Dawn rises over Espargal. (I'm thinking!)
This is an impressive avenue of cork oaks down in the valley where we often stop the car to take a stroll. We call it the cork walk. It's a restful place where, for a few minutes, one can let the world go by.
While I'm thinking you can see me here with Prickles. Prickles likes to come out in the car. He generally starts barking for a ride mid-morning. His erstwhile travelling companion, Ono, now spends much of his time asleep on the couch.
Although Ono still staggers around the hill with us most days, he increasingly feels the burden of his 17 years, not to mention the effects of a second tumble down the stairs. For some weeks we have been escorting him up and down. But he slipped out of the bedroom in the dark early one morning and lost his footing catastrophically.
So he didn't join us on a visit to Faro Beach. We left the car among the motor-homes in the extensive parking grounds that have been created between the airport and the estuary. A fine timber walkway now provides a secure pedestrian route to the beach, away from the traffic.
It's a good ten minute stroll across the mudflats, here covered by the tide. Walkers share the access with cyclists, mainly north European "retirees" commuting between their motor-homes and the beach.
The estuary is a haven for seabirds. The gulls are happy to pose for the occasional photographer as they gather their own thoughts. Apart from the channel, the water is shallow at full tide - around knee deep. At low tide, cockle pickers scour the flats for shell fish.
Back at the ranch, between the dew and the drizzle, we have skidded, slithered and slid about the hills on our walks, not that the dogs are bothered. While I make my cautious way, Jones, who is swifter and more sure-footed than I, makes diversions to collect carobs from long-abandoned trees.
Clumps of narcissus line our route. We sometimes stop at the midway viewpoint for treats. In her eagerness, Barri chomped my thumb as well as her chewie and Mini later demolished what remained of it.
The seemingly insignificant visible wound gives a very poor indication of the intensity of suffering entailed. I confess to having been somewhat put out, the more so as there was no evidence of canine contrition. There was a time when our sufferings served to set free souls interned in purgatory but I think this unfortunate state has now been consigned to the theological dustbin, along with its archaic sister, limbo. So now we have to suffer for nothing. It does seem like a waste.
Our nights still dip down into shivery single figures. Places by the fire sell out quickly. One morning we organised a postbox for new neighbours. This involved several conversations, two post offices, a hardware store and a name tag supplier. Vitor the mechanic, whose workshop is close by, was kind enough to install it for us.
The posts themselves are installed by the parish and come with bolt-holes pre-drilled. The obvious spot for the new box was bottom right (below 324Z) but the protruding heads of the adjacent bolts blocked access. So the box has gone in bottom-centre instead - for the moment at least. The parish office suggests that we ask the owners of 322Z to let us share their bolts.
As you may have gathered, not much of historical note has taken place in Espargal this week, at least, not that we're aware of. Time to let the sun set on another blog.
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