This week the pictures have to say it. My sister, Cathy, is into trees and leaves. She can identify hundreds of them or, at least, that's how it seems. Here she is with her leaf press on the back patio. Never happier!
The "boys" were back Saturday morning to continue painting the weather-whacked aspects of the house. The "platibanda" (upper frontal fascia), with its intricate patterns, was time-consuming.
To complicate matters, I had horribly miscalculated the colour of a paint whose computer reference the suppliers no longer recognised. I had to rush back to the shop on the far side of Loule to acquire something more compatible with the original.
You may recall that Jones was in London for a few days. One of my duties was to feed her two "adopted" stray cats (in addition to our three). We call them Not Robbie (too complicated to explain) and Collar Cat (self explanatory).
They are fed on Idalecio's wall, a few metres beyong our fence, behind which our dogs peer menacingly at the pair of them. The cats are not exactly friends. But they get along - after a fashion. This is just a security check.
Jones, as I was saying, was in London. Here she is sitting with her brother, Llewellyn, and wife Lucia, along with dogs Edgar and Hazel, in their garden in Hanwell. Llewellyn is a practised setter-up of delayed camera shots.
Here the ladies feed the ducks in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Edgar the ridgeback meditates on higher things. Thank you Llewellyn for the pictures. (Llewellyn informs me that the water flowing past their house is no mere stream but the River Brent.)
With Lucia in Windsor where, many years ago, I bought my wife a diamond ring at a jeweller that has now given way to a burger bar. The owner's hand shook as he filled out the payment card. When I asked if he was okay, he confided that he had opened that very day and that we were his first customers. Sadly, a burglar removed the ring and a great deal more from our London apartment a few years later.
This time in Richmond. She got around.
On the way home, Jones met up with our old SABC colleagues, Malcolm and Gary, long since settled in England.
This snap from Gary shows her waiting at the station after their meeting for a train to take her to Gatwick Airport. She caught a late afternoon flight to Lisbon and the midnight hopper to Faro, where we met her, relieving baggy in hand.
On the Tuesday after Jones's return, we went to visit May. We found her in the common room of the nursing home, looking a great deal cheerier than we'd seen her for some time.
Back home Barbara rejected the new coffee maker that I'd acquired in her absence to replace a handicapped model. So the new one went back into its box and the old one was returned to the work surface. Since she makes the coffee, I'm not complaining.
While reversing the car into the carport at home, I nicked an invisible Barri's paw. My poor dog shrieked, I think more in fright than in pain. She was shaking with the shock of the encounter. We took her inside to console her as best we could. There was no sign of an injury nor, that afternoon, on our walk, any evidence of one. Much relief!
Wednesday brought an oh so welcome 5mm of rain and a Jones visit to the dentist for major repairs to a broken a tooth. Thursday she was back again for another session. Two more to come. At Faro beach, this gentleman cycled past the snack-bar where we lunched on toasted tuna sandwiches.
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