It is on a Thursday morning after walking the dogs that I usually sit down over a cup of coffee at the computer to consider the week. This Thursday morning dawned wet and misty, so, instead of walks, we contented ourselves with leg-lifters in the park under a fine drizzle. After breakfast - theirs - I lit a fire and the dogs settled themselves down around the stove.
Then, as I was about to sit down at my desk, Jose the tractor man called to check my exact model before ordering the transmission oil and filter that I'd requested from him. I change the engine oil every 100 hours - usually once a year. But this is the first time in 8 years that I've needed to change the transmission oil for which I don't have the specs.
So I nipped into Benafim to have a word with Jose who took the opportunity to show me around his latest range of tractors. He's got some very nice ones and would love to sell me one. I told him years ago that I'd buy another if I won the Euromillions lottery but that's hardly likely, especially as I gave up playing it online when the organisers insisted on yet more bureaucracy in the name of security. Bureaucracy is one commodity that Portugal is never short of.
Then I dropped off a punctured wheelbarrow wheel at the workshop of the man who fixes old mopeds - essential transport in these parts - before stopping off at Quim Quim to order a delivery of sand and cement.
Friday morning the car has to go into Honda.
THE ENDEARING BABES
On our outings these days we take extra chewies or other dog treats for the stray that has settled down at the turn-off from the main road to Espargal. There are several houses in the area from which it may be getting some food. The beast certainly needs all it can get as its ribs stick out like fence posts. It loved the meaty bone that we provided on Monday afternoon.
Strays are a perpetual Portuguese problem. We came across a banner in Loule begging dog owners to get their animals neutered. One hundred thousand strays a year have to be destroyed, it informed readers, because of the failure to neuter pets. That's apart from the dogs that are simply discarded when they are no longer of any use to their owners.
Returning to Thursday: On the way home from Benafim, between cursing the idiots who loom up in the mist without lights, I dropped by Leonilde's place to pick up the goat cheese and bread that she purchases on our behalf each Wednesday. The cheese comes from a small goat farm just up the road.
Thus Thursday morning, like the rest of the week, swiftly passed.
Natasha, who works an additional half day each month (to recompense us for her share of the social security charge) joined me on the tractor one morning. Like Slavic she rides "side-saddle" down to Joachim Sousa's field a kilometre away to load the box with rocks from the huge piles dotting his carob plantation. The rocks are both to backfill the wall the boys are building and to provide them with a ready supply when they arrive on Saturday.
After returning home with our fourth and final load of the day, we set about dropping the rocks into the void behind the wall. As we were doing so I noticed a prickling in my right leg. Moments later the limb seemed to catch fire. I looked down to find my jeans absolutely covered in an army of biting ants.
With a yelped warning to Natasha and backwards hop that would have qualified me for the ParaOlympics, I whipped the trousers down and fell to brushing the little buggers off. There is a place for decorum in this world but it isn't in the middle of a field in Espargal when one is being torn to shreds by jihadist ants. Natasha had the presence of mind not to laugh at the spectacle of her employer dancing around like a semi-naked dervish while mouthing imprecations. Little wonder the ants were upset; I'd been standing right on top of their nest.
Jones - between her sms messages, emails, food preparation, mending, cleaning and waifs runs - has continued to pick up the last of last season's carobs. I was astonished at the pile she has left drying on the floor in Casa Nada. We shall be pleased to hand them over in due course to the farmer who has been so helpful in grafting our trees. Carobs are the oil of the local economy (possibly not the most appropriate metaphor in the current economic climate).
JONES COLLECTING CAROBS IN CAMOUFLAGE
Midweek we fetched several pizzas from Sergio's travelling pizza kiosk and joined our UK friends, Mike and Lyn, for supper at a rental villa in the village. They are frequent visitors and great walkers, with an enviable knowledge of Portuguese flowers and birds. They were in good form. With just one or two exceptions, the January weather has been kind to them.
Changing tack - on Sunday the people of Portugal go to the polls to elect a new president. Under the Portuguese system of government which lacks an upper house, the president is semi-executive and occupies a role usually performed by a senate. So the election matters. Ten candidates are standing, two of them women.
If the opinion polls are anything to go by, nine have little or no chance of winning. The country's next president is almost sure to be a centre-right candidate, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who will then have to work with the new centre-left government. The only question is whether Mr de Sousa will gain the simple majority required in the first round. Whether the majority of expats will be aware of any of this - or care - is doubtful as most of them live in bubbles of their own media and social circles.
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