WEDNESDAY'S SKY - FROM OUR PATIO
This has been a week of extremes. It started intensely hot and it ended quite chilly, especially in the wind that's ruffled the trees these past few days. The heat and the wind together have caused huge problems for the firefighters - some 1,400 at last count - who are still battling the wildfire that sprang up in the Monchique area last Friday. Since then it has spread alarmingly north and east. Wednesday's sky prompted us to consider how we might evacuate the property if threatened. In the meanwhile we have raked the dry grass cuttings well away from the garden.
As the exhausted firefighters battled on, the expat association put out an urgent appeal for supplies to sustain them. With the support of several neighbours, Jones and I raided supermarkets and pharmacies for the essentials and ran a carload out to the bombeiros in Sao Bras. (Bombeiros, literally, the pumpers.)
There, to our subsequent disappointment, we became so involved in the unloading of the supplies that we failed to take any pictures of the half dozen grateful bombeiros assisting us. The best we could do was to circle back to get a photo of the station itself. As I write on Thursday night, the fire seems to be largely under control after destroying some 30,000 hectares of trees and scores of houses.
There's been much coverage of the controversy around residents who refused police instructions to evacuate their houses, insisting on remaining to defend them. Some were removed by force. From what we understand of the legal advice given on TV, the police have the right to remove residents when they consider the circumstances warrant evacuation.
Much of the area where the fire has raged is inaccessible except to water-bombing aircraft. Although the operation now seems to be essentially damping down, we continue to monitor the Portuguese news stations, which are providing 24 hour coverage.
While returning from Sao Bras we stopped to take a photo of this monument - a tribute to the first Portuguese airmen to fly across the Atlantic. Clearly no Business Class in those days. Jones took a moment to inspect the building in the background, which turned out to be the municipal swimming pool.
CAR TEMPERATURE GAUGE, MID PIC, SHOWING 41*
Last weekend, as I indicated, was a stinker. The car's temperature gauge speaks for itself. It's the first time I've seen it register figures in the 40s. (The Ronald eRupts, by the way. refers to the seasonal and infernally itchy heat bumps now orbiting my nether regions.)
Last Saturday Jones suggested - and I agreed - that it might be a good day to clean out my workshop rather than work under the sun. Slavic and I hauled the dusty contents on to the drive, snipped the creeper that had crept inside the building, brushed the cobwebs from the windows, swept the leaves from the floor and embarked on a great sorting out.
Slavic was pleased to take receipt of a number of tools, mainly items that had been passed on to us by down-sizing friends. The junk went on to the back of the tractor, to be distributed in due course between the recycling bins and garbage. At lunchtime we called it a day, raising cold beers on the patio to a job well done.
Mid-afternoon the sky turned ominously grey and oppressive. It felt as though we were living in a giant stew pot. Even so, the squall that hit us came completely out of the blue or, rather, out of the grey.
In seconds, a gale-driven rain-storm scattered the patio chairs, tubs and buckets around the cobbles like paper cups. The spray came in horizontally, soaking the patio and its contents. Huge drops spattered off the cobbles like so many water bomblets.
Jones got soaked in an instant rescuing the chairs.
As did I (if not quite as attractively), lining up tubs underneath the spouts that were gushing great streams of water down from the upper patio. The squall eased off after a few minutes, to be followed by another half an hour later. At least by then we had rescued the furniture and dried ourselves off. Afterwards I measured a welcome (and extremely unusual for August) 9 mm of rain.
MELLO TAKING A BATH
Sunday things started to cool off a little as the intense cell of hot Sahara air that had gripped Iberia for days gradually dispersed. Relief couldn't come soon enough to the Portuguese and Spanish interiors where many people were trapped in their houses by temperatures that climbed into the upper 40s. Not even Arabia was that hot.
Sunday evening we attended the Benafim festa. It's an annual two-day fund-raiser for the community centre and adjoining retirement home, an event we always enjoy in the company of neighbours. As I have often remarked, alcohol flows freely for those who want it but there are no inebriates in evidence. It's a family-oriented gathering and we like it that way.
Chloe bravely took the floor with Dina (an intelligent village "mute" now living in the retirement home). Towards the end of the evening we more or less bought out the remaining tickets for tombola stall (which had several attractive items on display) and spent half an hour claiming and sorting our prizes. What we didn't fancy went back to the stall for next year's draw.
It's hard to know what's happened to the rest of the week. I have spent a good deal of time staying cool (i.e. in my siesta recliner in the air-conditioned study).
Jones has gardened, ironed, cleaned and cooked, stewing more of our plums, destalking donated raisins and retrieving last year's frozen figs from the fridge. We have both begun revising the Portuguese language papers of past years with a view to taking the exam in October.
On several occasions we have had to rescue beautiful humming bird hawk-moths that abound at present and are forever finding their way into the house. This photo shows one that we trapped in light netting in order to remove it from the electrical socket in which it sought refuge. The picture does it no credit. Hawk moths are spectacular creatures that hover fleetingly just like their namesakes on the fringes of flowers.
CHLOE MASSEY'S FIERY SKY FROM THE MASSEY PATIO
And so the sun rises and sets on another week!
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