Letter from Espargal: 25 January 2019

BARBARA: DAWN OVER ESPARGAL
For the record, this is a standing up blog (as opposed to a sitting down blog). Such uprightness reflects the consideration I am showing to my back in the hope that it will return the compliment. The jury is still out. Meanwhile, back or no back, life goes on.



Last Friday we drove into Faro to collect our Portuguese language competency certificates from the university. A member of staff at the secretariat scrutinized our passports and exam numbers before handing over the certificates and requiring our signatures on her list. Now we await documents from South Africa, not expected for several months.



On Saturday it rained, not sufficiently to awaken the Algibre, but enough to muddy the rock-strewn veld churned up by the wild boar on the far side of the hill. The photo was taken later in the week after we'd removed obstructing rocks and retraced our path. Barbara says she quite likes these porcine ploughings. I don't.


SECRET GARDEN FROM THE SOUTH PATIO
Sunday we bought our planned pool (set for delivery next month) and endeavoured online over brunch to help friends retrieve a parcel from customs.  We failed. One can't help feeling that customs have no desire for the public to be united with their parcels. I shudder to think of what chaos Brexit may bring to our Amazon (UK) orders.



The early hours of Monday brought a super wolf blood moon, an eclipse much anticipated by my wife who rose from her bed to photograph it and who was greatly frustrated by the camera's unwillingness to focus. Her close-ups all looked somewhat hazy. Nevertheless, she got a couple of creditable shots.



On Monday, as I unlocked the front door, the postbox key came loose and fell to the hall floor just inside the cat flap.  There I left it temporarily on the basis that it wasn't likely to go anywhere until such time as I was in a more key picking-up frame of mind. (Jones occasionally has things to say about my tendency to leave for tomorrow things that don't have to be done today. )


FIRST BEE ORCHID
That night in my dreams I searched fruitlessly in a labyrinth of rooms for the key. First thing on Tuesday I picked the key up and reattached it to the ring. I've enough unsettling dreams without spending my nights hunting for keys.



Barbara continues to make daily visits to Maria, an elderly widow who is recovering from a broken shoulder. We arrived one day to find her television out of order. I did my best to coax it back into life, changing the batteries in the zappers and pressing all the more promising buttons - to no avail. Maria said she ask another neighbour to call the service provider.



On Tuesday, after a visit to Jodi, I spent some time trimming shrubs and deadheading the rose bushes.  I had to tread carefully on such traces of the path as  remain amidst the sprawling garden greenery.


FIND THE PATH
Nature goes bananas here in winter. Jones speaks vaguely about going back into the garden but the cold wind this week has done nothing to encourage the thought. On a visit to Maria she learned that another visitor had freed a wedged button on the TV zapper and managed to revive the set.


STANDING ORDERS
Like many internet users I have become accustomed to spam emails offering me vigorous sex encounters or a fortune (dear beneficiary) in return for a small fee. One I hadn't come across before arrived in my inbox demanding a substantial payment in bitcoins on pain of sharing my "more intimate pictures". It disclosed one of my early passwords as proof that my computer had been hacked. I declined. I'm not into bitcoins. (Kindly let me know if it turns out that I might have been wiser to pay.)


DAWN BREAKS
Wednesday we ran around doing a host of those things that have to be done but whose doing leaves little record. On reflection, we did a little shopping, gave a document to our lawyer, checked on medical insurance and some other mundane stuff. The only clear memory I have is of feeling that we had accomplished something but I can't remember what it was.


NO SHORTAGE OF LEMONS
Thursday brought a horrible wind. While the lemons don't seem to mind, it's hammering the almond blossom and casting a shadow over the next crop of nuts. Fortunately, the double glazing dulls the sound.


WESTERN HORIZON ON OUR AFTERNOON WALK
Thursday evening: We have enjoyed a leisurely afternoon walk. The dogs are now laid out in their baskets. Jonesy has gone off to visit Maria. It's time to make a fire and wrap up the week. What better way to conclude than with this lovely picture of the setting moon, taken at dawn after the eclipse.


SETTING MOON: BARBARA

Friday: Some days are made in heaven. Today is one such as must have greeted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Letter from Espargal: 18 January 2019

EARLY MORNING SMOKE DRIFTING HORIZONTALLY ACROSS THE VALLEY
I have only a few modest pictures to offer this week. My back has been playing silly buggers and I have avoided sitting at my desk for any longer than necessary.



We were up early last Saturday to get the dogs weed and watered before Slavic's
arrival at 8. He and I spent the morning pruning, trimming and cleaning up, a great deal of which needed to be done.



We were distressed to learn of the death from cancer of a favourite lady, the
mother of Manuel the restaurateur. Barbara prepared a pot of plants for the
family in her memory.



We were among the hundreds of people who attended her funeral, catching up on acquaintances as they waited outside the church for the coffin to emerge.



Then all followed the cortege on foot, as is customary, to the cemetery a mile away. It's a lovely way, I think, to say a last goodbye.


AEONIUMS & ALOES IN FLOWER
Back home, the garden is awash with winter greenery that overflows the steps and colonises the paths. Only the succulents are in flower - but what flowers!



On the far side of the hill, where we walk twice a day, the wild boar are engaging
in a frenzy of nocturnal rooting, turning over great patches of earth and obliterating our paths.


MID-WALK TREATS
So we just have to navigate by the sun. Not that the dogs need any paths; they know the hills like the back of their paws.


BOBBY & RUSS AT EASE
Once walked and fed, they settle down.  There's no better spot to catch up on your tan than the south patio divan.



Or the woodpile - if you can find the right spot.



Mini believes in up close and personal. She's a people dog.



One evening, Annchen and Lennart joined us for snacks and conversation.
Surprising what thirsty work it can be!



Here's a 270* extended dawn horizon - as I continue to experiment with photo
stitching. This one's got the legs although I need to do something about the height.


GOOD NIGHT
As I said, just a few pictures this week.

Letter from Espargal: 11 January 2019

TB SELFIE (IN RECLINER) - NEW PHONE IN ACTION
While we have had quite a busy week one way and another, we have not exactly set the world on fire. In fact all that's been set on fire is the kindling in the stove each afternoon, generally just after lunch, to raise the ambient temperature from the chilly lower teens to their comfortable upper cousins. That way Mini and I get to take a cozier siesta in the upstairs recliner.


MINI'S SIESTA
The busy bits of the week included my first English lesson of the year and an attempt to make a neighbour's laptop talk to her newly-acquired printer. In this I failed, mainly because the laptop refused stubbornly to install the necessary drivers. Then I tried to hitch up my old Sony Vaio laptop (which has languished several years in the cupboard) . Once again I failed, this time because I couldn't revive the laptop. After testing it, Inforomba informed me that the board was shot. At my request they extracted the hard disk (which I retained) and sent the computer for recycling.



It was a neat little machine of which I was rather fond, even though it had long since been abandoned for the ease of instant iPads. Another thing I've done is to trot along to Fatima for a haircut. The advantage of haircuts is that they dispense with the necessity to run a comb through one's remaining hair before going out. The disadvantage is that they reveal how little of that hair still remains. In fact, when I saw the picture (below) that Barbara snapped of me against the light, for a moment I didn't recognise myself.



The harsh facts of advancing baldness stare one brazenly in the face. The options are to live with it, to over-comb one's tonsure, to invest in a wig or to live in a hat . I'm still considering them but the real choice is either one or four. I asked Fatima whether she couldn't glue some of my hair back on to the bald bits but she said this wasn't a service she offered. (Try the Chinese shop, she suggested.)



This is not a problem that Barbara faces. Indeed, her hair remains both abundant and naturally blond(ish). She too has been quite a busy person. One of her tasks has been to pay cheer-up visits to Mrs Casanova, a widow in her 80s who lives on the village square. She had the misfortune a few days ago to fall and break her shoulder, an injury that has left her semi-incapacitated and very miserable. I should add that Barbara pays monthly visits to several elderly Portuguese neighbours.



We have a sunny week behind us and the prospect of another ahead. As glorious as the weather is, it's rain we need rather than idyllic sunny days, for the Algibre river course remains stony and dry. Which raises another thought. The rain that falls on the house runs down a gutter and through an underground pipe to the cisterna at the bottom of the garden (which is our back-up for the rare occasions when the mains supply fails).


SLIGHTLY EXTENDED CONCRETE BASE
I've been wondering whether (when next it rains) we might divert the flow to fill (partly, at least) the pool that we plan to install on the concrete base that we've been building. As things stand, we've been along to Leroy Merlin to order the pool and we now await the visit of a installer to get a quote. If it's pricey, I'll resort to the services of Slavic and Andre. I don't doubt that we'll manage. Last week Slavic and I slightly extended one edge of the concrete base in order to give ourselves just a little more room to play with.



Apart from these activities, I have been picking almond nuts from the few trees that produced a half-decent crop. The rain last year destroyed most of the blossom. Nonetheless, several trees - presumably those that blossomed earlier or later than most - have delivered the goods.



Such pickings have required either the spreading of nets below the trees to catch the nuts that one knocks down or athletic clambering on to the tractor box to access the productive upper branches of the smaller trees by hand.



A tub of nuts attests to our efforts. The shells' flimsy husks make good fire starters. The nuts themselves we share with the dogs, who roll the shells around in their teeth until they find a crunch point. The only downside is the sharp bits of shell that lie around the cobbles.



For her part, Barbara joined Leonilde in picking persimmons from a tree in the latter's garden. I am not partial to persimmons although Barbara assures me that once they have ripened and softened in the sun, they are delicious. She spoons the contents out.



Also busy have been neighbours, Sarah and David (trying to embarrass the rest of us by extending their tiled patio themselves). David was shovelling sand into the maw of a clanking concrete mixer when we dropped by to offer them a few persimmons. We gazed on as he wheeled the muck around to the yard where Sarah lays the tiles. Their industry reminded me that there's a path below Casa Nada that I've been intending to tile. (I use "I" in the broadest possible sense.)


THREE-LEGGED LEG-LIFT
An hour each day is devoted to reading through the extensive manual for my new phone. The section devoted to the camera alone has required lengthy study. In-between times I've been snapping away at whatever presents itself, mainly our animals and my wife (as you may have noticed), numerous pictures of whom you will have to forgive. So far I'm most impressed - with the camera's potential that is, not the photographer's skills.



There's a few other bits and bobs that we've achieved between times but I don't want to sound boastful or to depress less active souls. So we'll leave things there for the week.

Letter from Espargal: 4 January 2019

The blog starts well before sun-up on the last Saturday of 2018. In mid-winter, dawn lingers until 7.30. A series of motion-triggered solar lights illuminate our nocturnal passage from the house to the carport beyond the gate.



The early rise was to give the dogs 15 minutes for leg-lifters in the park and to get them fed before Slavic's arrival at 8.



Our task was to finish the base for the pool, a job we'd begun the previous week. Slavic fired up the cement mixer beside the heaps of sand and gravel beyond the fence; I tractored the wet stuff in.



And this is how the finished base looks. The spray-painted circle has a 5-metre diameter. It should be just sufficient to accommodate a circular 4.6-metre pool albeit with precious little room to spare. I'm still considering how to get an electrical feed across the cobbles to the pump.


AT A CAFE IN CASCAIS
Barbara, meanwhile, was enjoying her last day with Llewellyn and Lucia in the Cascais area west of Lisbon.



The couple have rented a spacious house, with pool, in the attractive adjacent suburb of Estoril while they look around for a permanent residence.


MAAT: OFFICIAL PICTURE
Barbara joined them on a visit to the MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology) on the banks of the Tagus in Lisbon. She was most impressed.



One exhibition, arranged on a suspended net, comprises hundreds of items of flotsam and jetsam assembled by a Japanese artist, Tadashi Kawamata, to draw attention to the pollution of the seas. I wonder how many polluters are likely to visit the exhibition.



Another visit was to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point on continental Europe. Next stop America - although you can take a mid-Atlantic breather in the Azores as many sailors do. The Azores airline also stops over in the islands en route from Lisbon to Boston.



Most outings were to the local beaches, always accompanied by Douglas and Roxy, who must think they have landed in doggy heaven. Upper left one can glimpse the sea pool at Cascais, similar to (but smaller than) the pool we love at Porto Moniz in Madeira - our holiday retreat these past several years.



Jonesy returned home on Saturday night. This time the train ran as scheduled. On the Sunday we joined friends for brunch on Faro Island. The wind was up, churning the usually tranquil estuary into green and white furrows. It wasn't a day for boating although the kite-surfers were out in force.


JONES: DOVES AT THE BIRD FEEDER
As Barbara had been unable to use the first half of her train ticket, I set about seeking compensation online as advised by the clerk at Loule station. Although the railway website sets out all the rules for claiming compensation in some detail, nowhere could I find the form to actually make a claim.


JONES: PIGEONS
Finally, close to midnight, I tried the railway chat-line. Either a wakeful person or a helpful computer advised me to fill in the claims form (that I'd been seeking all along) without telling me where to find it. The only resort was to examine every sub-menu and sub-sub-menu on the site. I eventually came across it under "Perturbations". Now we see.


TRY TAKING A PHOTO OF YOUR PHONE WITH YOUR PHONE
As you may have gathered, I have invested in a new phone, having waited for the Boxing Day sales to make the purchase. (Portuguese advertisers actually call them Boxing Day promotions, ignorant of the name's origins but happy to exploit its marketing lure.)


JONES: WINTER NARCISSUS
"I thought you'd just bought a phone," said Barbara when she learned of the "investment". (Usually she asks what was wrong with the old one.) "That was at least two years ago," I replied, hurrying on to enthuse about the new model's mind-boggling bells and whistles. No joke; I'm slowly making my way through the manual.



The moon continues to hold a special fascination for my wife.



Which brings us to 2019. New Year's arrival at Valapena was pleasantly peaceful, that's apart from the ritual dispatch of sundry villains by James Bond - not that villains appear to be in short supply.  Barbara then withdrew from the fray, sleeping soundly through the chimes and a few celebratory bangs an hour later. I stayed up long enough to admire the TV fireworks displays before squeezing (beside the misnamed Mini) into bed.


A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME....