Letter from Espargal: 24 April 2015

ANDREI TRIES TO WIN OVER A SUSPICIOUS MELLO

Saturday Slavic arrived early with a friend, Andrei, for a day's clearing in the park. (Slavic's brother, Roslan, now works six days a week for a small builder and is unavailable.)

For some years the shrubs and plants have been taking over all available spaces to the point where the hillside had become a semi-impassable jungle.

The aim was to leave as many as possible of Jones's flowering plants in place while clearing paths between them and the trees.

I conducted affairs like a maestro, pointing with one or other walking stick at the bushes and low branches that had to go.

We cleared around the trunks of the numerous hardwood trees in the park and nipped off the season's suckers.

As fast as we cleared, we burned - albeit reluctantly.

At present I am unable to drive the tractor and it was simply impractical to try to remove the mountains of cuttings or to leave them to become a fire hazard in the summer.

Monday: Still disabled by sciatica, of which you will be as weary as I am, I went to consult more doctors. At Loule hospital I took an immediate liking to Dr Ricardo Soares who gave me 45 minutes of his time and a lot of information about spinal fusions - should things come to that.

My other appointment was with Dr Sun Bian, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, who has been proving a little more difficult to understand, if only because of her English pronunciation.

She comes highly recommended by several friends and lives barely 20 minutes away, which is handy.

ANOTHER JONES SKY PIC

Since acupuncture is a great deal cheaper and less traumatic than back surgery, I am giving her a try.

Her sessions last up to two hours. She deals with patients three or more at a time, moving from bed to bed. Treatments are scheduled every second day.

I certainly feel the benefit of her prickings but only until such time as I get back into the car. Sitting is simply not my thing.

DON'T MESS WITH ME

The pups have joined us each afternoon in the park when I take the regulars for an amble. Mello has been making eyes at Prickles, sentiments that Prickles didn't reciprocate. He's a bit of a curmudgeon.

Finally he flew at her to make his feelings clear. Mello fled, howling her distress although the injury was only to her feelings.

Prickles is our smallest (regular dog) but the others treat him with respect. He doesn't tolerate approaches by his fellows to his bed or his bowl.

Tuesday we went shopping. En route I thought I spied Luis the electrician's van parked in a neighbour's driveway. We stopped to check. As it turned out, the van did belong to an electrician although not to Luis. He introduced himself as Francisco. We asked him to pop around later in the day to sort out the bathroom lighting.

While in Loule we took a call from a neighbour who was unhappy about the pups' behaviour. It seems they had been visiting her property and making a proper nuisance of themselves as well as upsetting her elderly parents. (The pups love nothing more than chasing cats, ours and anybody else's.)

We invited the complainant around to see the miscreants in situ and managed to reach an understanding.

That afternoon Barbara interrupted my siesta apologetically to say that the electrician and his mate were at the gate. I hurried down. Electricians are like gold dust. Francisco proved to be a willing and able fellow. He confirmed that the electronics for the old mirror lights were caput. But, with a few modifications, he was able to replace the old lamps with two others that I had bought as stand-bys.

It was only when he installed the second of these that I discovered it to be slightly different in design from the first - very irritating! Still, they work perfectly well. Visitors may peer at themselves in the mirror once more.

We have been following a TV series about Harley Street; the second episode was about people seeking cosmetic surgery and why - as well as how much it cost.

Jonesy disapproved of using medical resources simply to look better - although she does sometimes mutter about her wrinkles, few though they be.

On matters of appearance, it's a couple of weeks since I have had to comb my hair. That's partly because it's thinning out but mainly because Mary, the hairdresser in Benafim, shaved me like a coconut without so much as a "how do you like it".

I haven't looked quite so bereft since my time in the Air Force Gymnasium.

The appointment was my first with Mary, whose salon is handily situated midway between Espargal and Jodi's physiotherapy rooms in Alte. Jonesy doesn't seem to mind the results, nor do the dogs, so no harm's done.

Wednesday we supped with the Espargal expats and a Canadian couple who are touring the world (much of it) on their motorbikes.

They were spending the night with our neighbours after bumping overseas into the neighbours' son who, with his girlfriend, is likewise on a mega motorbike tour.

The visitors were in their 40s, she a medic and he a financial adviser. They had planned the trip for two decades, they said.

They were doing it in phases over several years, returning to Canada between times.

Thursday morning Jones interrupted my sleep-in (my second post-toast and coffee sleep-in) to say that Barri wasn't well. The dog, usually high powered, was evidently ill, vomiting, trembling and still.

Jones managed to get her into the car and we hurried in to Loule to see the vet.

Carlos thought that she might have eaten something nasty or possibly even ingested and then vomited some poison. He gave her a shot and told us to keep an eye on her. We did. By evening she was pretty much back to her usual self.

Friday: I don't know what Dr Sun did to me this morning but I was both whacked and sore afterwards, putting in an effortless two recovery hours on the bed after lunch.

To be sure, I haven't done so much sleeping in years.

Dr Sun reckons that she can fix me. I sure hope she's right.

PS. I need one more millimetre to record 500mms of rain for the season. The skies are encouragingly grey. (The picture is a Jones dawn.)