Letter from Espargal: 29 April 2017

Thursday p.m. Blog-time: I have awoken from a deep siesta during the course of which I had to rescue my car from a tunnel, after which a man in a green uniform said something inaudible about the police calling. Twice I asked him to speak up and then I woke up. Before I could get up, I had to shift a (not so) Mini from my lap, where she was sleeping soundly.



It's drizzling steadily, a welcome and necessary refreshing of the earth before summer's grilling. The rails and pergola-beams glimmer in the patina on the patio. Beyond them, like some broad-brush water colour, the cool hills recede in ever fainter grey smudges. The dogs are snuggled down in the lounge, where they'll welcome a small fire this evening.



Looking back on the week - a run-around week in which we have hardly dined at home:



Saturday: As usual, Barbara diverts Pally with a juicy bone while I sneak off to the upper gate with the rest of the pack. As much as Pally appreciates his bones, he would rather come walking with us. His desolate howls pursue us across the hills.



On Saturday Slavic comes. He strimmed and I cleared the upper section of our field while Barbara joined Llewellyn and Lucia at a cheese and wine festival in Faro. Our visitors have stuck nobly to the non-alcoholic lifestyle they adopted some time ago, confining themselves to alcohol-free beers and wines. I admire their resolution.

AT THE FARO CHEESE AND WINE FESTIVAL

When Slavic and I sat down to a beer afterwards, he produced his smart-phone which, he said, had been playing up since he had opened a message the previous day. I took a look. Pressing any key prompted an irritating female American voice to run through a series of numbers like someone reporting on the stock exchange. The device had evidently been infected by a virus.

BEACH SWEPT AWAY AFTER LAST WEEK'S STORMS

In vain I attempted to access the settings in order to perform a factory reset. All I got in return for my efforts was more vocals from the American. As it happened, I had a spare Nokia-style phone into which we transferred Slavic's sim-card. At least it would enable him to make calls and send messages.



Llewellyn, on his return from Faro, said that it should be possible to perform a factory reset by simultaneously pressing the ON, HOME and VOLUME UP keys. This information I conveyed to Slavic.

A HEDGEHOG RESCUED FROM THE DOGS' UNWELCOME ATTENTIONS

Sunday: After brunch at the Hamburgo we carried on to meet Ken at May's house, which is due to be sold at the end of the week. Ken was packing up items to be transported back to Scotland. There was a great deal that remained. We loaded the boot of our car with boxes of glasses, books, cassettes, movies and other knick-knacks for which he had no use and we hoped to find one. Then we enjoyed a light lunch up the road at a snack bar where we had often dined with May.

EDGAR & HAZEL

That afternoon Llewellyn and Lucia learned from their dog-sitters in the UK that their beloved 13-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback, Edgar, had fallen seriously ill. Llewellyn called his neighbour, a vet who knew the dog, to discuss the symptoms. His advice was to put the dog down rather than to attempt major surgery. It was a sad and sombre evening.



Monday: I tried, with little success, to interest my English class in the finer points of the French and UK elections. It was a mistake. I resolved to stick to less demanding issues in future. Slavic brought his phone along for Llewellyn's attention. For several minutes Llewellyn tried pressing the magic buttons, without success. Then he gave a delighted whoop and returned the device to Slavic - job done!  I might add only that I employ Kaspersky's anti-virus for Android on my own phone.



That evening we supped at the Angolana in Loule. Llewellyn snapped the impressive Mae Soberana (annual Easter procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary) street lights that hang in the processional avenue. Loule was once well known for its extensive Christmas decorations - before the age of austerity put an end to them.

ARCHIVE: ROBBIE & CAROL

Barbara's sister in law, Carol, after getting the necessary visas, flew from South Africa to join her husband, Robbie, in caring for their son, Bevan in New York. Bevan was released from hospital this week after falling gravely ill with listeriosis. He will require continued monitoring and intensive medical care for some time to come.

L&L ON A FAVOURITE BEACH WALK

Tuesday: L&L left early to fly back home. We drove across to May's house both to support Ken in his packing and to take him to lunch. Loule was quiet. It was a public holiday. April 25 is the day on which the Portuguese celebrate the 1974 Carnation Revolution that toppled the regime and led to a democratic system of government.



Wednesday: I had intended to clear up cuttings from a host of pruned trees and bushes. But a more urgent task proved to be the shelling of a tub of beans that I had picked a few days earlier. Jones joined me around the dining table. It took the pair of us the whole morning.



We should have picked them a fortnight earlier and shelled them promptly. Many were already shrivelling and starting to turn black. Nonetheless, most of the beans took just a little washing to recover and we were able to freeze a couple of kilos for future consumption. We love our beans. In the evening we joined the gang at the Hamburgo. We returned to find the cobbles covered with bits of sponge from yet another demolished cushion.



Thursday: Before going for my weekly back tune-up with Jodi, I dropped into the community centre to hand several boxes of glasses and other useful items. May's many cookbooks are proving harder to dispose of usefully. I fear that most of them are likely to land in the paper bin. We joined Ken for lunch. He wasn't best pleased with his news. The buyers had just advised him that they needed to postpone the purchase to resolve complications on their side. Meanwhile, we enjoyed a good lunch.



Llewellyn informed us of the death in Cape Town of Elaine, his mother and Barbara's step-mother. She had recently moved to a care home where she had suffered a second stroke earlier this week.

Letter from Espargal: 21 April 2017

WE ARE NOT ALL EARLY RISERS

Thursday morning: Time to gather my thoughts for the blog. It's not a nice day. An unruly, unrelenting wind is lashing the trees and doing its utmost to destroy Barbara's garden. It's been blowing for two days with no end in sight. We braved the gale - tugging at our jackets and snatching at our hats - to take the dogs walking. They didn't seem to mind.


L&L - BEFORE THE WIND BLEW UP

Our guests, Llewellyn and Lucia have taken themselves to town for refreshments. They feel instantly at home here in the Algarve, where they have long since learned enough Portuguese to get by. One morning they joined us on a trek through the hills.

IN THE ALGIBRE, JUST DOWN THE ROAD

They had one day at the beach and a second touring the vast new developments that smear the coastal strip. Much of the construction has come to an abrupt halt, leaving a sea of forlorn concrete structures awaiting a decision on their fate. This is not a part of the Algarve that we choose to visit. Here in the hills, sanity still prevails.

VALIANT POPPY

Looking back on the week!



Saturday: Andre, Slavic and I laboured in our field - Andre strimming and Slavic assisting me with clearing and pruning. The field looks good for our efforts. The almond trees are weighed down with nuts and the grafted fruit trees are also promising us a decent crop although I need to treat them for leaf-curl.



Before leaving, the lads carried down three sections of a large, heavy broken ceramic pot that Jones had acquired from neighbours. I glued the pieces together as best I could, which wasn't very good at all. But, apart from a missing chip on the rim, the pot will pass cursory inspection.

LUCIA SUNSET

Saturday evening we sat down to watch La La Land, one of several movies that I had ordered from Amazon. (There was a time when we went to the cinema but that was before our fellow patrons began exploiting dull moments to consult their smart-phones!) Some 15 minutes into the movie Jones questioned whether we were watching the Oscar-grabbing musical.



Indeed, we were not; it turned out to be some TV-based production, sharing the title, in which an English actor plays multiple parts. Jones then inquired (somewhat condescendingly) whether I had not checked the actors before placing the order . You can probably work out the answer for yourself.



Sunday: We confined our afternoon walk to the park so that Pally could join us. He is both remarkably nimble and swift, showing no effects of the major surgery he underwent last Tuesday. It's a joy to watch him rolling in the grass. There's nothing wrong with his appetite either; he consumes with gusto the numerous spoonfuls of pate in which I bury his pills. The dog is due back to the vet at the end of the week to have his stitches out.



Both Russ and Mini have developed signs of the ear infection for which we have been treating Bobby. We clean their ears with cotton-wool buds dipped in disinfectant, followed by a squirt of muti from the vet. This is a process that they resist vigorously (although Mini submits if we simultaneously feed her a distracting succession of cat nibbles).

FLYING ANTS - STRANGE, THEY NORMALLY ARRIVE AFTER THE RAIN

PM: I sprayed our fruit trees with a (highly diluted) herbicide that Adrien gave me last week. He swore by it. I hope he swore truly. Jones immersed herself in small welcoming preparations for the arrival of Llewellyn and Lucia on the morrow.



Monday: We met our arriving guests at a snack-bar on Faro beach for a light lunch. The weather gods smiled on us. Across the estuary a procession of aircraft proclaimed the tourist season to be underway. Our waiter, discerning us to be foreigners, insisted on speaking to us in English. He declined to hand us the bill until we had let him know how happy we were with the meal. I informed him that the bill would determine our level of happiness.



Tuesday: L&L took themselves off to the beach. After our walk I drove down to the village square to meet Marc, a window cleaner recommended to us by a neighbour. Cleaning windows and shutters was a task that Natasha used to perform in her spare hours; regrettably (for us) she no longer has any.



After running the noisy gauntlet of the dogs, Marc sized up the house and reckoned on a three-hour job. He was a pro, with all the necessary gear including a standby tank of water in his van. He finished just before lunch, disappearing down the road as Natasha was arriving. He warned us that he was in high demand over summer and needed several weeks' notice of any future jobs.

PYRAMID ORCHIDS, NEWLY DISCOVERED IN THE PARK

While out on the front patio of the house with my iPad, catching up on UK election news, I tripped over an object that I had neglected to put away, falling flat on my face. Fortunately I am well padded. Even so, I ache. I admitted the fall to Jones but not the cause; most damage was to my dignity - hoist with my own petard!



Wednesday: We joined the Davies family for lunch in Alte. As we emerged a butterfly settled on Jane's neck. I took this to be a very good sign. The world could do with more butterflies and fewer mosquitoes, especially of the sort that land on us. We crowded around Jane, taking pictures for the record.



I was grateful for the session with Jodi that followed. I'm still tender. However my sufferings barely register on the misery scale. Poor Olly, seen here at the gate with Marie, has damaged two ribs after coming off a ladder, an injury that has left him in greater discomfort than he admits. Their little dog, Poppy, (peering in, bottom right) is set to join us for a few days while they're away.



Friday evening: We took ourselves to Loule's famous chicken restaurant, the Jolibela. Here we are, snapped on Llewellyn's smart phone with the assistance of a clever remote device.

Letter from Espargal: 15 April 2017

Sunday: Barbara has just woken me with toast and coffee. I was immersed in a deep and frustrating dream that had me chasing anxiously around some foreign city in a futile search for a lost wife and briefcase.

SPRING COLOURS

Such anxiety dreams often spoil my nights, either landing me in the newsroom without a computer or at the airport minus my passport. My subconscious is troubled by something but it's not saying what.

FLOWERS FOR POOR PALLY

Monday: Pally had to go back to the vet to have his bandage removed. We gave him a tranquiliser pill before taking the others on a short walk. On our return we found him laid out in his basket, which we heaved into the car, with a towel covering him.

FEEDING BARRI

The vet's expression, as he examined him, made it plain that the operation two weeks earlier had not served the purpose. The bone had not knitted and the leg still dangled uselessly. After some discussion, we accepted reluctantly that amputation was the best option.



Next stop was Lidl for our weekly shop. To avoid using the shop's plastic bags (which folk now have to pay for, by law) we always take red canvas shopping bags that Cathy obtained for us in Germany. At some point a little foreign fellow came along and asked Jones about a shopping cart. It wasn't clear exactly what he was saying but we indicated that he could get a trolley from the rack outside the shop.



When we came to pay, we became aware that our shopping bags were missing from the cart. And so, it became apparent, were a number of other items. A brief search revealed them all in a second cart standing in the aisle. Little wonder the foreign fellow had accosted us. It was the first time we'd hijacked someone else's cart (and the last). I was amused. Jones was not.

SUN-DOWNERS ON OUR FRONT PATIO

(Her head was still full of Pally.) She might see the funny side later, she remarked. We reflected on the ironies of life over sandwiches and glasses of cold white wine at the snack-bar in Funchais.



Cyberspace and the airwaves are full of the hazards of flying with United Airlines following the unfortunate Dr Dao's experience. I note that the world's top-rated (5-star) airlines are all either Asian or Middle Eastern. With one exception US carriers are rated 3-star. Little wonder! One wonders whether humble pie comes free.



Tuesday: On Tuesday, after our walk, I phoned Mary in Benafim to ask when she might be able to cut my toe-nails. She said I should come immediately. So I did. There wasn't time to change my work trousers, which have a disintegrating patch on one knee and heavy stitching on the other, reflecting the burden of the years. (I have ordered two new pairs from Amazon.) Folks in Benafim don't get too bothered about such things. It's one of the reasons that I like the place.

DILL

Wednesday: Adrien came to strim under our many carob, almond and fruit trees. He is the son of the hairdresser whose services we have used pretty much since our arrival in Portugal in the 1980s. I remembered him and his sister as kids who used to pop in to their mother's salon in Loule. Now he's a husband and a dad. His sister works for one of the Gulf airlines.



Talking of this ageing business, we found ourselves in conversation with neighbours across our gate, as is often the case. In the course of this exchange, one of them commented, with regard to a sibling: "He's only 75!". We paused to think about the implications of such a statement. It's fortunate that "age" seems to recede along with the horizon.



After my Wednesday tune-up with Jodi, we lunched with a birthday-celebrating neighbours at a new tapas bar in Alte. It's well situated for a view of the passing show, with chairs inside and benches out but for the second time their white wine was barely cold. Barbara said it was ok. I said please bring me a beer.



Then we went to Loule to fetch Pally. We had to wait an age while the vet attended to another client. He gave us an armful of pills for Pally, along with instructions on administering them. We have to return in 10 days to have Pally's stitches removed. The dog himself is remarkably lively. It's proved quite impossible to enclose him on the patio, as advised. So we are reconciled to letting him canter around the garden. What will be, will be.



Thursday: We dropped Leonilde at the physio in Benafim. The rooms are situated in a tiny lane (impassable to vehicles) called Labyrinth Road. It's situated in the heart of old Benafim, among tiny white houses whose doors open straight on to the cobbles as they have for centuries. I thought I knew little Benafim but I'd never come across it before.

THISTLE

After coffee at the Hamburgo, we returned through the fields in the valley, marvelling at the glorious poppies that liven the verges. Adrien is busy strimming. My fields are looking good. The house is still relatively ordered after Natasha's efforts yesterday. Llewellyn and Lucia will be joining us next week.