Friday morning has arrived, a wet, windy and frustrating affair. The dogs are loth to go outside. The orphan bitches regard the (paw-drying) towels laid on the tiles just inside the doors as legitimate loo stops. If I leave the towels in place, they get pissed or poohed on. (There are two in the washing machine as I write.) If I remove them, the dogs tramp water and mud into the house - newly cleaned by Natasha. Hence the frustration.
PICKING ORANGES AT AN ABSENT NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE
What's more, I'm way behind with the blog. It's a truth universally acknowledged (doffing my cap to Jane Austen) that time speeds up as a deadline approaches, albeit a soft and forgiving blog deadline. Although there are no penalties for late publication - or even no publication - these bring a certain nagging sense of failure. What's more, I miss the satisfaction that rewards accomplishment, however modest.
We face few deadlines these days, and most of those we do are barely ill, apart from the occasional flight or medical appointment. The majority of our engagements are merely for a meal and no-one is fussed if neighbours should arrive late.
It was not always thus. I think we both still suffer a mild form (if that's allowed) of post traumatic stress disorder from the decades of coping with rigid broadcast deadlines. Twenty years after retirement, my inner self is still trying to come to terms with them. Nightly I struggle to gets bulletins ready on time; I can't find a spare desk or a working computer and nothing comes together.
MINI - NO LONGER ABLE TO SQUEEZE THROUGH THE GATES
One night, towards the end of a long and complicated dream, I encountered a man who was trying to stick something down a dog's throat. (I'd seen a film in which cattle were inoculated in just such a fashion!) Outraged at such cruelty, I snatched up a screwdriver and stabbed the villain in the ribs. A fierce fight then ensued. To my utter bewilderment I suddenly found myself (in real life) battling Mini, who had chosen that moment to leap on to the bed (and me). It's hard to know which of us was the more shocked.
As you may see, not a lot has happened this past week. I'm overlooking the carnival celebrations in Loule and Alte, major festivals both but not ones we care to attend any longer. We was hardly necessary for the music from distant Alte came blaring miles across the valley to our very doorstep. The parades take place on the Sunday and Tuesday, the latter a public holiday. A great many people take the Monday off as well. The senior university closes down for the long weekend, meaning that I had no English classes. For this I was grateful. My back was playing up and I was pleased to fit in an extra session with Jodi.
Our one serious outing was to the Algarve Shopping mall at Guia to purchase the items necessary for our intended TV audio improvements. Guided by (our electronics guru friend) Peter, we returned with a pair of speakers and a scart connecting box. Peter is awaiting the delivery of an amplifier that he has ordered from the UK before he returns to the house to connect the system up. He confessed that, although he has a quality audio system at home, he resorts to subtitles to follow the muttered dialogue in the latest BBC drama.
For shopping malls, we are able to choose between the Forum on the outskirts of Faro and Shopping at Guia. Both are about 30 minutes away although in opposite directions. However life is about to change with the imminent opening of the mega Ikea mall that has been rising just off the freeway linking Loule with Faro. While shoppers will be well served by the new development, many smaller traders are likely to close their doors.
As ever, it's the dogs, walks and countryside that occupy our lives. March brings with it a rich sprinkling of spring flowers, including two newly-spotted orchids, the Sawfly pictured below:
And a grouping of Early Purples that arises annually just below the gate in our lower field.
They give us enormous pleasure, along with the daffodils, asphodels, bluebells and cistus that splash the hillsides with colour in spring. As the days warm up and stretch themselves out, Barbara's garden too shakes off its green winter torpor and comes to vivid life.
I had reason to visit Portuguese neighbours one afternoon to fetch some bread. It is not easy or usual on such occasions just to knock on the door, secure one's object, say good afternoon and return home. A visitor is drawn into the kitchen - always the warmest room in the house - and engaged in conversation while a dusty unlabelled bottle is fetched down from a shelf. On this occasion it contained honey medronho, a most acceptable combination, all the better consumed with the biscuits that also appear.
To get away inside 20 minutes, which means declining repeated offers of a top-up, is good going. I had to. As I explained to my hosts, nine dogs were waiting impatiently for supper.
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