Letter from Espargal: 18 May 2018

The blog opens last Saturday when Slavic and I took a load of gravel down to Ono's grave to smooth out the surface. We found that Jonesy had been there before us to place a glass with a few daisies on the grave. I found it a strangely moving tribute, one of those unexpected little gestures that brings a lump to one's throat.



Later in the day Jones got us to plant succulents and a shrub beside the grave. We have been touched by the numerous notes of sympathy that we have received. In his 18 years Ono got to know a good many folk. And although his eyesight was failing towards the end, his nose never let him down. He always knew his old friends.



Sunday we brunched and I prepared an English lesson. It concerned the dreadful delays that have greeted arriving passengers at Lisbon airport. The problem is said to be a shortage of passport control officials as well as alleged indifference and bad organisation, a situation aggravated by the swelling numbers of visitors. Portugal has become a holiday destination of choice, partly as a result of all the nastiness across much of the rest of Europe and north Africa.



Monday I went to the bank to sort out a few minor problems. The most annoying of these was the rejection of my credit card by a couple of online sites even though I had activated it on the bank website. The problem, it emerged (and soon remedied), was that I had failed to first "initiate" the card by using it either in a store or at an ATM - another security measure. In fairness to me, the banker didn't know about this measure either - until advised by the card issuer over the phone.


MINI
Tuesday began with an "O no!" shriek from Barbara at the far end of the bedroom as I was lying back in bed, contemplating the day. Fearing some dangerous intruder, I leapt out and dashed to the rescue. The problem was less the intruder - a tiny mouse - than Mini's efforts to get at it. For all her rugby-forward frame, the dog is lightning fast. Keeping Mini at bay we slid open the patio door to let the mouse escape. The chances are that the rodent was brought upstairs as a plaything by Dear Heart the cat.



Wednesday early I ran Barbara to Faro airport. She is spending several days with Llewellyn and Lucia in London. The airport looked splendid. After years of work the hoardings and diversion signs have been removed from the revamped terminal. It's most impressive, both inside and out - much bigger and flanked by wide open spaces that are partially occupied by cafes and coffee-outlets. The place was heaving by 8 a.m.



We were lucky to miss a nasty accident on the motorway into Faro that had completely blocked both east-bound lanes. A tourist bus appeared to have driven into the back of a huge wet-cement truck, the bucket of which had gone right through the bus driver's window. I was returning home in the opposite direction. It was rush hour, the air was thick with sirens and the swelling traffic jam behind the accident stretched for miles.



It was subsequently reported that 15 people had been injured, several of them seriously - presumably the occupants of the bus, who were British tourists. Whether the driver fell asleep or suffered some sudden illness isn't known. The motorway, which is the main approach to the airport, was shut for five hours.  I fear that many people will have had to rebook their flights as a result of the delays.



Thursday morning we walked early to beat the heat. Then Prickles and I motored into Faro where I needed to renew my driving licence - now a biennial chore. That meant parking in the city centre underground garage, walking up to the Portuguese AA (the ACP) office, filling in the necessary forms - and finally presenting myself at the Forum Algarve Clinic for a (mercifully brief) medical. All done. Now I have only to sit back and await the arrival of my new licence - before repeating the procedure two years hence.



When I stopped on the way home at the Loule Car Wash, I came upon the bus involved in the previous day's crash. It was parked in an adjacent plot used as a base by the tow trucks. What a mess! How the driver emerged alive from that wreckage is hard to know.



Now for a change of scene. Llewellyn has been sending me occasional pictures of his and Barbara's visits to London attractions. Barbara always exploits her visits to the UK to catch up on her exhibitions. This picture was taken at Tate Britain.



And this one at Pimlico Underground station. Barbara is due back home on Saturday evening. In her absence, her cat-feeding duties have fallen on me. Below, contemplating the evening , are Squinty and Brave Heart. Out of the picture is Not Robbie, an adoptee who has recently moved in with them and Dear Heart the mouser.



Thursday evening: the Portuguese media are going dotty over The Wedding - Portugal having ditched its own royals just over a century ago. Wedding fever has not reached Espargal, not this bit of it. Our week has focused on gardening, strimming and ploughing as well as further work on Armenio's gallery and the usual merry go-round of chores that lubricate the grind of life. You'll have enough of your own not to need any further description of ours.

Letter from Espargal: 11 May 2018

MAY 2018
Ono is no longer with us. The old fellow lies buried 50 metres away in our field. He leaves a hole in our lives 18 years deep. A week ago he was still managing to stagger around the hills with us. But over the weekend he declined rapidly, unable to get to his feet unassisted. The last night we sat up with him. We were grateful to the vet for calling here on Tuesday morning and doubly grateful to neighbours who assisted us with the burial.


JANUARY 2004
We first came across Ono on New Year's Day 2001 in the veld a few hundred metres from our former home, the Quintassential. This is an excerpt (slightly shortened) from the letter that I wrote to my family a few days later.

Let me tell you about Ono. Jones and I were taking our usual afternoon walk about a week ago when we heard a strange wailing coming from somewhere down in the valley. We stopped to try to identify the location and the nature of the wailer but without success. Whether bird or beast it was hard to determine. So we walked on.

But we had only gone a hundred yards when we stopped again. The wailing continued all the while and the creature doing the wailing was clearly in distress. I looked at Jones and she looked at me. We agreed that we had better investigate. So we picked our way down a path towards the source of the noise. The wails were high-pitched and hard to pin down – like the rings of a mobile phone.

After some minutes we arrived at a large bush which appeared to be the focal point. Just then the wails ceased.  When I had pushed aside sufficient branches to peer into the innards of the bush, I saw there, under my feet, a tiny little black puppy, its eyes still closed, clearly in need of its mother.


EARLY 2001 - Terry, Ono, Mum, Cathy & Sammy

“It’s a puppy,” I called out to Jones who exclaimed “Oh no!” a cry she continued to utter with great feeling. Her distress was prompted less by the misfortune of the tiny animal than the dread she felt at the imminent arrival of another pet – or that, at least, is my suspicion.

Ono he became and Ono he remained for a quarter of our lives.


NOVEMBER 2006
His nest for the first few weeks was the sleeve of an old fur coat, warmed by a hot water bottle. For the next few months, he accompanied us on our walks, zipped inside my jacket. Over the years he became an experienced traveller, sitting bolt upright in the middle of the back seat of the car, staring through the windscreen. "The navigator" we called him. He has shared our bed as he has shared our lives. Now we hold him in our hearts.


VITOR AND SON, BERNARDO, AT ARMENIO'S GALLERY
That drama was all the more complicated because I had previously agreed with Vitor, the village mechanic, to drop the Honda off at his house on Monday evening for its annual service and road-check.


VITOR'S IMPRESSIVELY NEAT WOOD PILES
Under the Portuguese system all cars are examined at government-authorised centres at 4, 6 and 8 years of age, and every year thereafter. The check is rigorous, conducted on large computerised rigs. So we were carless on Tuesday. Vitor dropped the car back that evening. much impressed with the vehicle, now in its ninth year.  Indeed, it's the finest car I have owned or am likely to - and I've owned a few.



Dogs and cars aside, I've spent more hours down at Armenio's gallery hanging pictures and painstakingly filling in the outlined letters. The gallery's main problem is that the three-storey building - previously used as a storeroom - lacks any electrical circuits. The two floors housing the sculptures and the collection of agricultural implements enjoy little natural light and the question is how best to throw a little light on the display.


A MAN WENT TO MOW A MEADOW
It was pointed out to me that "liga" the word I'd used for "contact", was the informal form of the verb and that the formal form would be more suitable. Concerned to observe such niceties, I hastened to remedy this peccadillo by adding an "R" to the end.


REMOVING AN ENTRENCHED COLONY OF FERNS
For her part, Jones has plunged into her garden, which overflows with the largess of the late rains. A rock-enclosed area beside the house, known as the "secret garden", has been totally overtaken by ferns which, she has decided, now need to move on as they are suffocating the shrubs around them.



Some areas, like the old patio in front of Casa Nada, have surrendered entirely to wild flowers. Barbara's wheelbarrow groans under piles of redundant greenery and the compost heap grows daily more corpulent on the proceeds.


POPPY RIOT IN HORATIO'S FIELD
This week's English lesson sapped my energies. The different levels of fluency among English learners makes it hard work to teach a lesson that's useful to all.



Barbara snapped this picture of two snakes entwined in the path. At first I thought it was a romantic interlude but closer examination revealed a frog and a mysterious additional foot, as though of a monitor lizard.  (Over to any naturalists!) I was on the far side of the hill with the dogs at the time (as Jonesy first takes the stragglers on a short outing). The pair had slithered off by the time I arrived with the gang in tow. We always come across a few snakes as the weather warms but they do us no harm and we return the compliment.



This picture is mine. The true owners of Valapena are the ants that burrow away in every corner of the property. This lot appeared to be transferring seeds into a nest in the centre of our driveway, not with much success as the entrance was rather small and the seeds appeared to block it.



This gorgeous bird belongs, together with a number of other exotica, in a garden at the bottom of the village but likes to rove noisily around. Indeed, with his piercing cries, he makes a serious racket, the more so when he takes up station nearby. Mind you, if I were as handsome, I might well strut about myself. As they say: if you've got it, flaunt it!


BUDDING PYRAMID ORCHID
Wednesday afternoon we left the house to Natasha and the dogs. After spoiling ourselves with lunch at Cafe Q we proceeded to the extensive new MAR shopping complex on the outskirts of Loule. At the sprawling Leroy Merlin store there we found a solar-powered light - a display model going cheap - that should help resolve the gallery's lighting problems. It's a store in which I could easily idle away a few hours - and come home, as Jones observed, with a number of items I didn't know I needed.



Thursday I spent another hour working on Armenio's gallery before taking myself to Jodi for a toe-trim. Her studio is in Alte, a pretty village on the tourist trail some 20 minutes away (clearly visible from the house). Temperatures are already climbing into the mid-20s and the tourists much in evidence. They stick out like sore thumbs in their sandals and shorts - often getting charred to a shirtless cinder in the back of the tourist jeeps. Our former maid used to call them "the salmons" for their burned orange torsos.



So that's another week gone, one in which our thoughts are drawn repeatedly to our absent dog. Maybe somewhere there's a heaven with flower-filled meadows where the pets of yesteryear still roam free!

Letter from Espargal: 4 May 2018

Thursday pm: One of the mysteries of life is that one can occupy oneself busily for days on end and yet remember little of exactly how. It's got so bad that even recalling what happened yesterday is often a struggle. The sheer effort can be exhausting.



Here, a bit like the parishioner who fiercely protested to fellow worshippers that he'd been praying not snoozing,  I can be seen trying to recall events for the blog.



Happily, some of them have come to mind. My farmer neighbour, Armenio, and I have been working on his little gallery and museum. Yesterday - that's to say Wednesday afternoon - I joined him there to attach the little Portuguese flag to the wall as a passerby attention-getter. I had already stencilled the exhibition's name on the wall and added his mobile phone number. (Regrettably I didn't have a stencil for the digits!)



Together, we also attached to the otherwise bare interior walls three photos that I had taken of our recent visit there. To his delight, the sign has already attracted the attention of the passing tourist jeeps and brought him several visitors - people who warmly and deservedly complimented his efforts - as his visitor's book attests. I translated for him the English and Dutch comments it bears.



And this was the brimming bucket of newly-picked fava beans that we found this morning alongside our gate by way of thanks. Jones and I both love fava beans. We have cultivated a few of our own but they still wait in the lower field to be picked, all but invisible among the weeds that surround them.



What we have done is to turn our minds to the garden, in this instance to the ivy that is steadily making its way up the tree. You will have to overlook the elderly sagging joggers. The tie-cord has slipped and the elastic is giving way. While Jones is particular about which pictures of her I put up on the blog, I'm for warts and all. What you see is what you get.



The dogs love it when we set about the garden. They follow us around and take a keen interest in our activities. Here's Bobby perched on an ivy cushion atop an adjacent rock, the better to keep an eye on things.



Bobby loves a little attention. In fact, he loves a lot of attention. So, for that matter do most of the others and we're hard pressed to keep up with their emotional needs, never mind nutritional and recreational requirements.


ASSISTING ONO UP THE STEPS
In particular, Ono - now in his 18th year - is suddenly finding the steps on our walks beyond his abilities. He is lame, he struggles to get up from his basket and he tends to fall over in the garden when he goes to take a pee, leaving himself helpless. He is also very restless at night. So, he's a lot of work both physically and emotionally.



16.26 Interruption there as an expat neighbour phones to alert me to a fire in the valley between us and Alte. He speaks truly. The flames are clearly visible from our balcony 2kms away. Jones struggles to focus the camera while I alert the fire service.



We reckon it was 15 minutes before the Loule-based helicopter clattered low overhead. It disappeared over the far hills to take on water and returned minutes later to douse the flames - releasing a momentary waterfall from its scoop. It was a photographer's dream shot but much to our disappointment the camera wouldn't play ball.



Here you see Jimmy and Celine, a visiting French Canadian couple to whom Barbara has chatted each evening on her waifs and strays' run, giving them ideas about what best to see. I met the couple briefly at the Hamburgo last night before their return to Quebec today. They say they'll be interested to follow the blog. It shouldn't do them any harm.


WALKIES!
Somewhere during the week I had another cardiac test and was reassured to hear that my heart was still beating satisfactorily. We visited the notary to sign over the title of a property that we sold to a neighbour, who has paid it off in installments. I taught an English lesson on Portugals's Golden Visa system, which is allegedly catering to a lot of dubious millionaires. And Slavic and I did a lot of strimming. There's a lot more strimming to follow tomorrow.


Sufficient unto the week!

Letter from Espargal: 27 April 2018

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!