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.
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