Letter from Espargal: 13 March 2015

THE LION AND THE LAMB.....

Quite a lot has happened since my last blog a week ago but, as it happens, not much of what has happened has happened in Espargal. This is good news, given how rarely events turn out to be for the better. As I may have remarked before, we did not retire to the hills for the high life (even if that sounds a bit paradoxical). These days, supper at the Hamburgo is about as much excitement as we need.

Nonetheless, life has not been entirely tranquil. Mello has rewarded us for the care, food and home that we have given her and her companions by howling half the night for most of the week.

DECORATING THE HALL MIRROR

Her decidedly unmellofluous barks, shrill and piercing, penetrate our insulated walls and double glazing with the ease of neutrinos. Our only relief comes from turning up the BBC World Service radio on the bed-head speakers.

We are at a loss to know what is provoking her, whether it be the moon or some other ghostly cause. Jones has risen from her bed several times to throw handfuls of biscuits into the pen in an effort to distract the little dog. I have turned the midnight hose on the orphans, showering the pen each time Mello raised her voice anew.

Neither of these remedies has had any lasting effect.

Sparky, to our amazement, has been emerging from the closed pen seconds after we'd shut the orphans in, to bark once again for admittance at the tractor gate. It's clear to us that she wants to be upgraded from refugee status to canine business class.

I lured her back in to the pen with a chewie, only to see her popping out moments later from a narrow gap between fencing panels which she climbs like a monkey. The gap, which Jones illustrates, has now been closed.

Summer comes on apace. We have moved the sundowner table from its weather- protected position on the north patio back on to the cobbled patio. No longer do we require jackets on our morning walks.

We've been on the lookout all week for the orchids that ought to be appearing now. Apart from a dozen early purples at the lower gate, pickings are thin. Barbara has come across a single woodcock, there are a few straggly naked mans, a hopeful sawfly and a modest mirror orchid.

The bees are thick in the rosemary and lavender blossom that has burst out along our paths. Although they are generally good natured, they don't like being brushed off as we pass by and make their feelings clear. The dogs return panting from these outings, heading straight for the water bowls to refresh themselves before flopping down on the cool tiles.

On Tuesday Natasha joined me to prune trees in the park. It's heavy going with the big loppers. (Continuing sciatica has dissuaded me from using the chainsaw.)

We spent several hours thinning out the branches of the numerous almond and olive trees before fetching the tractor to pick up the waste. Piles of branches dot the terrain.

Whether we'll get to burn them before the onset of next winter is beginning to look doubtful.

At the bottom of the field Barbara's fava beans are coming along famously. So are her three newly-planted fig trees, each of them with a promising green tip at the top. I took them an additional can of water before thinning out the shoots on the surrounding almond trees that Mr Palmeira will soon be along to graft with fruit tree cuttings.

Wednesday evening 19.00: We are back from our evening walk. The dogs are fed. Of the orphans that generally arrive for supper at 16.30, there is still no sign. There has been much barking and yapping from the valley below. Jones is worried. What on earth might have happened to the little dogs?

THE ORPHANS

19.15 Sparky and Paleface rock up at the gates demanding supper which Jones promptly serves. Mello is still absent. Jones rehearses aloud all the terrible things that might have happened to her. I wonder whether for once we might be in for a good night's sleep.

19.45 Prompted by my wife, I set out on my tractor to see if there's any trace to be found of Mello. In the street outside Leonilde's house, I come across her dogs, Valete and Presidente, and lure them back inside the gate with the supply of the biscuits. They know me well.

THE LAST DROP!

Leonilde, who was unaware of their escape, emerges gratefully from her front door. A headlight tractor tour through the village leaves me no wiser about Mello's fate.

20.00 I arrive back home to find Mello squealing at the gate for supper and I notify Jones accordingly. Jones says there was no trace of the dog "a second earlier" when she went out to look. But she hurries out with supper and then tempts Mello back inside the pen for the night. My wife wonders aloud why we feel compelled to care for these creatures and worry so about their fate. I wonder whether we shall get any sleep tonight.

Thursday: We ran a food supply up to the dog sanctuary in Goldra. Marisa was back on duty although she has still to recover full use of her right hand.

Blood poisoning set in after she was clawed by a cat she was trying to save from dogs. Another of her supporters had delivered a score or so of large bags of dog biscuits.

As requested, we had brought cans of meat this time, 80 of them. Although they filled the boot they won't last long.

My brother in law in London, Llewellyn, has sent me a selfie of his new car, a Honda CRV of similar age and mileage to ours. He has just taken possession of it.

This happy event follows an equally unhappy one earlier this month when he returned from a walk along the Thames with his dogs to find his previous CRV submerged in a metre of water as an extra high tide flooded roads bordering the river.

The car, like the tablet computer under the seat, was a write-off, a most distressing turn of events, the more so as his insurers and brokers proved to be less than helpful.

Perseverance, however, is Llewellyn's strong suit and he wore them down.

It's great to see him smiling again. We hope that the new vehicle brings him and Lucia as much satisfaction as ours has.

Are you among the estimated 350 million strong audience for the BBC's Top Gear? We are following with fascination the saga of Jeremy Clarkson and the programme's suspension following his "fracas" with a programme producer, apparently over the latter's failure to provide hot food on location. Bigoted petrol head that he is, Jeremy provides us with the only hour of relief that we get all week from the daily gruel of UK media political correctness.

Given that the international sales of Top Gear (to over 200 countries) earn the BBC about as much money as all its other programmes combined, it will be fascinating to see whether the corporation sticks to its principles or puts its mouth where the money is. How nice it is to be retired to a quiet rural village in Portugal!