Letter from Espargal: 26 August 2016

We've been working. Here we are slaving away. See for yourself lest you doubt me (while I think of something sensible to say).



Jones is clearing the verges on the far side of the drive - with the feline fan club in support. I had to take the pictures. Otherwise you'd see me working too.  If I attempted to sit like that, you'd have to dismantle me and reassemble the bits. Beyond the trees lie our fields, about a hectare with carob, almond and fruit trees and vines.



The cats, Brave Heart and Squinty, live in Casa Nada but spend much of the day camped in the fields, watching the world go by. There they are untroubled by the dogs, which are fenced in on the other side of the drive - although they all get along well enough. The cats tend to join us in the house in the evenings, especially in winter when there's a fire going.



After taking the pictures, I fetched the tractor to scoop up the cuttings that you can see on the drive. The car (top left) now lives outside under the new exterior carport except when we have to unload the boot after shopping. This move has spoiled the the fun of the orphans who loved little more than to dash jubilantly out of the gates, past Jones's out-flung arms, as we entered.



This week has closely resembled last week and the weeks before. (Pause for thought!) Okay, our rising sequence is as follows: Jones gets up at 05.00. Here's a picture she took of Thursday's dawn.



She wakes me with toast and coffee at 07.30 when Mini has to get off my head. Ono, lying beside me, sometimes wakes also, to come walking with the gang. Otherwise he sleeps through till after 09.00. He's nearly 17 and finding it ever harder to negotiate steep inclines.



In the study,  Prickles sleeps in till we call him down to breakfast at 10.00. Then he makes his way downstairs for a ten-gallon pee and a bite. (If Prickles dies before me, I want his bladder.) Prickles has given up walking in favour of outings in the car. Dear Heart is a house cat. She sunbathes on the ironing board until the sun moves round.



On the action front we've been collecting carobs, picking plums, watering the garden, walking the hills and feeding the beasts. (See previous blogs.) The heat continues prickly and the flies pestilential. We come inside from carob collecting at 13.00 and I don't venture out again till late afternoon. On the upside the evenings are glorious.



I bought this tin of meat during a visit to the animal product wholesaler, Tibi, because the translation took my fancy. (I wonder if it was deliberate.)



Seen in Espargal. Don't know the contributor! Jones wondered if we should bestow him on our animals. I thought he might be better off where he is.

Letter from Espargal: 19 August 2016

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We have been picking carobs, a lot of carobs. That's to say a lot of carobs by our standards - a couple of hours' worth most days, amounting to about a large daily sack between us. We are under no illusions that our neighbours would scorn our efforts. It's common to see tractors returning home, hubby driving and wife perched on a mountain of sacks behind.



Whether, like Barbara, one crouches/bends down - or kneels, like me - and those are the options - after a couple of hours one's joints start to creak. The fun element of whacking down carobs from the trees with a long flexible stick - my job - lasts just a few minutes. A large tree may take half an hour to strip. Carobs can show a remarkable reluctance to let go. Some of them simply cling on for dear life.



All this endeavour on a good day might bring one €10 a sack. Prices are typically around €4 an "arroba" - a 15kg measure used in the trade. For most estrangeiros it doesn't make much financial sense; they simply invite in local pickers. But retired Portuguese couples with negligible pensions may depend on the carob crop to supplement their income; some bring their extended families to a mass harvesting.


AUGUST MOON

As you may recall we don't sell our carobs. We give them to a farmer neighbour who brings us all kinds of fruit and veggies in return. The effort serves to remind us how our ancestors had to labour and some of our neighbours still do. Our task is made more difficult by awkward walls and bushes. Serious farmers clear the area under the trees ahead of time, either with strimmers or poison.


AUGUST SUN

Most picking is done in the mornings before the sun is at its cruellest. The flies wake early to join the fun. They wait until one is dripping with perspiration, both hands full, before swooping in to land on one's nose or lips. I carry a swatter, hooked into my belt. I wouldn't make a good Buddhist or whatever, sworn never to harm another creature. Make my life a misery and I'll do my best to return the compliment. There's a particular satisfaction in watching the ubiquitous ants hauling fly corpses away,



August 15 was a public holiday to mark the feast of the Assumption, one of the remaining religious holidays. (The government "negotiated" with the Roman Catholic Church a few years ago when austerity required their reduction.) This was a feast that we marked in some style when I was a Marist brother back in the mists of time - an "infallible dogma" proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950.



I confess that the notion of human bodies being lodged in a celestial heaven became increasingly troubling to me in the space age until, along with the notion of original sin and a great many other things, it served to lead me away from my faith. If one can be a Jewish atheist, I don't see why one can't be a Christian humanist.



I was most impressed one afternoon when a courier rolled up to hand over a new Pebble watch recharge cable, compliments of the company. I didn't have to pay a cent. After concluding that my original cable could have been the problem that led to my watch freezing up a few weeks back, Pebble sent me the new cable as a gift. That's the way to win a customer's loyalty. On Amazon, the cables were advertised at £16 a throw.



Another courier arrived with three hermetically sealable ice-trays that I had ordered on Amazon in an effort to resolve a small chilly problem. Jones had complained to me that while our previous fridge, now in Casa Nada, had boasted a special ice-tray drawer at the bottom of the freezer compartment (where I couldn't get to it), our new fridge lacked this facility. Instead, one had to make ice in the top drawer (where I can access it) in which all sorts of other things were stored. This combination didn't work for her. The fancy new ice-trays ought to do the trick.



One afternoon I lay on my back on the hot cobbles to attach chicken wire to the gates through which Mini has been escaping. It took me two hours of sweaty labour, including interruptions to flail furiously and futilely at the flocking flies. So it was with some satisfaction that I eventually was able to stand back, clutching a refreshing  beer, to behold my handiwork. Mini inspected it with interest too. The question is/was (as journalists like to say) whether it would prevent the little dog from getting out. The answer, we discovered shortly afterwards, was "no". She's more Houdini than Mini. We have yet to discover her latest exit point.



For some weeks the village notice board has been advertising a production by travelling players of Aristophanes' The Birds (As Aves), to begin at 21.30 last Saturday night. The venue for such productions is customarily the grounds of the former primary school. Neighbours, Mike and Liz, had invited us around to enjoy a light supper at their house nearby, ahead of the play - an invitation that we were pleased to accept.



En route we were surprised to see no sign of any preparations for the production at the school - neither seats nor the fold-up stage of previous years. Nor, when 21.30 dawned (dusked?) was there further sign of life. So we stayed on at our host's home instead for an extended supper and some eclectic conversation to the aqueous tinkling of the adjacent lamp-lit fishpond fountain (sorry; blame Mike who plied me with whisky!).


BARBARA & ANNEKE AMUSED

We've yet to learn why the production was cancelled. One of our Portuguese neighbours suggested that there might have been a death in the family of one of the players. Who knows? This is Portugal, not a place one comes to for efficient organisation! I might add that when I googled Loule council's cultural information site beforehand to check, I discovered that it was still advertising last year's production (which we attended). Of this year's (planned) production, there was no mention. Maybe next year we'll find it listed - or even cancelled.


OUR HOSTS, MIKE & LIZ

I have watched a good deal of BBC Olympic coverage in the afternoon (when it's hot) and late at night (when the house sleeps). Much of the time I mute the audio in order to avoid the endless discussion of how many medals Team GB has won (might win, should have won, could win, didn't win, hadn't won, couldn't win). Medal successes lead the BBC News. You can't help feeling that you're nobody unless you have a medal - a passport to celebrity. If it were Portugal winning the medals, I might feel differently.

Letter from Espargal: 12 August 2016

This week has been something of a social whirl, a state of affairs for which - if I have neglected other duties - I hold my wife and neighbours responsible. The principal causes of all this conviviality have been Fintan's visiting daughter, Anita, and his granddaughter, Chloe, in the course of entertaining whom we have also entertained ourselves.



Here we are being entertained to a banquet on Marie and Olly's patio. Marie says she's just put a few scraps together before laying on a feast that would embarrass a monarch.



Chloe demonstrates her home-made cream tart which, like a great many sub-atomic particles, didn't last very long.



We were entertained again at the Benafim community festa to fado and large helpings of newly-barbecued chicken. My preference for pork and porridge was not shared by my companions.



A serious investment in the Tombola stall brought a host of prizes including the hamper basket. Having removed from this haul the more desirable objects, we returned the rest to the organisers for future Tomboling.



The gang joined us for drinks on our patio one evening before we took ourselves to dinner at the Hamburgo. The dogs ensured that they were properly looked after.



We returned from dinner to find, not for the first time, that our beloved pets had remodelled their beds. For this they were heartily sorry, and spent the whole night repenting on our bed. Note Mini up in Business Class!



Jones, unable to squeeze into the remaining corner, had earlier retired to a mini-mattress beside the glass doors, where she was able to enjoy a breeze and the night sky as well as a little solitude. (Yes, we know it's simply ridiculous. We're working on a solution!)



This little fellow would appear on the patio wall after sunset to await visiting moths. These he would approach and gobble up in an instant although he hesitated - perhaps wisely - before adding green bugs to the menu.



Portugal is suffering its annual torment by fire, mainly up in the north. (Poor Madeira, our holiday destination in a few weeks, has been devastated.) Barbara was remarking that at least we haven't seen fires around here. That was shortly before Marie drew our attention to a cloud of smoke rising from the hills to the north of us.  The evening provided us with a spectacular sunset that we could have done without.



In my wanderings about the internet I have come across a moderated site that addresses wide-ranging questions about English - in which, as you may be aware, I have an interest. The site is: http://english.stackexchange.com/



Anyone can join and ask or answer a question. One gains status and rank by amassing points that are allocated by other users to one's contributions. Some of the users are seriously academic and can get quite tetchy in their responses. I have had to look up the meaning of words such as "anaphoric". On the plus side, the site serves to keep one humble and on one's linguistic toes even if at times it resembles a pedant's paradise.



Particularly persuasive "phishing" emails purporting to come from Microsoft and PayPal have landed in my inbox. Their creators went to great trouble to achieve verisimilitude. As it happens, our Skype account (set up by Llewellyn) is in Barbara's name and not mine - which immediately triggered an alarm; not that I click on links in such emails. I forwarded both emails to the real companies' cyber security departments. Take care! It's a bad world.

Letter from Espargal: 6 August 2016

This blog starts life early one sweat-dribbling afternoon. The rotating tower fan is doing its best to keep me cool. One advantage of blogging is that it's an inside activity. I can enjoy a self-righteous sense of getting down to work without having to bear the heat and burden of the day with Jones in the garden. I have half an ear on the radio. Some political people are being shocked and horrified by David Cameron's resignation honours list.



I am glad to be able to declare, hand on heart, that our honour-free lives have not left us with chips on our shoulders. In this part of the world it's your fava bean crop that impresses  - mine doesn't - not the letters after your name or the degrees on your CV.



Speaking of which: as a former employee (for my sins) of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, I noted that its chairperson was forced to resign for faking her qualifications. (The Rainbow Nation is the fake qualification capital of the world!) The corporation's current boss, apart from hiking his salary and dismissing learning as a waste of time, is brushing off criticism for claiming falsely that he'd finished school. Come back Jonathan Swift!



Enough of such trivia! We have been quite sociable. One day we drove to the village of Cortelha to admire the progress that friends, Rob and Helen, have made with the old cottage that they bought some years ago. Like Helen's parents - our neighbours, David and Sarah - they still live in the UK and commute down when ever. Rob's with the fire service and Helen's a teacher.


HELEN IN HER GARDEN, WITH BARBARA, LIZ and ROB IN THE DISTANCE

To my mind, the house (like ours) is ideally located on the edge of a village with neighbours below and countryside above. The couple have invested their resources into transforming it into a lovely modern home. New electrics and plumbing run through a channel cut into the floor. The garden is flourishing, nurtured equally by an irrigation system and an extraordinarily kind neighbour.


SERENADED BY THE MALE VOICE CHOIR

A second outing was to the Feira da Serra (Mountain Festival) in Sao Bras. This is our favourite summer fair, staged in the grounds of the town school. We were joined by neighbours, Fintan and Pauline, their daughter Anita and granddaughter Chloe - of whom more in a moment. The fair caters for all interests, whether food, art, crafts, music, vehicles or equestrian displays. I love the male voice choirs.


THE BAND PARADES PAST THE STALLS. UNIFORM CODE IS RELAXED

This coming weekend brings the much smaller Benafim festa, attendance at which is an annual must. There you'll find everybody who's a local anybody as well as lots of nobodies. In fact it's almost impossible to tell them apart. The occasion is an convivial supper, music and dance celebration which raises money for local causes. Balls are still popular in these parts, especially among the older generation.



Midweek the girls donned their glad rags and we gathered at Monte da Eira, a stylish restaurant in the hills above Loule that we patronise on special occasions.



Seated opposite me is my neighbour Pauline and beside me her daughter, Anita, down on holiday from Dublin. I have informed Anita that if I were a Zulu I should certainly consider making her my second wife, whatever the lobola demanded by her father.



Also down on holiday and with us was Pauline's granddaughter, Chloe - Anita's niece - here pictured wearing my Tilley hat. Chloe is in her mid-teens and, like most of her generation, cyber wise. She had no hesitation in telling me that she would not allow me to become her Facebook friend - not that I do Facebook.



Midweek also saw the delivery of a new fridge, one I had selected after quiet discussions with our appliance suppliers. On the eve of its arrival I informed Jones, who needed to empty the old fridge ahead of time. She wasn't best pleased at the surprise - never mind that the old one was playing up and the bins cracked and patched with gaffer tape. Jones is of the view that a fridge is for life - till death do us part. We are not throwing the old one out, however. It has been transferred to Casa Nada where it will replace an even more ancient model. Beware surprises!



To my distress, at the end of last week, my Pebble smart watch froze, showing a watch and lightning bolt image that I couldn't shift. There was no reference to it on the Pebble help site, nor was it familiar to the email helpline assistant. She referred the case to the technical department who emailed me several days later to say that the watch simply needed charging; they suspected that my USB charging cable was faulty and they offered to send me another.



After some late night effort I managed to recharge the watch and link it once again to my phone. It's a great relief, especially when travelling, just to be able to glance at my wrist to see who communications are from and whether they require a prompt response.



My annual firewood delivery turned up one afternoon. The supplier likes to service regular customers in summer, knowing that there will be pressure on supplies as the days cool. Two strapping fellows unloaded, barrowed and then repacked 3 tons of hard wood - a two-hour, two-litre of perspiration operation.



I provided copious amounts of cold water, topped off with beers. The wood should last us the winter with lots to spare. The cost was €435 plus a generous tip. I think it's a bargain. Our wood-stove fires are wonderful company as well as a comfort. The supplier insists that his sources are not permitted to cut down live trees and provide timber only from those that have died - be that as it may!



Mini continues to make a big impression on our lives. She's a people dog, happiest in company and a pushy little live wire. She likes a lot of attention and is not averse to leaping up on to my lap or joining us on the sofa or in bed. We take care that her demands do not serve to deprive the others of attention.



She continued to go awol each time we left the house until Jones eventually spotted that she was squeezing through the vertical bars of the gates at the tractor entrance. We closed off access to that section of the garden, which kept her in for a day or two until she worked out another route. Smart kid!


MINI - BOTTOM RIGHT - IS SERVED FIRST

Barbara is insistent that we should not overfeed her. (The vet has advised us to put a couple of our other pets on diet!) But she gobbles down her food so fast that her bowl is empty before I've even finished distributing the rest. She then tours the patio trying to stick her nose into other dogs' food.



Our Saturday morning labours continue although this coming weekend will probably be my last for a while.  The workers have been building stone and concrete steps that lead up through the rockery to the park entrance.



From there a path winds its way 100 metres through our mini-wood to the top gate. The aim, as usual, is as much about practicality and appearance as keeping winter's thriving weeds at bay. We simply have to reduce the overpowering amount of work we face each summer in clearing and strimming.