In order to display some award-winning pictures, the blog opens on a tractor ride down to Joachim's carob plantation to get rid of the recycling and load up with rocks. In the absence of other rock loaders, Jonesy had volunteered her services, albeit with some misgivings. That's her seated on a cushion in the box. She said the cushion didn't help much over the bumps.
We had advanced barely 200 metres down the road when we ran into Olly who hitched a ride as far as the post boxes at the bottom of the hill. That's him talking to Jones. Another 200 metres and we came across Pauline who was camouflaged behind Macbethian(?) armfuls of hedge trimmings from Casa Mack. So we volunteered the tractor. (No pics! Sorry!)
THE BOYS AT WORK LAST SATURDAY, PICTURED FROM THE NEIGHBOUR'S SIDE. THE FALL ON MY SIDE IS MUCH GREATER
Jones vacated the box which took all the remaining trimmings plus the corpse of an overweening cactus that Fintan (who had just arrived with a wheelbarrow) thought prudent to cut down while the tractor was handy. Having deposited the load, Jones and I had time for one rock run before lunch.
At that point Natasha called to volunteer her own services - an offer we were glad to accept. She's a jolly good loader. Some of the rocks she managed to heave on board would have done Slavic proud.
We made a couple of trips, sufficient to keep the boys busy on Saturday, assuming that the rain holds off. The wall is making slow but steady progress along the upper border of our field, earning the admiration of neighbours as it does so.
Natasha and I then got stuck into the triffids (Jones's name for them), a variety of wild celery that overflows the garden each spring.
TRIFFID
The plants spread out like giant umbrellas, covering beds, paths and verges in a green canopy before shooting up flowery spikes. One or two would be nice but they simply take over the garden and its surrounds.
JONES PIGEON PICTURE
The start of February always sees me scrutinising bank statements in preparation for our tax return. After a brush with the taxman last year - I still don't know what he was unhappy about - I am taking a great deal of care. The Finances is the one arm of government that really strives for efficiency; by which I mean extracting tax, not serving the tax payer.
ANOTHER JONES PIGEON PICTURE
We now take it as read that the Finances freely exchanges information with other EU members. It has also obliged enterprises of any size to install cash registers linked directly to its own computers. And now, as I learned at a tax seminar midweek, all company invoices bearing the recipient's fiscal number arrive electronically at the Finances, which assigns these to the recipient's tax file and calculates any tax credits that may be due.
It might be worth adding - as I learned at the seminar - that 90% of Portuguese taxpayers now file their returns online, the highest percentage in the EU after Finland. At the same time, more than half of Portuguese adults in receipt of income file no returns at all, falling beneath the filing threshold - first world and third world all jumbled up.
BENAFIM DAWN
After the seminar, held at a smart hotel in the resort of Vilamoura, Jones and I took ourselves to next-door Quarteira, a down-to-earth apartment block town where the Portuguese come to holiday along with foreign tourists. The sea front boasts a long promenade that we shared with the occasional jogger, dog walker and holiday maker. Ono and Prickles insisted on checking every pole and kerb stone, making a donation where they deemed it appropriate. A trickle of holiday-makers joined us at the beach-front snack bar where we lunched under cool, cloudy skies on toasted tuna sandwiches, flicking crumbs to the waiting sparrows.
THE STRAY
Speaking of crumbs: we have added the stray at Alto Fica corner to our waifs and strays list. The animal has got to know our car and comes running as we approach, although he will not take anything directly from our hands. So, each time we pass we drop a snack on to the verge - a chewie or a couple of biscuits or the occasional bone. The people who live nearby don't seem to mind his presence, although there's no knowing how long that will be the case. As neighbours have observed, the beast likes to sunbathe in the road and is averse to moving for approaching vehicles, which is unwise.
Pause there as Jones takes the morning coffee tray downstairs, stopping to inquire whether I have seen her glasses. I am able to inform her that they are perched on her head, their favoured retreat when she works at her desk.
My digital photo frame has arrived although not yet the capacious USB stick I ordered to go with it. (This, Amazon informed me, was being sent "ahead" separately.) Still, the small USB stick that was included with the frame took some three thousand of our holiday photos. After spending an hour loading these, I plugged the stick into the frame and started reliving our holidays. The device is triggered by movement in the room and cleverly shuts itself down when no-one is around. The question is where to put it.
This weekend the senior university, like much of Loule, is closing down for carnival. While Brazil's famous carnival is celebrated in high summer, Portugal's carnivals often parade through shivering streets - according to the whimsy of the weather. Still, that doesn't inhibit the scantily-clad maidens who crew the floats or the beer-swilling merry makers who cheer them on, often with an exchange of (mainly harmless) missiles. Jones and I decided years ago that attendance at carnivals was superfluous to our happiness.
As our Portuguese teacher pointed out to us, the word "carnival" - in Portuguese "carnaval", signalling the start of Lent, is popularly thought to derive from the Latin for "farewell to meat" or possibly "farewell to flesh". (The medieval church expected the faithful to abstain from both meat and sex during Lent - and at a great many other times!)
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