This week has encompassed a glorious moon, a visiting toad, two owls, two hoopoes, the first shower of autumn and a deal of conviviality as well as a great many odds and ends.
Let me start with the owls. Jones heard them calling to each other early one morning. Spying one of them, a magnificent specimen, perched on the phone pole in our garden, she grabbed the camera and did her utmost to get a good shot of the bird. What frustration!
The camera, which has always had a wayward streak, was prepared to focus on everything except the owl. Of the 20 or so pictures that she snapped, only one or two were in acceptable focus. This is the best of them.
When she confessed her frustrations to me (not for the first time) I responded (also not for the first time) that I was going to replace the wretched camera with a more responsive model. It's a threat that Jones has heard often enough. This time, I kept my word - during a visit to FNAC in Guia. (I'm impressed by FNAC. I find staff both knowledgeable and helpful.)
Jones was not best pleased. She is not a fan of the throw-away economy. In her world, possessions are to be acquired, maintained and kept. They are not to be discarded, not even devices as consistently irritating as our camera.
She tells herself (and me) that if she studies the instructions carefully enough, she will find a way to solve the problem. At her request, I have downloaded the camera manual.
For my part, I suspect that she can study the instructions until she knows them by heart to little avail. But only time will tell.
Meanwhile, I used the new camera, a medium-priced Nikon Coolpix P530, to take several shots of the amazing moon that has lit up our week. Unlike the Olympus that it replaces, it is happy to focus on whatever one chooses; it also comes with a host of other advantages. I love it.
On Tuesday evening, we took our drinks to the upstairs patio to watch the moon rise - a super moon, as you probably know. The orb came floating up over the eastern hills in a spectacular show of lunar glory. What a beautiful moon it was, an ostentatious, exhibitionist, knock-you-sidewise moon!
The official reason for our visit to Guia was to fetch our holiday tickets from the Abreu travel agency.
The agent presented us with a great wallet full of these - covering our flights, hotels and the cruise - as well as complimentary laundry bags, suitcase straps and the like.
In under three weeks we will be on our way. It suddenly feels real. Our regret is only that we will not be able to visit Crimea, our orginal intended destination.
The hoopoes, of which I do not have a picture, have made themselves at home in the fields on either side of our road. They often fly up as we walk or drive past.
They are quite bold and I have to slow right down to avoid a collision. That would be awful.
I really hate hitting a bird when I'm driving.
He evidently didn't much like being observed or disturbed for he hopped out with surprising alacrity and made his way down the path to a more secluded spot.
Cathy has since found a number of pots overturned, she suspects as a result of toad's efforts to find himself another home.
A farmer neighbour, Ze Carlos, returned our carob-collection bins one evening, packed with water melons, grapes, aubergines and peppers. There was enough to feed half the village. I spent an hour or more, first emailing our expat neighbours to ascertain their needs and then taking a tractor load of fresh products around to them. En route I plied such Portuguese neighbours as I encountered with the same. Even so, I still have a dozen or more water melons to dispose of.
Wednesday brought May lunch, Natasha and a relieving shower.
We weren't actually around for the shower; we were still lunching with May in Loule when it fell. But the wet roads on the approach to the village and a welcome 4mm in the rain gauge spoke for themselves.
For the first evening in months, we didn't need to water the garden.
I should put in an additional word for Cathy, whose daily waterings have refreshed the flowers as much as they have relieved Barbara of the burden.
She has also taken care of my "creeping plants" that are on the point of providing us with a variety of squashes. Significantly, the weather has changed in the past few days, suddenly taking on a damp and cloudy autumnal hue.
Slavic and his brother, Roslan, who worked hard on our garden paths last weekend, are due back again tomorrow for more of the same.
They have been improving several routes through the garden and park by laying down a heavy gravel mixture base and building a series of steps up the steeper parts.
The brothers are both builders. According to Slavic, Roslan is more experienced and skilled in several aspects of construction.
But I am unable to learn more of this from Roslan himself; for the moment I converse only with Slavic in Portuguese and he with his brother in his native Ukrainian.
Our several outings have included dinner at the Hamburgo at which two neighbours took daughters along while we took Cathy. I was seated beside Marie's daughter, Debbie, who was recounting her experiences in an institution looking after people with dementia, many of them necessarily wearing adult nappies. She is extraordinarily dedicated to her work.
Cathy and I have both received a pleading email from a distant cousin who had allegedly been stranded in a foreign country and needed some assistance to get home. Having previously received similar pleas from other acquaintances, we were dubious in the extreme.
A quick phone call revealed that the unfortunate woman had suffered hacks to both her business and private emails. She was being inundated by callers alerting her to the intrusion as she attempted to repair matters. I kept our conversation short and then made sure that my anti-virus suite was up to date.
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