Letter from Espargal: 16 of 2007

I have risen early to write to you, leaving Fatty Fatcat to occupy the bed alone. Beside me in the study, Jones has left her desk and has started ironing. The dogs are curled up in their baskets. They are not natural early risers. From the TV set in the corner comes the murmur of the BBC World Service radio news.

WITH EDDIE AND LESLEY - READ ON

As usual, I had woken at five, when Jones’s alarm clock goes off, and listened briefly to the news, before plunging back into a dream-ridden sleep. I found myself once again preparing news bulletins for the BBC – a common and troublesome theme. The chair at my office desk was too low to be comfortable and I was making a hash of a report that detailed reasons why some event had not occurred. (News reports emanating from the speaker beside my ear tend to work their way into my dreams.)

In my frustration I eventually tore up my page but before I began the next one it occurred to me that I might be dreaming. To test this theory I woke up. I was pleased both to find that I was right and not to have to prepare any more bulletins in my sleep. Writing letters at my real desk is far less taxing. It would be a relief to be able to throw off my subconscious past once and for all.

The sun has just climbed above the rim of the eastern horizon and beamed itself into the study. It’s going on for 7. a.m. This time next week we shall be packing for our travels. We fly to Berlin for a few days with Cathy; then to the UK, where Jones will stay while I continue on to Calgary.

In the rundown to our departure we have been trying to complete a list of tasks. Jones wondered aloud why we now have to make so many preparations for a trip when once she would just pack a bag, close the door and go. It’s because once did she didn’t run a household, I told her, one that frequently extends to caring for her neighbours’ animals as well.

At present she goes next door each day to give some tinned cat food to a delighted Wendy, who is nursing 6 small kittens. Jones has already taken down a large cardboard box to supply Wendy and litter with a more suitable home than the small one in which they were accommodated.

We had a stark reminder of the culture gap concerning animals when we passed the cottage of the odd couple, Dina and Chico. Dina was outside and evidently unhappy about something. So were a visiting young woman and a small boy with her. Of old Chico there was no sign. I gleaned from the woman that they were upset because Chico wanted to get rid of a litter of kittens.

CHICO AND DINA
We hesitated before going on our way. I tried to convince Jones that it was sometimes better not to get involved. As we made away across an adjacent field we could hear yells and shrieks coming from the cottage. Dina hates it whenever Chico destroys an animal, whether for food or because the creature is surplus to requirements. That’s the way he’s lived for his 80 plus years, however, and he’s not likely to change in those remaining to him.

The other face of Portugal was reflected in a phone call I made to the Finanças helpline after failing to log in to the website. It is now possible – indeed encouraged – to make one’s tax return online and to review one’s tax position (income tax, local tax, car tax, VAT) at any time. The woman who (eventually) answered my call, spoke fluent English, having spent – she confessed – several years in the UK. She patiently guided me through a number of puzzling areas before putting me through to a colleague to resolve my log-in problem. The colleague informed me that this was due to my (inadvertently) requesting a new password during my last visit to the site. With luck it’s already in the post.

Returning to my theme, we are making progress with the preparations for our departure. Yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to the Portuguese AA in Faro to acquire an international driving licence. Afterwards, we lunched on the patio of a favourite restaurant at Faro beach, dogs curled up under the table. The strong breeze that discouraged sunbathers was a boon to the kite-surfers who skimmed across the water in front of us.

In my English class we have been talking about food. One of the class presented me with a jar of her home-made marmalade. The name for this product derives from “marmelo”, the Portuguese word for quince, and from the culinary adventures of the English armies during the Peninsula Wars. If in Portugal you ask for marmalade (pronounced mar-ma-laa-da), however, you get quince jelly. It’s one of the little ironies of the language, like “puxe” (pronounced push) meaning “pull” and constipation meaning a stuffy nose.

Back at the ranch, we have picked about half of our beans. These are now fat and swollen after the rains. We plan to pick the rest before we go lest we return to find the remaining pods black and hard as we did last year. There’s a large bucket of beans waiting to be shelled. Jones has cleared space for them in the freezer.

It took me the better part of a day on the tractor to clean up our big field. The little fields still await attention. The rain intervened. I then had to remove the scarifier in order to tow the trailer down the steep track past our side gate to the road below the house, where I hitched it to the car. This was with a view to helping Dani and Natasha move apartment. We chose April 25, the holiday when Portugal celebrates the anniversary of its carnation revolution.

Dani and I managed the move in a single trip, with the trailer groaning under a load of boxes and the Honda filled with the overflow. Happily, there was very little traffic in Loulé and I was able to find parking right outside the “new” apartment. I passed the lighter items directly through the ground floor bedroom window to Dani inside.

Dani was probably grateful for my help and I think he would have thanked me if he had not been suffering such cold turkey from his lack of cigarettes. He explained breathlessly as he took the last box from me that Natasha was refusing to lend him any money for tobacco. Could he please borrow 20 euros? For the first time, I turned him down. He’s long since far exceeded his borrowing facility and I fear that his partner’s hard line is justified.

I am in danger of overlooking the highlight of our week, the capture of a swarm of bees. We heard about the bees when we met our friends, Eddie and Lesley, for lunch in Messines last weekend. Eddie said his hive had swarmed just as the couple was leaving home. That’s to say (if I have it right) that the number of bees had grown too large for the hive. A new queen had been born and her older rival had led half the bees out of the hive into a tree above it in search of a new home.

When we returned to their house in the hills north of the town, we found the swarm still clinging to a branch. Eddie summoned his bee-keeping mentor, a local builder, who arrived soon afterwards. The pair of them donned their protective suits and, armed with an empty hive, approached the scene.


While the builder held the hive in position, he whacked the branch and most of the bees fell into the hive. The remainder were enticed into a cylindrical cork trap, lined with wax, and then persuaded (with great shakes of the trap) to enter the new hive. It all made for fascinating viewing. One would not easily believe that Eddie used to be very nervous of the big bumble bees that whizzed harmlessly around the Quinta.

Letter from Espargal: 15 of 2007

It’s Friday, late morning, as I write. The dogs are in their baskets. We are returned from a walk down the cork tree avenue in the valley and back through the orange groves. It was pleasantly uneventful. In spite of their raised hopes and best efforts, the dogs failed to rouse any rabbits. Some other dogs barked at them and they barked spiritedly back.

I shall not try to mislead you. Our news is modest. But, still, we shall share it with you if only in the hope that you will return the compliment. To those correspondents whose letters we have already enjoyed, our thanks.

We are waiting for some promised rain. As we scan the skies around us, we fear that the weather may renege on its promises. In spite of the depression that the satellite picture shows passing over us, such clouds as we can see are high and thin. Elsewhere, it’s been a different story. Parts of central Portugal were hit by fierce hail storms last night, with deaths and injuries on the roads. We listened to the news on the car radio as we returned from a concert in Faro.

The concert was given by a visiting orchestra, that of the conservatory of the University of Vienna. It’s a huge orchestra, easily twice the size of the local outfit, and found little room to spare on the large stage of Faro’s municipal theatre. There were at least 40 players in the string section alone. The first work was Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto, a favourite of ours. A Portuguese pianist was the soloist and was much applauded, even if one of our party thought that his rendition bore little resemblance to the recording made by Rachmaninoff himself.

It was followed by Mahler’s 1st symphony. Mahler is a composer whose works are far less familiar to me than his name and reputation. We’ve never heard his symphonies performed by the Orchestra of the Algarve, whether because of their complexity or maybe because of the large orchestra they require. Either way, his 1st symphony was a revelation to me, an extraordinary mixture of elements. Jones, on whose culture I lean, said she first heard it at the Proms in London some 30 years ago.

The week is proving to be a social one. Last weekend we bade farewell to our house sitters but not before we’d joined them on a long walk through the countryside. The dirt roads had been badly eaten away from a heavy downpour during our absence in the Alentejo. At one point as we walked down a slope, I lost my footing and went sprawling headlong on the loose gravel. It hurt. When I later inspected the minor grazes I had to show for my fall I felt somewhat disappointed. They didn’t do justice to the bruising I got. There’s nothing like a spot of blood to prove a point.

Midweek we had lunch with friends from the UK, who will be part of a group joining us at Idalecio’s restaurant again this evening. The friends are bird-watchers and orchid spotters, a couple who often house sit for us and who have inducted us into the wealth of Algarvian bird life and orchid varieties. We took them to a restaurant on the banks of the stream that runs through Alte, a place where one can lunch outside with the dogs, now including young Prickles, under one’s feet. He was spotted and fussed over by a group of Scottish women lunching at an adjacent table. The little guy really knows how to turn on the charm.

I must say that Prickles has settled into the household effortlessly - with cats, dogs and people - and the others have accepted him in turn. He is now responding to his name and to “COME” calls – some of the time, anyhow.

One complication that’s arisen concerns our twice-weekly classes, Wednesday for Portuguese and Thursday for English. The other two dogs have long been accustomed to come to class with us, an arrangement they find infinitely preferable to being left at home. They settle down on a blanket in the corner of the classroom and simply vanish for the duration of the lesson. But we haven’t felt that we can inflict a third dog on our classmates, especially as Prickles is much given to little whines whenever he wants anything.

The week’s post brought a glossy brochure from Honda, singing the praises of the new CRV and inviting me to test drive it. It’s an invitation I plan to take up. Jones was sitting beside me as I opened the envelope. “We won’t buy one this year,” I assured her. “Not ever,” she responded. (Jones does not believe that cars are a good investment, as you are probably aware.)

That’s a bit tough. Our current model is getting on for 7 years and has over 110,000 kms on the clock. I have been thinking that a new CRV might be a good idea when this one approaches the 200,000 km mark, say in three years’ time when I become an official pensioner. For older people (I can’t think of the euphemisms one sees for OAPs on health insurance and prepaid funeral blurbs) the reliability of a new model becomes a matter of some importance – don’t you think? Pensioners are not meant to lift the bonnet and start fiddling with the engine when things go wrong.

However, I do sigh over the prices one has to pay in Portugal. The CRV range starts in Canada at less than C$ 28,000 (according to the Honda Canada website). Here, the starting price is 39,000 euros – equivalent to 60,000 dollars – more than twice the price. It’s not just ridiculous; it’s positively painful.

Changing the subject - the European Bee Eaters are back, swooping overhead and sitting on the wires to display their glorious colours – shimmering rainbows. They’re a delight. I wish that you could see them - and our garden. It is green and lush, sprinkled with the flowers that Jones labours over so long.

Hiding in it somewhere is old Fatty Fatcat – aka Tommie, aka The Lynx – the huge tabby who migrated to us many years ago at the Quinta, where he found our cat food superior to whatever his owners were feeding him next door. Tommie is coming to the end of his days. He staggers arthritically upstairs and needs assistance getting down. His eyesight is poor. He bangs into objects and tips over the edge of the patio.

Jones spends hours tending him; carrying him in and out, feeding him, looking for him in the garden, loving him. Several times I have expected to find him expired in the morning but he surprises us each time. In spite of his infirmities, his appetite remains healthy. We wonder, if he continues to hang on, how he will cope when we start our May travels – now less than two weeks away. I’m not sure that we can inflict him on our house sitters, who are already going to find more animals than they bargained on. (I do not include the 6 kittens that the neighbour's cat has just produced.)

There’s some thunder in the background and a big black cloud over Benafim although here the sun shines. Things are looking more hopeful,I think.
ALAN JOHNSTON WAS A COLLEAGUE OF MINE AT THE BBC. I HOPE THAT HE IS STILL ALIVE AND THAT HE WILL SOON BE FREE

Letter from Espargal: 14 of 2007

This letter begins at the Quinta dos Avós (Quinta of the Grandparents) on the outskirts of the town of Campo Maior (Larger Field) in the northern Alentejo. The Quinta is an old country house, the equivalent of an English manor, that we found through the local tourist office. We have exchanged a few words each evening with the gentleman in charge. His wife has been in Lisbon for the birth of their granddaughter.

From Rosa, the maid, we gather that the property was inherited in poor condition from the owners’ grandparents. It’s comfortable in the way that old houses are when they come with modern electrics and ample hot water. The rooms are spacious and the bathrooms en suite. All that troubles us is the poor dog that spends loveless days guarding access to the property. (We were delighted on the Saturday of our departure to find the dog running around while its master looked on.) The house is within walking distance of Campo Maior if one is willing to brave the traffic on the main road into town.

We arrived here after spending two days at an establishment close to Castelo de Vide, a town further north, where Jones was content and I was not. On the basis of an internet search we had booked ourselves into a rondawel on a 25 hectare guest farm (mixed camping, caravanning and housed accommodation). Its Dutch owners are trying to do much the same sort of thing that we used to do at the Quinta.

As so often, it was a case of expectations met or not. I didn’t expect to have to walk 50 metres to a bathroom or 150 to the car-park, especially down narrow stony paths in the wet. Nor to have to squint at my book at night under 12-amp lights until the solar-powered battery supplying our unit ran flat and plunged the place into darkness. My richest curses were reserved for a top-loading wood-burning stove that seemed designed to fill the room with smoke before extinguishing itself, at least until we got ourselves a supply of fire-lighters (after which it worked like a dream).

If she were writing this letter, Jones would be raving over the magnificent mountain landscape, the birds, the flowers and the walks, and rightfully so. I was annoyed at myself in such a marvellous setting for not being able to suppress my irritations, the more so for being much better off in the showers than nearby happy campers. But in spite of this, my restlessness grew. So when our third day dawned wet under brooding skies, we called it quits, made our apologies to our hosts and departed.


Before our exit we got in some impressive walks. The best of these took us 90 minutes along a narrow centuries-old stone-paved road that wound up the hill overlooking the farm and snaked down to Castelo de Vide on the far side. The town, as its name implies, (like most in this region) is overshadowed by its ancient castle.

Returning to Campo Maior - the outer fortifications of the castle here have been turned into informal living quarters. Where stone is missing, corrugated iron sheets fill the gaps. During a walking tour of the town we made our way past the families that live in these spaces, to reach the castle gate; thence up steep steps to the battlements and the towers. Although its walls are in reasonable shape the castle itself, sadly, now offers sanctuary only to acres of weeds and litter.

The string of fortifications along the border reminds visitors that this is a region where armies have clashed from time immemorial. Its history predates the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians who set foot here. Long before their arrival the region was populated by people who left it studded with hundreds of stone monuments, menirs (pillars) and antas (tombs). These still stand, many of them, mute and mysterious. One menir we visited was over 5 metres tall and, according to a plaque, weighed 18 tons. There are no records to show who these people were, where they came from or where they went.

We spent a day at Elvas, the most impressive of the fortified towns in the area. The extensive old town, occupying a hill, is entirely contained within vast fortified walls, surmounted by the customary castle and keep.
A tall aqueduct – still in good condition – supplied water to the town. The tourist route takes one along narrow lanes where front doors still open on to streets barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. The mosques of the old Arab quarter were long ago converted into churches.

In a corner of the town we came across the “English Cemetery” and a group of Brits who have dedicated themselves to looking after it. It provides a resting place for some of the soldiers who fell in the Peninsula wars against Napoleon. In two battles in the area, some 11,000 British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese troops perished. No idea how many French. We lunched in a small restaurant where friendly-fierce disputes raged over the merits of Lisbon’s two top football teams; a pity that Napoleon didn’t concern himself with football rather than conquering the world.

Another day we took ourselves to the Spanish town of Olivenza just across the border.
A handsome new bridge crosses the Guadiana river frontier close to the remnants of the old stone bridge. We drove up the river bank looking for a spot to picnic but found it hard to escape the litter that previous visitors had strewn around the place. In one town we were accosted by a slovenly woman who, after dropping a paper wrapper on the pavement in front of us, had stuffed some food into her mouth. When she thrust out a hand for money, she got a double admonition not to litter.

Olivenza itself has an excellent museum and some striking old churches to recommend it. Most of the Portuguese who go there, however, do so to fill their petrol tanks at much lower Spanish prices.

Another visit was to the town of Vila Vicosa in the Portuguese marble-quarrying district. Mountains of marble rubble rise on the approaches. The town’s streets are curbed with marble, its sidewalks paved with marble chips and its public benches made of solid marble. We arrived just in time to join a tour of the great palace (newly restored) of the Braganza family, as rich in furniture and furnishings as any in Europe.

From time to time we exchanged text messages with our house sitters, who reported that all was well if occasionally very wet. They arrived last Sunday morning to a slightly complicated canine situation. With our neighbour, Idalecio’s dog, in season, and serious contenders for her favour prowling the fence, we found it necessary to keep our lot inside, especially little Prickles. He was all for tearing visiting Alsatians limb from limb. Although Idalecio has a good fence around his property we discovered his gate smashed open - and feared the worst for little Serpa, who normally sleeps outside. Happily, for once, she was safely indoors.

We returned home from the Alentejo via the newly completed Alqueva Dam - the biggest artificial stretch of water in Europe, some 250 sq kms of it. From the viewer platforms on the dam wall we peered down the 100 metre fall to the Guadiana river below. Following placards advertising boat trips on the dam, we found a pier with half a dozen boats tied up awaiting visitors but sign of life, other than two distant ostriches (on an ostrich farm) across the water, there was none.

So we repaired instead to the brand-new tourist centre to learn more about the dam and its construction. The tourist staff happily put on two brief films for us to watch. Both of these were really just public relations blurbs to say what good news the dam would prove for all concerned and we emerged little the wiser. We had thought to find ourselves a dream hotel overlooking the water at which to spend our final night. Finding nothing of the sort we came home in time to walk the dogs and to enjoy a barbecue with our house sitters.

Letter from Espargal: 13 of 2007

This has been a week of little things. Things like watching a favourite Portuguese neighbour rip up the about-to-bud poppy plants along the fence, declaring to Jones as she did so that the chickens absolutely loved them. No doubt the chickens did. Poor Jones somehow managed to bottle up her feelings as she watched her poppy plants being marched down the road to Maria’s chicken coop. She could hardly complain as she’d just accepted a gift of six fresh eggs from Maria. As always, the poppies in the fields are glorious, a deep, lustrous shade of red.

That was Monday. Monday evening we went to see a film at the Forum Algarve on the outskirts of Faro. Jonesy wanted to see Music and Lyrics, probably the best of an indifferent selection. Usually, a Monday is the quietest evening of the week but since the kids were out for the Easter break, the place was heaving. Most of the youth brigade, thanks be, were going to see Mr Bean. Long live Mr Bean. Music and Lyrics was okay as chick flicks go although it would have been more gratifying if the villain had got his proper comeuppance.

Tuesday we got to meet Prickles. Our first intimation of his presence came as we were wandering down the road mid-afternoon between showers. We bumped into Zé-Manuel, who was taking the afternoon off in view of the weather. He warned us that there was a small stray dog down in the square, shaking his head is disbelief at the callousness of people who abandon dogs. We agreed with him heartily. It happens lots in this part of the world and it’s horrible. Sure enough, Prickles was in the square, lying damp and cold on the threshold of house.

Prickles is small, thin, brown and wire-haired. He probably wasn’t called Prickles by the owner who abandoned him but that’s what I thought we should call him, given certain of his characteristics. Jones gave him two biscuits that happened to be in her pocket. Prickles promptly got up from his stone bed and followed us down the road. He probably just wanted food and company although Serpa (our neighbour’s little bitch), who is in season, may have proved an added attraction.

As we arrived back in the village at the end of our walk we debated whether I should fetch the car so that we could drive home with our dogs, leaving Prickles behind. But we decided against it. So Prickles came back with us and made himself at home in Banco’s kennel. Jones sighed.

Wednesday we took, John, an old friend to lunch at the beach. John is looking after house and dogs while his wife is back in the UK waiting for heart surgery on the national health. It’s proving a long wait. There was a cold wind blowing at the beach, with just a few hardy souls in evidence. Restaurant diners were even fewer and they preferred to sit inside out of the wind. We braved the elements on the terrace, the dogs at our feet. We had taken extra clothes in anticipation.

Afterwards we drove around to the nearby municipal theatre to book for a series of concerts over the next month or two. It was John’s first visit there. Ditto to the nearby Algarve Forum where we showed him around. He doesn’t much like driving and limits his outings to a big grocery store in Almancil - a town close to his home.

En route we stopped off at The Griffin, the English bookshop in Almancil. I wanted some more reading matter and the shop always has a good selection. After 30 minutes’ browsing I came away with four books and a fifth ordered . I’d spent some time on the net the previous evening choosing books from Amazon UK – mainly the Aventis science prize contenders - but when I saw how much the postage and tax charges added to the bill (more than the books themselves) I abandoned my efforts.

Thursday Prickles came walking with us again as he had on Wed. He likes to trot slightly ahead, making multiple diversions into the bushes to investigate good smells.

Up in the field above us, two farmers were busy with a chain saw cutting down boughs from an old carob tree and pruning olives and almonds. In the afternoon I joined them for a chat, along with half a dozen other worthies. We discussed the state of the Portuguese economy, especially the agricultural economy, a favourite topic. Although there are still lots of holes in my Portuguese, I’m able to chat away fairly easily.

I complained that while I was taken for a German in Germany and an Englishman in England, nobody ever took me for a Portuguese in Portugal. This raised a great hoot of laughter. They explained that my favourite wide-brimmed white hat, of a kind that no Portuguese had ever been seen wearing, was famous in the area. The first thing I would have to do to espouse my adopted country would be to wear the caps that pass for country headgear around here. Given my sensitive skin and aversion to the sun, I fear that I shall have to remain a foreigner.

Friday during a long walk through the valley, the dogs spotted a couple of rabbits in a field. While Stoopy and Ono strained at their leashes, Prickles took off, showing an admirable turn of speed and his hunting instinct. On our return, I gave Prickles a bath, possibly the first of his life. Later in the day I bought him a collar. I fear that he’s going to have to go on to a leash like the others.

It’s becoming clear, although we haven’t discussed the subject, that Prickles is going to stay. Jones has put an old duvet in Banco’s kennel and she adds a hottie at night. But before very long I expect that Prickles is going to make his way inside. As long as he learns the rules about behaviour and furniture, I don’t have a problem with that.

We are expecting house-sitters to arrive Sunday morning, regulars who will look after the place while Jones and I take ourselves up the mountains on the Spanish border. As much as we have hoped for rain these past few weeks, we have also hoped that this coming week might be dry. Alas, it would appear from the forecasts that most of the rain we didn’t get when we wanted it is likely to fall in the next few days.

MEETING THE NEIGHBOURS
I had the satisfaction this past week of notching up our 600th millimeter of the season on my rain chart. 600 mms means that the region has accumulated enough ground water to see it through the dry months ahead. Two seasons ago, when we had less than half that, most of the water sources dried up.

Tonight we are going to a concert at the Faro public theatre, Bomtempo’s Requiem. It should bring back old memories of the Easter Requiems I used to sing myself – long ago, in another world in another age.

Letter from Espargal: 12 of 2007

It’s a case of “hold the front page”. There’s great excitement in the village. A digger has been brought into to uncover an “ancient well”, which the villagers are now busy clearing of accumulated dirt. Jones and I saw the digger at work yesterday, ripping up the surrounding cobbles. We thought that it was merely part of replumbing work that was happening in the background and paid little attention.

Today, as we returned from a morning walk, we chanced on a group of villagers gathered at the spot. Closer approach revealed the mouth of the well (at ground level) and Zé Carlos a couple of metres down, hard at work with a hoe and shovel. Each time he filled a bucket with dirt, an assistant would haul it up with a rope and dump the dirt into the back of a tractor. Zé Carlos said he intended to dig down until he struck water a metre or two lower.

The villagers explained that the old well had been covered up in 1935 when the local authorities had built a new well close by to serve the village. The “new” well (still) has a hand-operated wheel that drives a pump that spurts water out of a pipe – a great improvement on rope and bucket. In the intervening years people had forgotten the exact location of the old well.


The council has now decided to expose the old well and to build a wall around the mouth. It’s an historical feature. The villagers believe that the well dates back to the Romans. In evidence they produce a haul of ancient ceramic shards found in the fields as well as – if anyone were still in doubt - a coin dating from the reign of Augustus Caesar. The also point out that the walls of the old well have been worn smooth by the passage of innumerable buckets down the centuries. Who knows?

In another significant development, we have picked, cooked and eaten our first beans of the season. The beans, as always, are excellent even if the crop itself is poor and the rodents have had their share; in fact, more than their share. The plants that I sowed in Sarah and David’s field are dotted with chewed pods. We worked our way along the bean plants, plucking the larger beans. The small ones may yet take heart from the promised rains and swell in size.


At Jones's request I have set up a bench in the south garden, placing it in the shade of a carob tree and using a spirit level to get it exactly right. Jones is very particular about having things level - especially her pictures.

We have head-scratched over a minor puzzle. It concerns a chap who lives in a nearby hamlet and who leads his dogs out each afternoon on a quad-bike. The dogs trot along behind. (A little dog, equipped with doggy goggles, sometimes sits astride the petrol tank). The rider turns off the dirt road that runs through the orchard below us, along a track that, we presumed, must lead him back home. It’s one of the few routes that we’re not familiar with. So we thought we’d follow it.

It led us for a couple of kilometres towards a distant village (Esteval dos Mouros – the Rock Rose plot of the Moors). The area was clearly popular with hunters, whose cartridge cases lay scattered all around. We also came across some spectacular orchids. But we couldn’t find a turn-off that might have led our quad-biker back home. It was as though he vanished into thin air.

The puzzle was solved when I encountered the rider one afternoon and asked him. It appears that he goes for miles, all the way to Esteval dos Mouros and then back by another route. His dogs must be the fittest in the Algarve. Jones and I are resolved to follow the route one day, equipped with the necessary refreshments to see us home.
Alternatively, we might consider hiring the quad-bikes which (the rider explained) he wants to rent out to visitors – although I doubt that the dogs would approve. (Jones, checking my letter, says I can count her out as well.)

A rep came along one afternoon to demonstrate new technology for accessing the internet via the mobile phone network. I had been making enquiries about it on behalf a neighbour who has dial-up internet access. The technology, different from the 3G Connect Card system that I’d been investigating earlier, still depends on the strength of the available signal. Although it’s much slower (and considerably cheaper) than broadband it proved to be 3 times as fast as dial-up here in Espargal. Every so often when I have to use a dial-up link I find myself tearing my hair out in frustration. How did we ever get by?

We’ve had some welcome showers along with an unrelenting, exhausting, nerve-wracking wind. The first of the showers arrived last weekend as I was preparing an evening barbecue. I was able to pull the barbecue cart under the lee of the upstairs patio and to continue grilling without interruption. I was quite pleased with myself. The rain continued overnight – although only a measly 7 millimetres registered in the morning. We need more rain before the onset of the hot months. Already the soil has dried out. Big cracks have opened along the tractor tracks – and this is only March.

Another welcome 7 mms arrived later in the day as we set out to see The Painted Veil. We both liked the film – although I hated the usual distractions. Three English women a few rows away were conversing in stage whispers and consulting their mobile phones. They were clearly irritated when I asked them to turn the phones off. I didn’t point out that they shouldn’t have been on in the first place. A screen announcement at the start of each movie asks the audience to disconnect mobiles and not to converse during the film. It gets about the same level of respect as the speed limit. Dad used to get really bothered by any such distractions and I fear that he passed his botheration genes on to me in their entirety.


Dani and I continued our attack on the Park when he and Natasha made their usual Tuesday appearance. The timber we brought down gave us to two tractor loads of firewood, including half a dozen hollow trunk bases for Jones’s flowers. She uses these as containers for live plants, packing the hollow space with soil. We use them to line the fence and they look superb. Jones spotted several large such bases on the property that Vitor, the mechanic, has been clearing and Vitor was happy for us to have them.

At the end of the day with Dani I found that I would have to take him and Natasha back to Loulé because the evening bus service didn’t run during the school holidays. If I wasn’t best pleased the dogs were thrilled. They love nothing better than a ride in the car. When we got back Jones complained that she hadn’t got a single thing done the whole day. All she had done was to look after her workers - toast and coffee on arrival, followed by morning tea and cake, lunch, and afternoon tea and cake, generally served wherever we’re working.

Apart from this Jones had found herself drawn into conversations with several passing neighbours. It wasn’t that she minded the conversations. She just felt frustrated that she had nothing to show for the passage of the day. She hadn’t even finished digging a hole for a plant. I hugged her and assured her that from our point of view, her day had been a most valuable and appreciated one. Isn’t it strange how we still feel the need to justify our daily existence, even by digging a few holes or picking up some stones.

p.s. The villagers have just come to borrow my submersible pump. I took it and several metres of hose along to the well on the tractor. Last I saw Zé Carlos he was five metres down with water up to the rim of his gumboots.

Letter from Espargal: 11 of 2007

BENAFIM FROM ONO'S PATH

The news this week is of discoveries. Jones and Ono have discovered a path running from the western edge of the village around the side of the hill to the carob trees at the back. And I have discovered two new groups of tongue orchids – serapias - on the fringes of the road leading down to the river.

The path, judging from its overgrown state, is little used. I wasn’t with Jones the afternoon that she came across it. She says she followed Ono until the path reached a tractor track that runs to the bottom of the hill. Accordingly, we’ve called it Ono’s Path. (All our routes have names.) I later spent an hour with secateurs cutting back the bushes. We think the route was once used by farmers and the donkeys required to bear the sacks of carobs back to the village.

As for the serapias, the discoveries are quite exciting. Until now, we’ve been aware only of a single patch of them, growing in the shade of a tree on the far side of the valley. Serapias are probably the rarest of the varieties that we come across. Those we’ve found are hard to identify exactly. A glance at the orchid book lent to us by the Mackrills (regular visitors and orchid experts) shows numerous similar flowers. We did note that ours came with three distinct markings.

After a warm spell and the unwelcome arrival of a few mosquitoes, our weather has turned dry and cold. A wicked wind has whistled down from the Spanish mountains (where truck drivers have been caught in heavy snow). The benefit has been the bluest of skies and the dispersal of the pollution haze that normally hangs over the coastal plain. Jones agreed that we should have a fire in the evenings, even though it means that she will once again have to scrub the glass panels of the wood burning stove.

Last weekend we had a brief thunderstorm as I was putting together two garden benches on the front patio. Thunderstorms were a frequent and unwelcome part of our lives when we lived at the Quinta - a real menace to our electrical systems. Now, for some reason, they seldom occur. That on Sunday, although brief, was a cracker.

A feature of such weather is its effect on Stoopy, our small black bitch. Stoopy has become Jones’s dog as Ono has taken to me. Where Jones goes her shadow is seldom far behind. At night, Stoopy curls up on Jones’s side of the bed. But in the event of any explosive noise - hunters, thunder or fireworks - Stoopy abandons Barbara for me. During the storm she followed me out into the rain when I went to look for a drill bit in Casa Nada. Her switch of allegiance is quite blatant and unapologetic –a bit like the Vicar of Bray’s. She simply turns to Jones for love and me for protection.

The benches (that I was putting together) were a bargain from a big hardware store, Like much of the stuff on sale, they were made in China. Jones wants to put one under an olive tree in the south garden. I want the other to go in the wooded area that Dani and I have cleared of excessive saplings, at the top of the Graça field. We have called it “The Glade” – a place to linger over a baggy on a summer evening.

THE PARK

This week Dani and I turned our attention to The Park, an acre-plus of rugged hillside, that rises above the house. It takes us about a week each spring to trim back the trees, strim the terraces, rip out the thorn bushes and generally make the place presentable. It’s an area I love, with little dells to be found among the boulders, trees and bushes. It would be the perfect place for children to play hide and seek.

In its efficient use of space, nature doesn’t waste even the little holes and fissures in the rocks. These collect dust and droppings in which, after a time, seeds sprout and plants spring up. Sometimes trees establish themselves in the rock. Their roots must find a way through to the earth below.

One evening I watched a BBC TV documentary about the mis-selling of products to bank customers. The pictures were filmed secretly by a journalist who got a job at Barclays, which failed to check her credentials or those of a colleague of hers. As a Barclays customer, I was fascinated to see managers and trainers instructing recruits how to cold-call, mislead clients and generally flog the bank’s products. What counted was simply meeting sales targets and making commissions, especially by persuading customers to change to new fee-paying accounts. For this change no signature was required.

Some customers found that their accounts had been changed for them without their knowledge or consent and arrived to confront the bank over the unexpected charges that appeared on their statements. I understood for the first time why, when I recently called Barclays, the woman who handled my inquiry said she was going to change my account to a better one. I insisted that she leave it alone. I have since written to Barclays, recounting the incident and expressing my unhappiness.

Naturally, the corporate PR exec, who was given the opportunity to reply to the revelations, disowned her employees’ tactics. Barclays was a service oriented establishment and any rogue elements would be weeded out, she assured us.

JASMINE IN BLOOM

Another evening we went with English neighbours to a garden exhibition in Faro. It was the opening night and there were almost as many exhibitors as visitors when we arrived. Jones is interested in installing a small swimming pool, a number of which (fibre-glass models) were on display. I was more taken by the Jacuzzis, some of which were almost as expensive as the pools. An enthusiastic salesman hurriedly put out his cigarette to explain the benefits of the 2-person 10-thousand euro model (made of the very best Canadian components). I brought Jones along for a look but she’s not into jacuzzis and thought it unnecessary for me to have raised the salesman’s hopes.

The night was cold and after 45 minutes of looking around, we took ourselves to a on-site restaurant with some welcome radiant gas heaters to warm our bones. There were few other diners, excepting a scrum of VIPs from Faro Camara, tucking into tables of snacks. Apart from Ollie’s rather tough smoked-sausage, it was a good supper. And the dogs were grateful for the remains of the sausage (although we did wonder later whether it was the cause of Ono’s vomiting up his supper in the corner of the bedroom some time after midnight.Yuck!).

A two-man team has started work on the foundations of the house that the Dutch couple will be building at the corner of our road. A perfectly carved trench marks the limits of the house, with deep holes to take the bases of reinforced concrete pillars. (This is earthquake country.) Watching the progress is going to keep much of the village busy for months to come.

Letter from Espargal: 10 of 2007

VIEW OF THE HOUSE

I was reflecting this week how different people are. (I do not expect to win any prizes for this insight.) The immediate cause of my reflections was a BBC TV series about a cooking competition. The final programme had been drawn to our attention by passing neighbours, one of whom had been following the series and was anxious to be home in time to prepare dinner before the final.

Jonesy turned it on out of interest (although she awarded it only 3 out of 10 for compulsiveness). We watched three earnest finalists trying to outcook each other, among a flurry of “amazings” and “incredibles” from the judges, along with a “brave choice” and even a “miraculous”. I confess that watching people cook and eat does nothing to jangle my genes. Given the choice I would have preferred the finals of the snail-racing championships.

Immediately after the programme came the 2nd leg of the Uefa Cup clash between Benfica (one of Portugal’s top football teams) and Paris St Germain. The match was played in Lisbon before tens of thousands of passionate fans. They were desperate for their beloved team to overcome the deficit acquired during the first leg in Paris. Now this was unmissible television - incredible feats of skill, amazing passes, brave tackles and miraculous saves. When Benfica won with a late penalty kick the fans went absolutely delirious. I was rather pleased myself. (Jones had left me to it and retired to bed.)

ON THE ROAD

I hope that I do not give the impression that I am a dreary football fan with no appreciation of food. This week I was the chef at a barbecue, the results of which were acclaimed by all concerned. What’s more, I can talk at length about the state of my beans, now reaching maturity in David and Sarah’s field. Jones has picked a few and we had them in a salad one evening. They are as tasty as ever.

However, and this is the bad news, there are very few actual beans on the plants. The locals tell me that the lean crop is the result of the poor rains this year (following the torrents that fell towards the end of last year). One would have thought that there isn’t a great deal to growing beans. But not only do the plants require the right amount of rain to perform, they require it at the appropriate time.

THE GRACA FIELD

One begins to understand why farmers are keener on getting subsidies than growing food. I was listening to a report on the radio about how the Scottish authorities have permitted farmers, who get paid for not growing crops, to sell the subsidy contracts while retaining the land that they get paid for leaving fallow. Crazy! Before I abandon agriculture, let me add that Barbara’s unsubsidised garlic plants and her new vine cuttings appear to be coming along well. Her flowers are a joy.

As I was saying, I had cause to reflect how different people are. Another reflection was that half a lifetime of living with Jones had not diminished our (mainly amicable) disagreements on all kinds of subjects.

It happens that I am a fast eater, someone who is disinclined to linger over meals when there is so much waiting to be done – even if it’s having a siesta. Jones has been trying to slow me down. When she offered the opinion that eating slowly reduced one’s calorie intake, I was understandably sceptical. Since calories are calories, I could see no rational reason why the calorie content of a given amount of food should depend on the speed of its consumption.

VILLAGERS

When I am particularly anxious to dismiss a Jones argument, I google the issue to prove the point. (After all, if one finds that one has the wrong end of the stick, there is no requirement to return to the subject.) Jones, who is not a regular internet user, is at a disadvantage here.

However, she is a great fan of a British magazine, The Week, copies of which she gets from a friend. When Jones comes across an interesting article she cuts it out and files it (her librarian instincts die hard) or leaves it on my desk. You may imagine with what relish she left me a report on the calorie reduction that could be obtained by slower eating.

It’s okay. I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong. As I tell her, if I were right all the time our marriage would be unbearable. How could you possibly live with somebody who was always right? There is even an argument for deliberately getting things wrong from time to time just to make one’s partner feel better.

Jonesy might have suffered a few doubts about the contents of The Week after reading an article on 10 other uses for one’s microwave. These included softening old mascara with a 40 second zap in the oven. She tried it and succeeded only in frying the mascara brush.

HARD TIMES

Dani and Natasha are making a double visit this week. He is trying to earn some extra cash before (hopefully) finding work with a carpenter. Natasha works an additional day each month to help her find the money that she now has to pay to the social services as part of her employment contract.

Dani and I have been using the tractor to clear young saplings from the heavily wooded small piece of land that I recently learned was mine. The trees are mainly wild olives and almonds. Unless they have been grafted they are regarded by the locals as little better than weeds or firewood. Dani winds a chain around the base of the young trees which I then rip out with the tractor.

Young as they are, the trees are well rooted. Several times they held fast while the tractor’s front wheels reared in the air at the strain. After a while the heavy coupling holding the chain broke and then the chain itself broke – three times. We have had to work with shorter and shorter sections. (As mentioned, there’s no point in just cutting the trees off at the base because they simply sprout again.)

Early in the week, Vitor arrived at the gate on his quad-bike, towing a small trailer to which he’d attached Olly’s non-functioning strimmer. Vitor showed me the cause of the trouble - the small plastic choke which had broken, causing the strimmer to cut out within a few seconds of firing. I had to persuade him to take a few euros for his troubles. A new plastic choke is on order.

I have also – finally – installed Fintan’s computer in his home in full working order. It took the expertise of Inforomba to sort out the virus update problem we’d run into. At the same time the computer shop added some extra ram and installed SP2 – so the visit was well worthwhile. To my embarrassment, when I first took the computer back to Fintan, it froze solid as soon as we tried to link to the internet. Another visit to Inforomba and an updated driver has resolved the problem.

Tonight we are going to Faro for a concert, the second in the series of Beethoven’s works.

Letter from Espargal: 9 of 2007

FEEDING THE CATS AT DAVID AND SARAH'S PLACE.
Quite a lot of stuff has happened this week, one way and another. For instance, one afternoon Jones put her pick-axe through the water pipe to Casa Nada. This happened as I was discussing a computer problem over the phone with a neighbour - and moments before I was due to run Dani and Natasha down to the bus stop. I can tell from the way Jones bellows “Terrrrryyyyy” that she’s run into an urgent problem. I made my apologies to the neighbour and went to take a look. The jet of water that was shooting into the air would have delighted the hearts of any budding public fountain engineers.

In view of the imminent arrival of the bus, I turned the water off at the pump-house as an interim measure before driving our workers to the bus stop (dogs in the back seat as usual; they think they now travel in the car by right). I got back to hear from Jones that she had confided the problem to neighbours, who were walking past the gate as they do on their circuit each day. Moments later, they turned up in the car with Fintan, another villager, who happens to be a retired plumber.

It so happened that Fintan had come along a few days earlier to take a look at a different plumbing problem, a leak in the pumphouse. It was only a small job, he explained, but he needed a couple of parts to fix it – which he subsequently obtained. Within five minutes he had cut and capped the holed pipe and in another five he had repaired the leak in the pumphouse. I was most grateful and said so – wondering whether the gentlemen would care to share a beer. They declined my offer although they accepted a large bar of Toblerone chocolate – our one and only, as I told them - that Jones offered them instead.

Happily, Fintan was slightly in my debt in view of my considerable assistance to him this past fortnight with his computer. He ran into a problem with a free security programme, which I resolved by stripping it off and replacing it (at his cost) with Kaspersky’s security suite. Well, I sort of resolved it because the new programme works fine but it won’t update.

NAKED MAN ORCHIDS. In fact, I was back at Fintan’s place this morning while John, another neighbour, who is a computer professional, tried to fix the update problem. In spite of much effort and cleaning up of the hard disk, he failed. As a result I will now have to take Fintan’s computer into my computer shop, which specialises in Kaspersky. At least, if I haven’t actually sorted out any problems, I have shown lots of good will – which, I think you’ll agree, at the end of the day, is what really counts.

I have also been helpful to another neighbour whose strimmer wasn’t working. After explaining to him what generally needs to be done – clean the plug and filter, replace old petrol etc – I actually went along, prompted by Jones, to help him. We did all the necessary and the strimmer fired first time. Well, it sort of gurgled and died. After that it just coughed uselessly. I offered to take it down to Vitor, the village mechanic, who nearly always manages to sort these things out. As I say, when push comes to shove, it’s the good will that matters more than results.

EARLY PURPLE ORCHID.
Jones – coming back to the damaged pipe – was most apologetic for her actions, especially as she had known that the pipe ran through the section of the garden concerned. I didn’t feel that the apologies were necessary but it was quite useful to have her feeling apologetic. This is because it would seem that not only had I inadvertently poisoned some of her favourite plants the previous week but I had also scarified a precious cutting while cleaning up the vege patch with the tractor.

This cutting, which had been given to her by Leonhilda - a Portuguese neighbour – was evidently a very special plant and likely to be irreplaceable. Jones was severely upset to have had it rooted up and she shared her displeasure with me. A couple of days later she later came across the cutting still attached to a clod of earth and has replanted it in the hope that it may sprout anew.

WOODCOCK ORCHID.
I reported the situation to Leonhilda, who has given Jones more cuttings as well as some eggs from her hens to thank the pair of us for my work in cleaning up her (adjacent) field at the same time as I was scarifying mine. Like most of the farmers in the village, her husband has an older (two-wheel drive) tractor that struggles on the steep slope. What’s more, he hasn’t been very well or felt inclined to tackle strenuous work.

Another gift, a bottle of olive oil, came from the strange couple (Chico and Dina) whom we encountered ambling along the main road in the drizzle last Sunday afternoon on our return from Hans the baker’s place in Benafim. After encouraging a reluctant Stoopy to join Jones in the front seat and an even more reluctant Ono to occupy the rear of the vehicle, we shoe-horned the couple into the back seat. Dina is a very large lady and Chico is a very old man. Neither of them is exactly supple.

WILD TULIPS.
On our arrival at their cottage Chico insisted that I should wait outside while he hurried in to fetch me something. It turned out to be 5 litres of newly-pressed oil. It was, he insisted, very good. And he spoke truly. I would much rather have left it with them but you can’t argue with Chico. If you do something for him, he does something for you. We are still working our way gradually and pleasurably through the 15 litres of fig liquor with which he’s rewarded me for various other favours.

On Monday night we went to Faro to see Dream Girls. We thought it was very well done and that Jennifer Hudson deserved her Oscar. I can’t pretend that it was my kind of music or that I enjoyed the company of a gaggle of teenyboppers who spent most of the film chatting, munching popcorn and consulting their mobiles.

Another night, Tuesday I think, I woke Jones around midnight (at her request) to come on to the patio to admire the eclipse of the moon. It was a full eclipse, visible across the length and breadth of Europe. The media had spoken about a “blood-red orb” - a bit over the top although it was certainly a striking phenomenon. We watched as the moon’s left flank began to glisten as it emerged from the eclipse and the light crept ever so slowly across its face.

The main news of the week, I think, is the hardest to convey. It’s the onset of the orchid season. The dull orchids have been out for weeks. But Jones has now spotted the first mirror orchids. On the path below the house she found Early Purples and Woodcocks although the latter were outshone by a grouping that I found on the road out of the village.

DAWN OVER VALAPENA.
Orchids apart, the fields are ablaze with wild flowers. Some hide themselves under the trees or among the rocks. We never know when we’re about to stumble across some magnificent new specimen. I wish you were here to share some of our pleasure in these simple things.

Letter from Espargal: 8 of 2007

This has been a mainly agricultural week. It has taken me the better part of two afternoons to clean up the Casanova and Graça fields (named after their former owners), both of which were disappearing under a mass of winter vegetation. If you thought this was easy work you’d be wrong.

The first step is to remove the link-box from the back of the tractor and attach the scarifier, a process that takes (me) at least 15 minutes and a lot of effort – sometimes grazed knuckles. A scarifier is a plough-like implement that rips out vegetation and turns over the soil. Unlike a plough, it doesn’t create furrows. (It tends to hook on buried rocks and tree roots, leaving the tractor wheels spinning.)

I watched a TV programme this week in which three mega tractors attached and shed their implements in a matter of seconds - just a matter of click-on and click-off. Nobody in Espargal has a tractor like that. Here one has to physically detach the hydraulic lift bar and the lower forked bars that support the implement. It’s best done on a level surface (if you can find one). Once the non-required implement has been removed, one has to back the tractor slowly and carefully up to the item to be attached. Unless the tractor is lined up exactly, it’s all but impossible to fasten the scarifier (and it weighs a ton). Gloves and a heavy iron bar are advisable.

After attaching the scarifier and tensioning the supporting bars one is ready to get to work. In a perfect world the field to be “ploughed” should be free of rocks and trees and level. Ours are real world fields; they slope and are dotted with rocks and trees. That makes life awkward, especially as the protective bar over my seat cannot hinge down (as new ones can) to avoid catching low branches.

It’s toughest working at the top of the fields where the slope is steepest. It would be simplest simply to work from top to bottom but one is meant to plough along the contour of the slope to avoid dragging the soil down.
At times I lean over the side of the tractor like a yachtsman, a posture that provokes merriment among the locals. Even so, the results of my efforts have won me praise. “You plough just like a Portuguese farmer,” a neighbour, Maria, assured me as we met on the road. (Half the women in the village are called Maria.) This is no half hearted compliment.

We took the opportunity to ask Maria about a small building which is springing up across the road from her house. Any such construction is of interest to other villagers – i.e. us. Maria explained that it was a shed intended to take a machine either to shell almonds or to grind carob beans – it wasn’t clear to us.

Like the builders of other sheds in the village, the owner of this one has not thought it necessary to go through the arduous and lengthy planning process required by the authorities. Understandably, people hereabouts prefer to avoid such cumbrous bureaucracy wherever possible. It is slightly ironic, however, that the man concerned is suspected of tipping off the building inspector about a garage that a neighbour was erecting (after the neighbour succeeded in buying a small field that both men desired).


Jones, for her part, has been labouring long and hard to remove poisoned triffids, the corpses of which have been piled on our burgeoning weed heap. “Triffids” is her name for the large broad-leafed plants that invade the place every winter. They grow to nearly two metres in height and simply take the place over (as per the next picture).

I spent two afternoons going around the property zapping them with Grammox. Two or three days later they started to turn brown and to droop – an ugly sight. Jones was disturbed (a) because we were expecting visitors and she wanted the garden to look its best and (b) because the poison had zapped a few desirable plants in the process – a case of friendly fire.

She pointed these innocent victims out to me at length, lamenting their sad state and emphasising the enormity of my actions. I know how those guys feel who sprayed agent orange all over Vietnam.

Just across the fields from us, my beans are slowly coming to maturity on David and Sarah’s plot. They ought to be ready to pick next month. Every time I pass them I resolve to return the same day to weed them and then promptly forget about my resolution.

A model example of how to tend a vegetable garden is set by elderly neighbours – a couple in their eighties - at the bottom of the village. The soil in their garden has been dug over until it has reached a smooth texture. Young plants nestle in a shallow depression of earth. Each pea plant is supported by a stick. Tender shoots are covered at night by upturned 5-litre water bottles. These are removed the following morning to allow the young plants to bathe in the spring sunshine. It is all very impressive.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday brought the usual classes. After each class I slipped down the road to Inforomba’s computer shop. First I went to purchase a Kaspersky anti-virus suite for a neighbour whom I’d talked into buying it to replace his freebie. (The suite promptly found a host of nasties on his hard disk and deleted them - satisfaction there.) But it was the Portuguese version of the program and the neighbour speaks little Portuguese. So back I went to try to replace it with an English one (easily done). What I couldn’t sort out – and Inforomba couldn’t help me – was a problem with the update function. I’ll have to take the neighbour’s computer into the shop next week.

I fear that not all is well with my subconscious, not to judge by my dreams. In one frequently recurring dream I find myself wandering around a huge building looking for someone or something – generally the newsroom. When I find it, either there’s nowhere for me to sit or the typewriter doesn’t work and I have to put a bulletin on air in an impossibly short time. In my last such dream, my boss said she was giving the workers lots of stick. “But not enough for some”, I replied. At this everybody laughed. I considered it a very witty reply, even when I woke up.

In another dream I was going to dine with several friends, only one of whom I clearly recall. (I shall let him remain anonymous.) He was querulous and accused me of “having a high regard for my own opinions”. Tired of his nonsense I proclaimed: “This is too silly,” and walked out, leaving him to dine alone. That was very satisfying.

If any readers can usefully play Moses to my troubled Pharaoh, their responses will be most kindly considered.

(Sunset - moonrise over Valapena)
Jonesy was walking the dogs the other day when she met an English neighbour who was walking hers. Suddenly, the dogs went for each other, pulling Jonesy over as they did so. I wasn’t there. She says she had the devil of a time trying to get up again and to separate them. She was not best pleased with her little darlings. Fortunately, little harm was done except to the owners’ nerves.