NEW DAY DAWNS
It's a good thing that all those people met in Paris to save the world from overheating so that we can enjoy winter again in the Algarve. As the year slips down towards time's archive, the flies are still making merry here in the hills. They delight in dogs' poo, dally on sandwiches and cavort on my face when I'm trying to snooze. I hate flies!
Midwinter! What midwinter I ask? Our nights barely dip into single figures; our days drift by in the lower 20s. Only modesty and danger of sunburn dissuade us from disporting ourselves in the midday sun. You would never imagine that this was our rainy season. Three measly millimetres is all we have to show for December - not much to sustain us while smouldering summer looks nostalgically north once again.
Once I read about a competition for people to write the most striking sentence as the introduction to an imaginary book. If I had entered that competition, my sentence would have been:
It was difficult in those first weeks to sink the vessels packed with people fleeing the drowned lands, especially the boats groaning with women and children, but we were being overrun - and it was either them or us.
I didn't actually make that up. The thought just keeps floating around my head as hordes of refugees/migrants pour endlessly across the sea to the reluctant sanctuary of Europe and Euro leaders wonder how to stem the flow. Ironically, although the first refugees are about to arrive in Portugal, many have indicated that they would rather seek refuge elsewhere.
We didn't visit May at the nursing home this week. She hasn't been well and didn't recognise another old friend who did go to see her. The rest of the week has run its usual course. Saturday the boys continued to build the wall along the eastern flank of the Inacio field. They haul the cement mixer out, load the tractor box with sand, add cement, fill a tub with water and are busy within minutes. I leave them to it while we go walking.
When they had finished, they came down with me to assist neighbours to stack a mountain of firewood that the supplier had dumped at the entrance to the property. I lent a hand myself, wheeling (lightly-loaded) barrows around to the woodshed at the back of the house.
LARGE ROCK SHIFTED BY WILD BOAR ROOTING FOR BULBS
Monday is always a run-around, even though my English lessons are over until the new year. Ono's various pills - he turns 16 next month - had to be renewed, groceries got in and a fractious chainsaw handed in to the supplier for a service. Additionally, we took a Christmas hamper up the sisters, Marisa and Ana, at the Goldra dog sanctuary.
ANA & MARISA
If you think that we are overrun with animals, you have to see theirs. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year, they tend, mend and feed the scores of dogs that depend paw and pad upon them. The sisters are neither of them young and I hesitate to think about the future of their enterprise. It's hard enough to think about our own.
MAN AT EASE
Speaking of which - you should know that our dogs have to be distracted when we leave or enter the property by car for they otherwise rush out of the gates and go exploring. The only viable distraction is treats. Barbara sometimes scatters a handful of cat biscuits on the cobbles as she leaves. At other times, she gives them a special biscuit from our bribe box.
SISTERS
One morning she left the box on top of a table out of their reach. At least, she thought it was out of reach. The remains of the box lay scattered about the cobbles on our return. Of the biscuits, unsurprisingly, there was no sign. No dog has owned up but Barri is the prime suspect. She's a competent thief as well as a cupboard lover, affecting heartfelt devotion as she noses through my pockets.
JOHANNESBURG - 1980
I have undertaken a long-overdue project - sorting out the thousands of photos on my computer. Jones and I must take 50 pictures a week, the best of which go into the blog. The rest simply gather dust on the hard drive. It's a large hard drive and not under any strain but that's not the point. The point is being able to find the pictures I vaguely remember taking when I want them.
OCTOBER 1979
The pictures tell half our history better than we can. Barbara wonders whether the hardware and software to view them will still be available in 20 years' time. I wonder whether anybody will want to. (Posterity can decide that for itself.) Either way, the task is going to take a few weeks more.
TABLE MOUNTAIN - 1970
Last week I got my singular and plural hang-ups off my chest. Here are some more. I should hook up a car battery to broadcasters and administer shocks according to the gravity of the offence: One jolt for "of course"; two for "sort of" & "kind of"; three for "you know"; four for "now!" and "actually" and five for "s/he went,like", "incredibly" or anything else particularly irritating or dull.
1962
As for politicians, they would be given a tingling burst for "the fact is", "the truth is", "we have been clear", "we have always said" and a great deal more of which I would be the arbiter.
Thursday we took Maria and Lucky to the vet for Lucky's second shot.
THURSDAY MORNING SKY
This is my last blog of 2015. I shall be joining my Canadian family in Calgary for Christmas. So will my sister and family from Berlin. Barbara remains at home to look after the zoo. She flies to London shortly after my return to spend New Year with Llewellyn and Lucia while I take up the reins. As ever, our animals dictate the course of our lives.
Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year!
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