SHARING ALMONDS WITH THE DOGS
If my entry to heaven were to depend on this week's achievements I should hedge my bets. I would have to persuade the apostle that virtue lay as much in fidelity to a domestic routine as in prayers and penance. I'm not sure that he would buy it. (Martyrdom is a bit out of fashion, having been monopolised by the jihadists!)
When I was younger, I knew exactly what God expected of me, as drummed into me by the holy nuns and later the Marist brothers. But with age came doubts about clerical strictures. The latest revelations of Vatican scandals by journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, have done nothing to restore my faith.
What did surprise me was to learn that the Vatican (an independent "state") is now prosecuting the two authors along with three inside "document leakers" - a classic case of shoot the messenger. The trial will serve to draw universal attention to the clerics' misdeeds while prompting the curious to purchase the books. Indeed, I have already downloaded Nuzzi's "Merchants in the Temple".
The book that has preoccupied me this past week has been R W Johnson's "How Long Will South Africa Survive?", a tome that I have just finished. It's been a bit like reading a judge's long and detailed summing up of a complex case, knowing all the while that it will conclude with a death sentence. I found it truly scary stuff!
In-between such readings and reflections we've been quite busy. The boys arrived promptly last Saturday morning to continue our labours on the new field. While Slavic and I went off to (a neighbour) Joachim's carob plantation to plunder his rock piles, Andrei set about constructing a low wall along the boundary.
Working together, the pair of them managed to heave a couple of large rocks lying in the corner of the field on to the tractor box but a boulder proved to be beyond their powers.
However, and I do not mean to make this sound easy, I was able to shunt the boulder into position with the tractor, impressing myself and my workers (if not necessarily St Peter) with my skills.
BARRI AT EASE - SHE HAS PRINCESS DI EYES
Midweek Jones and I went off Faro beach for toasted sandwiches. The day was hot. We had to put up shades in the car windows to keep the sun's rays off the dogs. Across the estuary the airport lay dormant in the sunshine. The tourists don't know what they're missing.
Having last week restored our patio tables, I turned my attentions to my bruised and dented tractor box - an item that I acquired second-hand when I bought my first (of three) tractor(s) more than ten years ago. This sturdy implement patiently endures every kind of punishment, most especially as Slavic heaves rocks into it, intended for our various walls and surfaces. Its original coat of red paint had all but vanished under years of battering. Following my efforts, the box gleams once again. Next in line for refurbishment is the scarifier.
Thursday we ordered sand and cement from Quim Quim - delivered the same hour - and a host of supplies from Gilde a little further up the road, to be delivered Friday evening. I'll cement fencing posts into the new wall while we're building it. The boys should be back to carry on this weekend.
Although the days remain warm and dry, they grow ever shorter. Most afternoons we walk at about 16.00 - a 40-minute amble along rocky paths around the hillside while the dogs run free.
PICTURE FROM SARAH & DAVID
Jones then goes off to feed her waifs before heading up to the summit with a baggy to behold the sunset. Jones is a sky person. In ancient times she would have worshipped the sun, moon and stars.
By 5.30 the light is fading and it's pitch dark well before 18.00. That is unless the moon rises as it has these last few nights. Most of the photos will speak for themselves. The picture above shows the moon shining through the bedroom window, reflected in the mirror, around seven in the morning. At first I thought that Jones had left a light on, so bright was it.
These days we sup around 19.00 - rather than 22.00, which is often the case in summer. And then sit down around the fire, animals scattered about like cushions, often to enjoy another episode of Foyle's War. Thank you again Llewellyn. Prickles snores rhythmically in his basket. His companions are equally lights out if not as noisy. It is not unusual for one of us to catch the other drifting off.
IN MEMORY OF DOGS DEPARTED
Portugal is to have a new government, a left-wing coalition led by the Socialist Party under Antonio Costa. It embraces the communists, the Left Bloc and the Greens. Before giving Costa the go-ahead, the state president wrung various pledges from him regarding EU commitments, Nato membership and the like. None the less, life could become quite politically and economically interesting in the months ahead.
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