Letter from Espargal: 10 February 2017

THE VILLAGE - from our hill - AND DISTANT ROCHA DE PENA

The highlight of the week was undoubtedly the gathering of Espargalian eminences at Alte museum for the opening of Armenio Palmeira's exhibition of tree-root sculptures.


THE PALMEIRAS, WITH SCULPTURES IN BACKGROUND

Let me take those elements one at a time. Armenio is a villager of whom we are very fond; a man of our age; father of our immediate neighbour, Idalecio; grafter of our almond trees with a variety of fruits; advisor on local matters and proud creator of his own mini-museum.



On rainy days and in his spare time, Armenio collects the roots of mastic trees that are often torn up by diggers clearing the land. These he cleans up, sands down and varnishes to produce a fantastical array of natural sculptures. The exhibition is entitled Nature's Caprices (or Whims) and that just about sums it up.



The one unfortunate aspect to the occasion was my failure to note carefully the details of where it was being staged, as a result of which I directed our expat neighbours to Loule Museum (which featured prominently on the notice) rather than Alte (which falls under Loule). Although I spotted the mistake in time to issue a warning, not everybody received it. Go to the bottom of the class!



One day, with time to spare, we took the dirt road through the citrus orchard en route to Benafim. For some weeks we'd heard a digger at work in the area and were curious to see the results. These were impressive. Scores of saplings, housed in protective sheaths, had been planted in two large fields on either side of the road.



Even more impressive were the walls that had been created around the plantations from boulders cleared from the land. We've often seen diggers placing rocks to build a boundary wall but never with boulders this size. Some were even taller than I am. It must have been a brute of a digger.

We took Barri into the vet again this week to have her hips x-rayed. The vet pointed out on the plates how "disjointed" the top of the right femur had become. The left side was also problematic. He discounted surgery, saying that in her situation the only remedy was continued medication - a combination of pain-killers and supplements. The dog still enjoys her walks but otherwise spends her day sprawled on the divan or a chair. She struggles to get up and shows little interest in food, other than treats. Not good!



We have watched Disk 1 of a two disk documentary by Werner Herzog about the rise of the internet. Entitled Lo and Behold, it's a series of interviews with the net's founders, developers and visionaries - both fascinating and scary. One of the interviewees was relating how on the very first occasion that scientists tried to link two computers over a distance, the message began: Log in. The first two letters went through before the system crashed. Hence, Lo and Behold.



After months of intermittent audio drop-out on our Portuguese satellite TV channels, I finally plucked up courage to phone the suppliers. The hassle is picking one's way through a lengthy series of options (in Portuguese) before finally trying to communicate intelligently with an operator about the nature of the problem. I struck lucky with a patient woman who led me systematically through a software upgrade (it didn't help) before concluding that the problem lay with the HDMI cable.


EIGHT OF US AT PEACE

She said she would send me a new one, that duly arrived. The hard work was crouching down to remove the old cable from confined cupboard spaces that it shared with piles of crockery, and then replacing it - a task I couldn't have carried out without the assistance of Olly. No more drop-out. How nice!



From my brother in South Africa comes this interesting image of a stamp issued by the local police. I shall let it speak for itself as its eloquence far exceeds mine.



And here is a rare picture of the man himself, consuming biltong under the eager eyes of his hopeful fans. Charlie, who squats on his tummy, belongs to his assistant, Julene and likes to run the office - Charlie, that is!


On the home front, twice this week little Sparky has appeared carrying a rabbit nearly as big (if not as fat) as herself. On each occasion she has somewhat reluctantly traded her prize for a generous portion of "chewy", her favourite treat. The first rabbit I dumped into a large barrel in which Barbara is growing succulents, only for Sparky to retrieve it.



The other I placed high in the fork of a tree.  As nimble as the little dog is, it proved beyond even her powers to get it down. She knows that the rabbit is concealed in a tree somewhere but has forgotten which one, so she checks likely trees out as we go walking.


JONES MOON