Last Saturday was sunny, the first in several weeks, and we exploited the good weather to put in a decent day's work. Slavic and I were both grateful. He's missed several visits and the income that he earns from them. We got a great deal of clearing done, plus a lot of minor jobs.
Sunday dawned dull and damp. We decided that we might as well do Monday's shopping. The picture shows a group of people heading resolutely towards the church on the hill just beyond the town, in preparation for the ceremony of parading the statue of the Virgin. It's done with much pomp and circumstance and usually draws huge crowds.
However there were no early takers for the seats that had been erected in anticipation, presumably for the VIP contingent.
Monday's mail included a demand for a toll road payment of €2.56, much to my surprise, with accompanying warnings of the dire consequences for non-payment. The surprise arose because I have a contract (and transponder in the car) that permits me to use all toll roads, with the charges debited monthly to my account. A visit to the relevant office in Faro followed. There the mystery was solved.
The payment was apparently for a single journey that we made months ago on a day between the failure of my previous transponder and the issue of the new one. That it cost rather more than€2.56 to process the infraction clearly didn't deter the authorities. I should add that, as austerity gripped Portugal, a number of freeways were turned into toll roads. Gantries with cameras were erected overhead to monitor traffic. With no payment booths available at entry and exit points, the system requires road users to pay at various centres (or online) either before or after using the network.
On Tuesday we discovered that some unknown party had proceeded along one of "our" paths down the hillside and erected an impressive if somewhat precarious cairn. As a work of art it would have won prizes. A tractor ride into Benafim later in the day served to deliver our strimmer to Helio's workshop for an overdue service. The strimming season has arrived.
STRIMMED SECTION OF GARDEN
As it happened, I had been keeping an eye out for a second bigger model (we have a considerable acreage to strim) and came across one on promotion at the hardware store, which the staff kindly assembled for me. Slavic (who put in a couple of hours' work that evening) tried it out. It worked impressively for an hour before playing up.
Late afternoon two GNR officers - from the force that polices rural areas and smaller centres - arrived to take a look at our property with a view to our fire precautions (See last week's blog.) I had feared for the future of numerous trees surrounding the house (like those in the background) but the pair couldn't have been more impressed with the scene.
In fact, they declared that they might send other people to come and see how things should be done. The bottom line is that their visit saved us a great deal of work that I had been anticipating - and all the trees can stay. Big sigh of relief!
HARD DAY'S NIGHT
I also found time during the day to help a neighbour cut up and transport a load of firewood from a property that he was clearing (with fire precautions in mind). So I might have drifted off for a few minutes that evening while watching Simon Schama's documentary on the history of the Jews.
Before supper Jones called me on to the upper patio to witness the crescent moon close to Venus (the dot just visible upper-right of the orb). It was a lovely evening, a prelude to several sunny days before rain returns at the weekend.
It required several minutes of pillar support to hold the camera still enough for a clear shot of the moon. This one we quite liked. Jones is into the sky, stars and planets, as I might have remarked before. She follows an astronomy blog. Early each morning, while the rest of house sleeps, she gazes through the window to see what the night skies have to offer.
On Tuesday it became apparent that Monday's cairn had not survived the night. Whether its downfall was due to some agent or merely the forces of nature we will never know.
Wednesday afternoon I fetched my old (newly-serviced) strimmer from Helio (once I'd managed to distract him from the boxes of spares that he was rummaging through). With the agreement of the hardware shop, I left the new strimmer with him to investigate. Helio knows more about machines than the manufacturers themselves. Barbara prepared for guests arriving this evening while Natasha cleaned.
For the first time we left Ono behind when we went walking. In the nascent heat of summer the hike through the hills is proving just too much for him, even with my supporting hand behind him on the steeper rises. That's a "chewy" that he's keeping for later consumption.
Wednesday evening we went to the airport to meet Nancy and Brian, both newly-retired former NBC colleagues of Barbara. (Several photos of whom follow!)
They had a rousing introduction to the dogs and a comprehensive tour of the garden. The wild tulips are a delight.
Thursday our guests joined us on the morning circuit.
And we took a few pictures.
Brian is an ace photographer. I warned him that we are just snappers!
We've a lot of catching up to do these next few days!
And a few moments to record.
Thursday evening: The strimmer is back. It had a washer missing, Helio informed me. No charge. I left him a fiver anyhow to say thank you. Slavic is hard at work in the park this evening in lieu of Saturday, which looks very wet again.
Time to sign off on another week!
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