting his head scratched.

We dropped off paint and stencils with May and Ken - for the latter to do the former's boundary marks - before going on to lunch with David and Dagmar. The vet phoned. We'd been hoping desperately that Mary would be back for the weekend but she's still not eating or drinking and it's not feasible to bring her home. I think of Michael Schumacher's family and the long wait they're enduring.

Natasha has worked an extra day to prepare the house for the arrival of Llewellyn and Lucia this weekend. She had barely finished cleaning the windows a second time when a shower arrived - for the second time - to mess them up again.

I stopped off to pick up four bags of cement from Quim Quim in Benafim. Slavic is due back this weekend. Jones wants him to work his stone magic on a couple more of her heavily overgrown beds.

Friday: I've tried to see what plans the cruise companies are making for scheduled Black Sea cruises - having booked one for October (before Mr Putin decided to annex Crimea). So far, they seem to be simply reserving their options.

FRIDAY MIDDAY: The vet has called to say that Mary did not survive the night. I did not know we had so many tears inside us.