Letter from Espargal: 10 April 2015

Friday: I will soon need a suitcase to accommodate all the medical files and scans that have limped along with me to various consultations this past week, growing like weeds along the way.

In short, the neurosurgeon in Faro with whom my files have landed suggested yesterday that I try a cortisone injection or two to relieve my sciaticly (?) stricken left leg before considering surgery.

With this suggestion I have gladly gone along.

I was puzzled when he merely gave me a prescription to obtain the cortisone instead of actually injecting it himself. "Any health centre will pop the injection in", he assured me casually as he ushered me out. His next patients, waiting in line, were pleased to see me emerge. Having waited for over an hour myself, I sympathised.

Anxious to avoid the queues that populate health centres, I went along this morning to Loule (private) Hospital where an attractive young nursing sister did the necessary after the briefest of waits.

Thursday: We got a lot of overdue shopping in - groceries, dog biscuits, pills for Ono, bones for the strays - before heading to Faro Beach for lunch and thence to the nearby hospital. Jones used to love lunching at the beach but she says she's beginning to associate it with hospitals.

At a table in front of us some young giggly French children were telling their wrily amused parents about contraceptives.

The occasional aircraft came and went from the airport just across the estuary. They seem to gather speed so slowly as they trundle down the runway before clawing their way miraculously into the air.

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled these past two days because the French traffic controllers are on strike again (and again and again).

TAP's aircrew are equally unhappy as they face the prospect of privatisation and such horrors as collecting all the passengers' rubbish in plastic bags themselves. Where-ever did the glamour go?

I remember mum sitting beside me, hatted and gloved, in 1960 as the family flew in a BOAC Comet to London, with several stops along the way.

Wednesday: The orphans come wriggling under the fence to join the regulars on an evening amble around the park.

The encounters are still a little fraught but they are working out.

A gentle amble has been about the limits of my athletic abilities.

Jones takes various animals out on longer walks that she needs as much as they do.

An overnight storm brought us a welcome 10mm of rain and some very unwelcome thunder and lightning.

I was just making my way downstairs to yank out the plugs for sensitive electronic equipment when a great flash of lightning seemingly right overhead fried the Skype phone base station with a hiss and a flash - the second time that this has happened.

The good news is that the vastly more expensive TV set and various digiboxes survived.

Tuesday: Natasha came to work in the garden and clean upstairs.

We left her to it, taking ourselves to lunch at the Hamburgo. Manuel serves us at the bar where I stand and Jones perches on a bar stool.

The food and, more importantly, the wine, tastes just as good as at the table.

Thence to Alte for another physio session with Jodi.

The evenings have been cool enough for a small fire. I settle down on a thick sponge pad that Jones has brought downstairs for the purpose. I have to get down pretty quick as the dogs also make a dive for it. They know a good thing when they see one.

Monday: Was rough. We cancelled lessons and May. Her good friends Wendy and Chris stepped into the breach at short notice.

I suspect that they will be sitting in somewhat better seats when we find ourselves in the great amphitheatre in the skies.

I shouldn't be surprised if that great final trip is also delayed by the contrary French air traffic controllers.