What Descartes should have figured, instead of "cogito, ergo sum", is "difficultas habeo, ergo sum"; I have a problem, therefore I am. This conclusion will strike a universal chord. It has the added benefit, unlike Descartes' dictum, of including that section of humanity that can't fairly be accused of thinking.
OUR LEMON TREE
Take an incident the end of last week. I was at the bottom of the village, chatting to neighbours when I got a "come home quick" call from Jonesy. Home quick I went, ready to deal with some minor emergency but not with a house full of smoke. The smoke alarms were shrieking, the dogs were freaking and Jones was stressed out. She had lit an early fire in the stove with eye-streaming, lung-choking results.
HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK
I disconnected the smoke alarms, flung open the doors and windows and hauled a smoking log off the fire. Then I set about showing my wife how to make a fire. As it happens, I recently discovered that the young Jones had been both a brownie and a girl-guide. But she clearly hadn't got her fire-lighting badge. Making light of her failings (as a good husband should) I patiently demonstrated the correct technique. The house promptly filled with smoke again. Okay, I might have been a trifle hasty; there was a problem!
On Saturday morning Slavic and I, clutching a borrowed chimney sweeping kit, ascended the extension ladder to the roof to do something about it. We didn't need the kit. The problem stared us in the face. The chimney grill, clad internally with fine-meshed bird-proof wire, was chocablock with soot.
It took us an hour of determined chiselling away with screw drivers to get most of it out. We filled two buckets with the muck before Slavic set about hosing down the filthy tiles - that was after disconnecting the drain pipe to keep soot out of the cisterna. That evening we built a beautiful fire - and every evening since. We just love our winter fires.
Last Friday we supped with neighbours at the Hamburgo, celebrating a final meal there before the restaurant closed for the festive season. After shutting the doors, Manuel was intending to drive through the night to Lisbon to catch an early flight. Christmas won't be the same. We got home to find that the dogs had been busy in our absence. Two of Jones's favourite cushions had bitten the dust. Out with the sewing kit yet again! Honestly, those mutts are the limit!
For the technically minded, I have a head-scratcher that has puzzled Apple as much as it puzzles me. It began when Barbara received a (genuine) warning by email from Apple that someone else had logged into her Apple ID on an iPhone that Barbara hadn't registered on the site. However, my wife has never set up an Apple ID and certainly hasn't registered any devices with the company.
So, to take control of the situation, I promptly set up an Apple ID for her, using her gmail address and the password recovery service to access the site. (I'm leaving out the detail.) Once I'd done this and logged in, I found the ID information already recorded belonging to someone with different personal details.
WALL PLASTER MOSAIC
Theoretically, it is not possible for two people to have the same email address - although you'll find plenty of people complaining in help forums that it happens in practice. Now I wait to see whether the other party tries to take charge of the ID by again using the password recovery service to overwrite my password. Whatever the case, there's nothing of Barbara's on the site that's of use to a thief.
MOON RISING OVER THE POLE PATH
I have spent some time trying to trace the owner of a tiny ruined cottage located cheek by jowl with a house being renovated by a newly-arrived couple. In fact, the two buildings share a party wall. After much inquiry among locals I discovered that the ruin had belonged to an old woman last seen in a retirement home.
HERE IT IS AGAIN!
Then, bit by bit, it emerged that: she had died; her husband had also died but that he (not she) had a son who had emigrated and not been heard from for decades, and that she had nephews & nieces living locally, one of whom I've contacted. Her property is almost certainly liable to be divided among her relatives according to a constitutional formula. The long and short of it is that this is a typical Portuguese inheritance tangle of a kind that bedevils the community and would take enormous effort and no little investment to resolve.
Thursday I went for my annual dermatological checkup. This was ill-timed because the appointment, as I discovered, was actually for the following day. Fortunately, the doc was able to squeeze me in. On the way back Jones snapped this somewhat unrevealing image of the vast new Ikea store rising off the Loule-Faro freeway. There must be a dozen cranes hovering over the extensive construction site. The project was fiercely but vainly opposed by the many smaller businesses that are likely to be bankrupted by it.
THE CAMERA IS NOT MY FRIEND BUT THIS ONE ISN'T BAD
The quote of the week comes from a retired US female soldier who got the better of a carjacker: “I put the toe of my boot in a socially significant place. I told him if he tried to move or do anything, he would walk very funny for the rest of his life and pee through a tube - and I meant every word."
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