Letter from Espargal: 22 May 2016

This is a belated blog that has to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any. It's a tale of family visits, a Mediterranean cruise, canine woes, technical troubles and continuing attempts to tame our expansionist vegetation.



Ten days into May, Barbara's brother Robbie and wife Carol flew into Faro airport from South Africa. The weather was wet. Here they are with Barbara on the banks of the Algibre river. Robbie's dark glasses were to protect a troublesome eye.



Their stay was regrettably brief - less than 48 hours; they left again with Barbara on a dawn flight via Lisbon to Venice where they were to spend two days prior to a week-long Mediterranean cruise. On this they were joined by their American son, Bevan, for whose pictures I am grateful.


CATHY MEETING THE ORPHANS

Three days after their departure I returned to Faro airport to fetch my sister Cathy, who was arriving from the UK. She found herself among many hundreds of furious visitors who were stacking up in tumultuous confusion in the arrivals hall.


OFF TO WATER THE GARDEN

The hold up resulted from a dearth of passport officials - just two on duty - along with several out-of-order electronic passport booths. It took Cathy well over an hour to struggle through the melee.


FIRST STOP - DUBROVNIK

Jones was later to report similarly frenzied scenes on her departure from Venice airport when extensive works, failing computers and thousands of home-going cruise ship passengers served to reduce the check-in hall to scenes of bedlam.


SECOND STOP - SANTORINI

Things were not always this way. In my mind's eye I can still see my mother, hatted and gloved, boarding the Comet with her children at Jan Smuts airport en route to England in 1960. No question then of mad mullahs, security issues or body searches.


THIRD STOP - ATHENS

With her Cathy brought the sunshine. As well as providing me with welcome company, she spent hours tending Jones's extensive and ever-thirsty garden, a service for which I was deeply grateful.



My days were largely taken up with the care of animals, mainly dogs - that's our eight, two waifs and two strays - never mind the distinction. Apart from twice-daily walks and meals, the dogs needed various treatments, some of which they failed entirely to see the point of.


FOURTH STOP - SPLIT

Ear squirtings were required for several dogs infected with ear mites, acquired from one of the orphans. On the personal front I three times came across ticks making a meal of me; it was their last meal, one and all.



Problems of a different nature were presented by a non-functioning landline phone and a printer-scanner that refused to scan in the aftermath of a storm. After much searching I found the website niche to report the phone to Meo (formerly Portugal Telecom). Although Meo noted the problem, the company did nothing to resolve it. So I reported it again - equally fruitlessly.


CRUISE SHIP - NORWEGIAN JADE

Finally I visited the Meo shop in Forum Algarve. A Meo bimbo, attended by three bored learner bimbos, spent ten minutes trying to trace my online reports (which I'd printed out in evidence) before confessing that her system was not compatible. No surprise there. She registered the fault as urgent and assured me that Meo would attend to it within 36 hours.



Ten days later, as I was about to cancel the phone line, a Meo technician called to say that he was on the case. He hoped to resolve it within two days - two week-days, that is. At the time of writing, the system is still out of order. Callers get the impression that the phone is ringing. On this side we hear nothing.


MURANO GLASS BOWL FROM VENICE

More troubling - because we can live without a landline - was the non-functioning scanner. The suppliers reported that they could find no fault with it. So I brought it back home and hooked it up again. Try as I might, I couldn't persuade it to talk to my computer.


LUCKY FOOT

The suppliers said they could reconfigure it remotely. But first I needed to connect it to the computer with a USB to USB cable.  I went into Loule to buy one.


USB-A TO USB-B

It didn't connect. The problem, my gurus said, was that my cable had two USB-A fittings. What I needed was a USB-A to USB-B cable. Back to Loule.  The second cable fitted and the printer-scanner was eventually prodded back to life.


CRUISE SHIPS AT ANCHOR - SANTORINI

Another trip was to Faro to renew my driving licence, a rigmarole that septuagenarians have to undergo every two years. The doctor doing the check-ups was the same man I'd encountered two years earlier. "How are things?" he asked me. Apart from a dodgy back, I told him, I was in good shape. "That's okay then," said he, completing and signing the necessary form. "See you again in two years." What an excellent judge of character: a man after my own heart!



On the extended garden front Nelson has plunged into the serried ranks of thistles, harpoon grasses and dandelions. The task is akin to fighting the tide with a bucket. However, Nelson doesn't mind and puts in a solid eight hours without complaint. To improve matters further, Slavic and Andre have concreted over our weed-encrusted gravel paths, improving their aspect and easing our passage.



Barbara returned home at the weekend to report a satisfying cruise with an outstanding crew, an delicious choice of food and fascinating stops en route. This was good news. Her grey cat, which had taken itself off on the day of her departure, reappeared on the night of her return.

PS. Our phone is back in order!

Letter from Espargal: 6 May 2016

Thursday midday: It's raining. On the far side of the valley Benafim is barely visible through the murk. Distant rolls of thunder alarm Barri who is panting with nervous anxiety under my desk. She hates strange noises of any complexion. I am endeavouring to calm her down, not with much success.



In view of the weather Barbara is giving the weeds a rest day and applying herself to Casa Nada instead. She feels that it needs a tidy up. I hope that the two black cats who occupy it are appreciative. Barbara would struggle to give herself a rest day. She is subject to a rigid and demanding conscience that will not permit her a day off if there is anything to be done - and there is always something to be done.



From time to time it will concede her a reluctant postprandial hour with a magazine and a dog on the sofa. But that's the limit. My conscience is a lot more tolerant. As long as I have something to show for the passage of the day - a token of appeasement - it leaves me pretty much to myself.


OFF TO WATER ABSENT NEIGHBOURS' FLOWERS

For much of this week my principal task has been to plough our lands and trim the shoots on the almond trees that were heavily pruned earlier in the year. Yesterday I set about replacing a fused stair light. In theory, these lights simply twist in and out of the socket. But, as so often in life, there's a gulf between theory and practice. This ex-light, like a protesting politician, was determined to hang in there. I had to prise it off with screwdriver and pliers while lying flat on the floor. It took me half an hour to do the job. That more than satisfied conscience.


POPPIES: COURTESY LYN MACKRILL

There's a cheer-up fire in the wood-burning stove. The rain continues to pour down. A drenching squall descended on Benafim late morning as Mary was trimming my hair and toe nails. I had to leap still besmocked from her chair and rush outside to close the windward car windows before the dogs drowned.


LYN: YELLOW BEE ORCHID

For a while the downpour eased off. Then, as I was about to leave her salon, the heavens opened once again. I got soaked just crossing the pavement to the car. And I got doubly drenched when I stopped on the way home to retrieve a smelly bone from the boot and leave it on the roadside for the stray. Fortunately, being soaked is not a serious condition, not when home and a change of clothes are just a few minutes away.



More heavy rain is due on Saturday. I shall have to call off the boys and wait another week to lay a second curved concrete strip just beyond the carport gates, intended to give me side access to the carport. We laid the first strip last weekend. (For the record, we have three sets of exterior double gates: the main gates and then, above and below Casa Nada, the carport gates and the tractor gates. We also have three exterior pedestrian gates and several interior gates. In short, we are a multi-gated community.)


MAIN GATES TO THE RIGHT; CARPORT GATES BEHIND THE CAR

Tuesday morning I was munching a wake-up slice of toast on the side of the bed when I became conscious that I was not the only creature enjoying breakfast. A hungry tick had attached itself to my throat overnight, no doubt courtesy of Ono who was snoozing innocently at my side. Jones ripped the wretched creature off and flushed it down the loo.


PALLY JOINS THE BLACK AND WHITE MINSTRELS

Apart from the usual itchy bump I have evinced no untoward symptoms. We inevitably suffer one or two such bites each year. The dogs wear collars that the ticks find distasteful - that's apart from the three orphans who will have nothing to do with collars. We try to put a squirt of bug killer on to their necks from time to time but even that's hard work.



I have - apropos of nothing - booked an appointment with the Portuguese AA to renew my driving licence, an item that is subject to renewal every two years from driver-age 70. At least one can go through the renewal process six months in advance of the expiry date. Last time it took much longer than that to receive the actual licence, a case of the technology being rather more efficient than its operators.


LYN: FLOWERS ALONG THE VERGE

Natasha came to us a day early before flying off midweek with her son, Alex to Sweden where he is in a team competing in a gymnastics competition. The pair of them are now able to travel on their newly-acquired Portuguese ID cards, acceptable in lieu of passports within the EU. I am envious. I wish we had the same. Some years ago the UK government tried to introduce ID cards but the citizenry revolted at the mortifying notion of having to carry ID - considered a nasty European habit.



Next Tuesday marks the arrival of (Barbara's brother) Robbie and Carol from South Africa. They spend a day and a half with us before flying off early on the Thursday morning with Barbara to Venice to join a week-long Mediterranean cruise. For most of that period I will have the welcome company of Cathy who has previously proved herself a champion garden waterer - a coincidence. Mind you, judging from the forecast, she won't have much work to do.



Thursday evening: The sun came out late afternoon and the dogs dragged us off on their usual hike around the hills.With me I took along two walking sticks to prop myself up as the steep hard-baked paths turn treacherous after rain. To no avail. On a skiddy descent my feet went from under me and I plunged headlong into the bush. Jones, hearing my falling curse and the collapsing shrubbery, hurried back to ascertain my state of health. Fortunately I am well padded and – bruised dignity aside – suffered little injury.

LYN: DAISIES

It was only on our return home that I found my mobile phone absent from the breast pocket that it inhabits. Jones went back to find it (and did, where I’d fallen). She is rather swifter and more agile than I am. In fairness to myself, while she was away I trotted down to feed her adopted waifs with their daily bones. I was relieved not to bump into the neighbours who insist on plying us plentifully with baggy whenever they encounter us – a case of too much of a good thing.

THE FIRST LARKSPURS ARE OUT

Although we have for some time abstained from alcohol on Tuesdays and Thursdays I considered myself justified under the circumstances in adding a fortifying shot of brandy to my coffee. After all, I told a querying conscience, it's not every day that I survive a crash landing in the bush.

Letter from Espargal: 29 April 2016

In my experience some days come around more frequently than others. Whereas once Mondays were frequent visitors, now it's Fridays that pop up unexpectedly with a little "we're back" smirk. You might think that we would welcome a few extra Fridays in our lives. However, as shift workers we were hardly aware of the day of the week. And, naturally, once one retires, one waves goodbye to weekends, sick-leave and all the other perks that workers enjoy. Now Friday means I have to think of something to say.


There is a popular notion amongst the ignorant that retirement brings a chance to sit back and put your feet up. It's a fallacy. Retirement means simply that all sorts of things you never imagined land on your plate and you are expected to do them all for free.



Yesterday, for example, we had to get up at sparrows to walk the dogs before I shot into Loule to lead Paulo the plumber to Natasha's apartment. I've been chasing him for months to do something about her leaking loo cisterns. His reply is always to the effect that he's busy this week, maybe next week. At least it was until last week. The trouble is that he prefers the occasional big jobs he gets on building projects to piece work for neighbours - understandably so.


VALERIAN

After replacing the old plastic loo cisterns and servicing the gas heater at the apartment, he came around here to fix a leaking bathroom joint in Casa Nada, for all of which we were grateful. In the evening Natasha phoned to say that there was a problem with the gas heater. So Paulo was back there again this morning. He assures me that it's now sorted.



Most of my Thursday and much of my week has gone into strimming the army of weeds that have set up camp on our fields. I was making satisfactory progress until the screwcap on the strimming head took itself off somewhere in mid-strim, along with the flailing nylon cords.



Finding no trace of it, I took the strimmer into town on the tractor to seek a new head and some advice on attaching a metal disc (better suited to taking out the 2-metre high rear guard of daisies). Helio's machine-repair shop was still closed, with a dubious "back later" note permanently riveted to his metal door. Fortunately, Jose Faisca at the hardware shop was pleased to assist.



Jones has had a gardening week, that's to say "another gardening week" with an eye to Robbie and Carol's impending visit. For my part, I've been trying to leave the best of the daisies, poppies and vinka clumps unstrimmed for our benefit and that of passers by, a challenging task given the jungle of entwined pricklies, triffids and weedy asylum seekers among the flowers.



In-between times we have entertained and been entertained by our visiting friends, Mike and Lyn. He proved a dab hand at the villa bbq one evening, albeit with his wife's saucy assistance. A cat that was keeping an eye on proceedings turned out to be the mother of four tiny kittens deposited in a bush in the garden. Jones has taken down cat nibbles to sustain the beast.



Another evening we dined - for only the second time in years - at the Alte Hotel, a hostelry situated on the hill overlooking the town, with a magnificent view from the patio across the Algarve plain to the sea. On the previous occasion, we waited an hour for our food, a duration that I considered excessive and said so. The waitress replied that all their food was fresh and took time to prepare - too much time altogether; we voted with our feet.



On this second occasion, a cold wind was blowing and the sepia view was uninspiring so we decided to dine inside rather than out. Diners were few. The wine was excellent and the food both tasty and prompt. Maybe we'll go back.



I wish that we could report the same degree of satisfaction with our favourite news and discussion programmes, all of which have been infected by Brexit fever - worse than the plague. It's nigh on impossible to tune into UK channels without being afflicted by a ranting visionary for leaving the EU or a missionary for staying. A public crying out for facts is having its ears stuffed with lurid fantasies as both sides do their utmost to woo voters.


CONVULVULUS

Most annoying is a particular pundit, a man who closes his mouth as seldom as he opens his mind, a fellow who drives me to profanity. I tend to sit with the zapper in one hand - finger poised on the mute button - and my iPad in the other, generally playing Freecell. To my credit I have completed the first 2,500 games (only twice having to seek assistance online). It has been said that the game helps to defer the onset of dementia, a view with which Jones might well take issue.


WILD PEONIES

Mike - returning to our visitors - has left me with his mobile Uniden radio-traffic scanner to tune in to conversations between aircraft and Faro tower. He has a bigger unit at his home on the Isle of Wight. The exchanges are so heavily-accented short and sharp that they take some listening to. I'm getting the hang of it.


THE WHITE STRAY THAT WE FEED AT THE ALTO FICA CORNER

Like me, Mike loves planes. It runs in my family and Barbara's. Her brother was a pilot in the RAF. My brother, Kevin, once ran an airline. His son became a pilot. I tried but the air force (perhaps fortunately) didn't recognise my talents. My best mate in the air force gymnasium flew his Harvard trainer into the ground when the engine failed a few weeks into his course. The plane had a reputation for gliding like a brick.



That's enough reminiscing for one week. May is nearly upon us. The mozzies are back, along with the occasional tick. I've been looking for any water lurking in pots and buckets and tipping the larvae into the garden with a "try that" exclamation. I'm for "live" and "let live" but only up to a point.


ERIGERON