FRENCH LAVENDER
What Ronald regrets this week is that his publishing software froze as he was completing his blog in the early hours of Friday morning and wiped it in its entirety. No amount of effort, no extended googling of blog recovery methods sufficed to restore it. So here it comes again, rather more briefly and blandly.
When Prickles continued to limp for a third week in spite of having no visible injury, we took him to the vet. After carefully and gently feeling the dog's leg and hip the vet informed us that our pet had snapped his cruciate ligament. Although surgery was possible, he didn't recommend it for old dogs (nor did we or Pricks). He felt that Pricks would still manage perfectly well on three legs even if his horizons were limited.
One drawback is that like Ono, Prickles is no longer able to manage the stairs, which we now block off to deter them. Barbara takes the pair of them out on a short separate walk morning and evening while I head off with the rest of the pack.
Returning to our guests: Brian is pictured here holding what appears to be an ordinary tile in Armenio's little museum. What distinguishes the tile is its age - some 2,000 years. It is is one of a number of objects that a team of German archaeologists recovered from the ruins of a Roman farmhouse that lies buried on Armenio's land. The clue to their existence came from the recovery of several Roman coins in the area.
Since our last visit to the museum, Armenio has turned the upper floor of the building - his former carob store - into a gallery for his striking root sculptures, derived from the stumps of mastic trees. Armenio digs them up, cleans them up, sands them down and varnishes them. His visitors were much impressed and agreed that they would find ready buyers. But the sculptor's interest, as he insisted, is to exhibit them rather than to market them. Each is unique; nature's handiwork, he told us, which is perfectly true!
Our visit concluded with the signing of Armenio's visitors' book and a dram of his finest baggy. Our neighbour is proud of his exhibits and would love to attract more visitors to view them. We will do our best to assist him.
From the museum we went on to meet another former NBC colleague, Jim Maceda, pictured back left with his hand on his wife, Cindy's shoulder. Jim was a correspondent in London when Brian was a cameraman and they travelled much of the globe together on assignment. Like us, Jim and Cindy have made their home in Portugal although they have families and interests scattered around the world.
As I was strimming the edges of our field one evening, two neighbours strolled by and we engaged in conversation, as neighbours do. Was I aware, they wondered, whether a tiny, heavily overgrown triangle of property just up the road also belonged to us. I had no idea. They took me up the hill to show me. When the road was constructed, they explained, it had cut the triangle off from our field.
So the following day Jones and I set to work to clear the patch. Over the years the area had been colonised by a thorny, fiercely resistant bramble known here as "silva". It presented a semi-invincible chain-mail of thorns and was slowly killing the vine and almond tree that it had infested. Local people bring in diggers to rip the stuff out by the roots. Lacking a digger and not wishing to destroy the vine or the tree, we are doing it by hand. It's hard work.
We are not the only ones at work. Villagers have been clearing fields and trimming trees ahead of the deadline to meet the new wild-fire legislation. Branches overhanging the road have been ruthlessly culled and scrub cut, dragged into heaps and burned. One neighbour pointed out to me that we'd never had fires close to Espargal but he has nevertheless cleared his lands as carefully as the rest of us. There is no point in arguing with the authorities or facing a stiff fine.
Someone in distant Brunei has acquired a spam email list with my address on it. For the past week I have received numerous invitations from IP addresses there to invest in dubious products or to meet gorgeous girls. This is in addition to the frequent (Dear Beneficiary) invitations that I receive from Benin and numerous other inquiries from people (or bots) wanting to know whether I am Terry Benson, do I remember them or why I am sending them my personal photos. I am also being plagued with emails trying to interest me in making a fortune from crypto-currencies. If only!
One email - this one genuine - informed me that my UK Barclaycard would shortly be cancelled as new EU legislation outlawed the issuing of such cards to non-residents. As I've made little use of the card, except as a back-up on our travels, the cancellation will not impact on our lives.
We've been running around as well as working. The picture was taken at Quinta de Calma, a centre for meditation, yoga, organic products and alternative therapies. Most visitors hail from the British and German communities, at least to judge from the conversations around us at lunch. I've had three visits to Loule hospital (where I'm now qualified to conduct tours) to follow up on a spot of cardiac arrhythmia. It's merely precautionary and hasn't stopped me from walking or working.
For her part, Jones (here pictured again holding a basket that Armenio's wife had woven) is due to make a follow-up visit to an ophthalmologist this coming week. She has developed a condition known as macular pucker. With luck it will require only a new prescription for her spectacles.
Our guests, Nancy and Brian, have headed back home. They seemed to enjoy their stay and bonded brilliantly with the dogs, even to the extent of waking up one night to find that Russ, who usually sleeps on the mat (when guests are present) had joined them on the bed.
RUSS
Fortunately, Russ doesn't mind sharing. And he and Brian developed a special relationship!
SUNSET BY NANCY
That pretty much brings the week and my (repeated) blog efforts to an end!
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