Letter from Espargal:41 of 2008

A Quantum of Solace at the Algarve Forum made for a pleasantly explosive start to our week. We thought the film good value. We’re agreed that Daniel Craig is the best of the Bonds, better even than Sean Connery, although some might regret the move away from style to hard-edged action. Jonesy, who dislikes film violence, said the whole plot was so fantastical that the string of killings didn’t bother her. Certainly, our hero displays a remarkable ability to survive the most ferocious episodes, suffering just a few scratches while disposing of formidable villains.

The large courtyard at the Forum was ablaze with a vast artificial tree. As much as I resent the arrival of Christmas in November (when Advent’s abstinence would be more pertinent), I had to admire the tree. It is so big that I had difficulty capturing the whole image with my phone camera.

Our real digital camera, a Canon Ixus, has given up the ghost. No, I exaggerate. The camera’s not quite dead but all it records now are fuzzy spectra. I know nothing about the innards of a digital camera but our guests, Mike and Lyn, who are camera buffs, suggested a failed “CCD” – a charge-coupled device.

A google search soon revealed numerous unhappy camera owners complaining about the failings of these sensors. Like ourselves, the complainants found that their cameras suddenly ceased to function. Those with cameras under warranty, or who tried to claim insurance, were generally accused of having dropped the camera – a charge that all denied. The long and the short of it is that it’s cheaper to buy a new camera than a new CCD.

Also reaching the end of their lives were two of my long-suffering Tilley hats. (For the uninitiated, Mr Tilley – a Canadian – claims to make the best cotton hats in the world, and probably does.) Mine have borne the heat and burden of the years, being much patched and repaired in the process. Hard-wearing as they are, they don’t last the claimed life-time. However – and this is the point – Tilley guarantees to replace free of charge any (properly-registered) hat that is honestly worn out.

So, I posted the two old hats along to Mr Tilley in Toronto, along with a picture of me wearing his headgear (I look remarkably like him) and a polite note, wondering whether he’d like to send me one new hat for two old ones.Sure enough, this week a parcel arrived from Canada. In it were TWO new Tilley hats, together with the old ones. All I had to pay was the postage. Well, I tell you, Mr Tilley has a customer for life. I regret that in the best of worlds I can’t see myself wearing out all my Tilleys - both new “work” hats, my existing work hat and 3 “going-out” Tilleys – one that I bought, one from Mum and one from Mike Nash. I might just set up a Tilley shop, aimed at people with big heads.


Tuesday evening, after dropping Natasha at the Alto Fica bus stop (5 mins away), we retired into the adjacent Madrugada (Daybreak) café for a coffee and a stiff baggy.

We needed the baggy after spending much of the afternoon searching for two awol dogs, which Jones eventually discovered exhausted in the back of beyond and we brought home in the car.
THE BOYS

From Natilia, behind the bar, we heard that the statue of the Virgin
from Fatima would be processing from the hamlet to Espargal on the evening of the 20^th . We knew that the image was spending a couple of weeks in this area as part of an extended tour of Portugal. The faithful will march in procession behind the statue, holding candles, along the 2 km route to the village.
SCHOOL BEING PAINTED
The statue will stop for a service at the school, which is being repainted for the occasion. We shall probably go along, even if we have to admit to joining the ranks of the merely curious. Fatima is important to our more pious neighbours, most of whom have visited the shrine.

Among the gathered patrons in the café was Jorge Vieira, a serious local farmer, who spends his summers working in the fields and his winters hunting. He invited us to help ourselves to his tomatoes, as they'd been damaged by the rain and he was no longer picking them. And so we did. We could have filled a truck. Jorge confided that he’d be going after wild boar under a (nearly) full moon the following evening. He waits for them, rifle fitted with night-sight at the ready, in his pick-up. He’d already baited the target area with piles of almond nuts, which the piggies simply adore. I wished him luck. Jones said she was on the side of the piggies.

What success he had, I haven’t heard. What I can tell you is that he somehow graunched the big scarifier he hauls behind an even bigger tractor, shearing the heavy metal arms. The force must have been terrific – probably caused by the teeth hooking under a rock. The local welder, Dinis, was preparing to fix the thing when I took my own scarifier around to him on Thursday to have plough plates attached to it.

Thursday morning we took leave of Mike and Lyn, who have returned to their home on the Isle of Wight. Like us they revel in the Portuguese countryside and, ironically, they know a great deal more about the flora and fauna than their hosts. They were lucky with the weather. The current 10-day forecast shows 10 little suns. A little rain would be so welcome.

YAPPER HOUSE
Our moment of drama came this week as we were passing a house where several little dogs often come hurtling out to protest at our passage. They’re harmless but very distracting and tend to upset our lot. As we were keeping an eye on the yappers, Ono suddenly dived into a hedge. Simultaneously there came a loud squawk from the hedge, a shriek from Jones and a great tug on Ono’s lead. Ono came flying back out of the hedge with his mouth full of feathers and got severely reprimand for his sins. I could find no sign of the assaulted bird. Hopefully, only its plumage suffered.

THE CHICKENS

Also suffering, but far more severely, has been the pound sterling against foreign currencies. We watched in dismay as it nose-dived against both the euro and the dollar. The British government is saddling itself with debt in a bid to ride out the recession and the side-effects for pound-paid expats are really bruising. Oh for the heady days when the pound fetched a 1.6 euros plus . It’s now (10.15 on Friday morning) 1.16 and heading for parity. One starts to understand how the Icelanders are feeling. Some of those Tilley hats may come in useful when we sing for our supper.

This multi-legged little fellow was spotted by Jones as she crossed the road. I don't know whether he packs a sting. I didn't fiddle around with him. He brought back old memories to my wife, who was woken up in bed at the Quinta one night by one of his mates. It was crawling across her body. (Jones doesn't "do" pyjamas). She nearly freaked. She still shudders at the memory.


And finally, while we're into images, I was tickled pink by the HIS and HERS signs outside the loos at Odeceixe during our recent visit to the Alentejo. We had to look twice. That's imagination for you.

Letter from Espargal: 40 of 2008

We are back from the Alentejo (the large province just north of the Algarve). Pleasant as it was to be away, it is even pleasanter to be back, especially to such a comfortable home as ours. As our write, our guests are usefully employed. Lyn is making supper and Mike is trying to fix our digital camera, which has reduced itself to taking blurry stripes. Fortunately, my phone-camera is still functioning and the pictures will speak for themselves.

It was on Tuesday morning that we packed the car and set off. The packing called for some care as most of the back seat was occupied by our smaller dogs, Ono and Prickles, and the entire rear section was taken up by our larger dog, Raymond. (Such luggage as we took was squeezed in behind the front seats.) The little guys are seasoned travellers. Raymond’s case is more complicated. He gets very noisy when he sees other dogs and very car sick. We have reduced the problem by starving him before taking him on journeys. Fortunately, he always sicks up in the same corner, an area that we cover with a relay of towels, which are replaced, shaken out (yuck!) and rinsed at frequent intervals.

We took several hours to ease our way up the west coast to our destination, a country cottage that we had found on the internet under a “Pets accepted” heading. It’s in the hills near the tiny village of Troviscais. Getting no response from the owner’s mobile number, we obtained (somewhat vague) directions at Maria’s cafe. Following these, we set out down a beaten track through a forested area. Happily we soon came across the owner, a woman architect, who was alerted to our presence by her five yapping dogs. Hopping into her 4x4, she led us a kilometre from her house down a steep slatey road to the cottage, deep in the valley below.


The cottage (see http://www.casasdacerca.com/uk.html) won our instant approval. It was made of large clay bricks (known as taipa) and had been sympathetically restored. Downstairs were the kitchen, bathroom and dining room. A staircase, built into the dining room wall, led upstairs to the lounge and bedroom.

Happily, because the nights were cold and damp, the house came with a big fireplace and loads of firewood. It also had Sat TV, which was welcome (once I’d worked it out) because the evenings were long and the low-energy lights made reading difficult. I sat up late on US election night and was much relieved at the result, however poisoned the chalice that awaits the victor. (The possibility of a President Palin down the line was utterly terrifying!)

Around the hillside from us were a few cottages, which we passed on our afternoon circuit. Like most in the Alentejo, they were painted white with blue window and door surrounds. Once or twice we came across Portuguese workers – either cleaners or builders. Of the occupants we saw no sign.

Because of its situation, our cottage got the sun late and lost it early. The valley was moist and mosquitoes abounded. We kept the doors and windows shut. The broad Mira river was a 15-minute walk away, past barbed-wire and electric fences intended to keep cattle in and wild pigs (we think) out. Numerous brown cows, each with a clanking bell dangling from its neck, wandered down from the eucalyptus-clad hills in the morning and back up in the evening. We wondered how effective the electric fencing was. It certainly did the job, judging by the howl Raymond let out after brushing against a wire.

One night we crept up the track to Troviscais, past the big Alsatians that guarded the adjacent farm, to sup at Maria’s café. Locals, showing zero interest in the US elections, sat around, watching first a game show and then the football.



For the rest we picnicked in front of the TV at home. The dogs would settle down in their baskets in front of the fire. Like them we tended to retire early. They’d wake us up for a 06.00 pee and then sleep for another two hours. After breakfast, we’d walk an hour-circuit up into the hills and back down past the river. Then we’d pile into the car, do a bit of exploring and spend some time at one of the great empty beaches that stretch away down the coast.

Our favourite was at Almograve. Typically, it was lined with towering cliffs and studded with spectacular outcrops of rock. Raymond would rush up and down the sands at high speed, deliberately brushing the other dogs as he ran. They would clearly have loved to join him but resisted the temptation for fear of being knocked flying.

LOOKING DOWN ON ODEMIRA

Close by was the historic town (Romans & Moors), of Odemira through which the River Mira flows. The town is attractive, clinging to the steep hillsides above the river. It’s full of character, having made just a few essential compromises with modernity. Wooden stairs and stone steps provide short cuts to upper and lower parts of the town. We really liked the place.
THIS IS NOT A TREE

A tree set in a roundabout turned out to be a sculpture made entirely of scraps of iron.

And thus the days passed.



But I run ahead of myself. For the great event of the past week was the Benafim parish walk last Sunday. Hundreds of people turned out. The more serious and athletic types entered themselves in either the 8 or 16 km run/s, bounding away from the starting line in a great show of energy. The majority, including ourselves (and the inevitable dogs) opted for the 5 km or the 10 km walk. I signed up for the longer walk at the control booth and got a couple of numbers to attach to our backs, unaware that these were intended only for the runners (something that was pointed out to me by a polite gentleman halfway through the course).

We covered our 10 kms in two hours. Much of the route was along familiar tracks. Although the walks were not intended as races, most folk were making good time.

I was impressed by the general level of fitness. We walk two hours a day and think that we’re in pretty good shape but it wasn’t until the last steep uphill back into Benafim that we started overhauling those in front of us, some of them much older than ourselves. Our fellow walkers included our Dutch neighbours, to whom I’m indebted for the blog pictures.

Afterwards, as we relaxed on the patio at the Snackbar Coral, we saw the parish priest leading a large “All Souls” procession. It was going down the road from the church to the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. Most of those processing were female and elderly, albeit with a good sprinkling of odds and sods. As they passed, they sang a hymn. I was taken back to an earlier life in distant lands. Pass the baggy, Jones. How the times change!

Letter from Espargal: 39 of 2008

Let me open a wormhole into Casa Valapena this Friday morning. We are just returned from our usual trek through the valley. The tarred roads glistened from the overnight rain and we were forced to dodge around the broad puddles on the gravel roads. Jones begged a couple of lemons from the woman who lives in the house of “bichos” (a bicho can be any creature from a grub to an ugly person) and received a bagful, straight from the tree, along with the invitation to help herself in future. We made it back home just in time to beat an incoming shower.

In the house, some light classical music is competing with the churning of the washing machine and the insistent meowing of the ever-hungry cats. A fire glimmers in the wood-burning stove, just sufficient to bring a little cheer to a dull end-of-October day. The dogs are settled in their baskets. That’s apart from Raymond who knows that he has to lie down if he comes inside. He has just been thrown out for sneaking through to the kitchen to consume the cat biscuits. Jones, soft-hearted (when it comes to animals), is bound to let him in again shortly.

That reminds me. Another stray has been running around the village. It looks like an Alaskan malamute. Our dogs go beserk when they see it. It’s as if they know that it has no right to be here. We understand that its owner, from a village a few miles away, has been looking for it. But when he’s around the dog isn’t – and vice versa. The bicho house woman said it had been running around there early in the day.

It’s been an up and down week, like most I guess. On the positive side, I managed to sow our beans and peas, two lines of each, before the rain arrived yesterday. To do this, I had to borrow an implement from my neighbour, Joachim Sousa. Like most small farmers, he doesn’t keep both a scarifier and small plough but merely attaches the plough plates to the teeth of his scarifier. (That’s what I used to do as well but the nuts and bolts on my (not so) new, large scarifier are hopelessly rusted and I can’t undo them to get the plates on.)

Keeping it simple – I took the tractor around to Joachim’s place, where he helped me fit the scarifier. I was very grateful for his assistance. The implement is big and heavy, and the very devil to attach. (You have to line up the fittings in the rear hydraulic arms exactly.) Once it was on, the rest was easy. I had my field ploughed within the hour and Joachim’s scarifier back with him the same morning, along with a good bottle of wine.

I also (this is the last paragraph on scarifiers, I promise) arranged with Dinis down the road at Alto Fica to take mine down to his welding shop, along with the plough plates, midweek in order to fix the problem. I arrived at his house at the agreed time to find only his dogs in situ. They gave me a loud if fairly good-natured barking. Folks at the local café gave me Dinis’s mobile phone number but all I got when I called was the wrong kind of beeps.

Returning to the subject of neighbourly relations, those with another Espargalian have, regrettably, taken a dip. The gentleman in question is a strange old fellow, who lives by himself and doesn’t often join in the village corner conversations. He owns several fields, none of which he tends. With his permission, Jones and I have been looking after one of them, “the running field”, close to the house, the better to pass through it with the dogs and to enjoy the fruit on the trees.

At the top of this field is a smallish carob tree in the midst of a weed thicket. The carobs on it have never been picked. So we thought it a good idea to haul out the weeds (Jones spent hours at it) and present the owner with a sack of carobs. It was a mistake. The man wasn’t pleased. He gave me a five-minute lecture on picking other people’s carobs without their permission. He also asserted that he had agreed to allow a third-party to pick the carobs, which was nonsense although I thought it sensible not to tell him so. I have dumped the carobs back under the tree (where his imaginary picker may find them) and thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie.

To celebrate some good fortune – a belated pension pay-out from the SABC - I have bought myself a new watch. It’s quite a special watch, designed to run on light-energy and to reset itself from a radio signal. In order to save money, I ordered one from Amazon in the UK, where they are 25% cheaper than in the local shops. I tried to impress on Jones its ecological qualities and my efforts to save money. She felt that it would have been better to save 100% by not getting the watch at all. Jones can be very obtuse about these things.

Anyhow, it’s a very beautiful watch, a bit big and heavy but acceptably so in view of the technology it incorporates. I’m several hours into my study of the lengthy instruction manual. I’m sure that once I’ve worked out how the thing functions that I shall be even more pleased with it. It’s not a watch whose wearer is supposed to set the time. One informs the watch of the nearest city and it decides for itself what the time should be. One small disadvantage that I have discovered is that Portugal lies (just) outside the range of the radio transmitter in Germany that corrects the time (if required) several times a day.

Speaking of which, our clocks went back last weekend. Like the people of Britain, we will spend the winter in GMT or, if you prefer, UTC.

I’ve made a couple of visits to the post office to inquire about the savings schemes it offers. On my second visit, the clerk, recognising me, called me to the desk to give me some information. This greatly irritated waiting people who had numbered tickets ahead of mine. One of them protested to the clerk about my intrusion and was told that I didn’t need a ticket. She wasn’t pleased. I hurried away, feeling like a scoundrel.


We have visited Faro fair, where one finds the best ham and cheese sandwiches in the Algarve, as well as a selection of the latest cars and tractors. All sorts of charitable enterprises muster volunteers to beg donations from the public. Some of the volunteers are shy about practising their awkward English on estrangeiros. Others don't hesitate. Being charmed out of a few euros is fair game.


From the fair we went to a performance by the Portuguese army band - 100 strong and very impressive. The occasion was army day and the auditorium was awash with military types. It was not difficult to distinguish the brass from the base-metal but we found ourselves struggling to make out the various lower ranks from the range of insignia. Whatever the case, the music was good and much enjoyed.

Jones has been maintaining her busy Portuguese schedule, going to Maria and Elsa for tea and conversation and immersing herself in Portuguese exercises with Olly and Marie. This coming week will be an exception. On Sunday we are expecting guests, to whom we’ll leave the house and cats next week when we take ourselves and the dogs off to the Alentejo for a three- or four-night stay. The duration will depend on the weather and how we like it. We will probably be out of email contact.

Letter from Espargal: 38 of 2008

If we were to compare perfect days, today might qualify as the Algarvian entry. The vine leaves are reddening under a mellow sun in the gentlest breeze. I love it. We are back from a trek across the valley to look for fallen plums in the orchard half way to Benafim. There weren’t any – none that had survived the rain. Instead, we sought shiny stones (quartz) to extend the crystal path in the garden and wallowed in the pleasure of being alive and active on such a day.

It was not so earlier in the week when we were assailed by thunderstorms that had us huddling around a fire for comfort. A flash and terrific clap of thunder overhead knocked out the electricity mid afternoon, imposing our first candlelit evening in years. It was close to midnight before power was restored.


But it isn’t the weather that’s been on our minds. This honour goes to a court case in which I and a number of friends were called to give evidence. It was my first hands-on experience of the Portuguese judicial system, as well as the first time I’ve testified in court - no big deal but quite tense nonetheless. All my sympathies lay with the complainant; the defendant is a disputatious former neighbour who will, I hope, get his comeuppance in due course.

Both were in the court, along with their counsel, the judge (an attractive young woman) and the usual lackeys. Witnesses, with the assistance of a translator, were questioned by the judge and lawyers for both parties. Also testifying were our friends and former neighbours, David and Dagmar, and another friend, Mike Wood.

At issue was the access to our former home, the Quintassential, across a strip of land that belongs to the awkward neighbour. When we bought the property 22 years ago, our access was guaranteed by the then owners, the neighbour’s parents. But the contract they signed was never notarised, which meant it carried less authority, matters of which we knew nothing at the time.

The case was brought by the Quintassential’s new owners against the neighbour, who had been harassing them to create a totally new entrance on the far side of the property (all but impossible) or, otherwise, to move their gate and enter by a different access route (awkward and impractical). This neighbour doesn’t actually live next door. The problem has arisen because he built a large villa (which he can’t sell) on the property and he resents the passage of other people’s vehicles across a corner of his land.

The interesting bit is to know how he obtained permission to build in the first place because, as I and other witnesses testified, we had never come across a ruin that might justify the later construction of a house. Ruins serve to show that a property was once occupied and generally persuade the authorities to permit a new construction. This issue might be important to the outcome of the case – if it transpires that the neighbour falsely claimed to have a ruin, with the connivance of a corrupt official.

QUINTASSENTIAL 1988
That evening, I went through Jones’s bulging picture scrap book and found a number of pictures that were taken shortly after we had finished building at the Quinta. They clearly show the neighbour’s property below the Quinta -. with no sign of any ruin. I emailed the pictures to the new owners. The disagreeable fellow may come to rue the day that the dispute went to court.

We joined David and Dagmar to see the latest film of the Coen brothers (of whom we’re fans), a black comedy, Burn after Reading. It hasn’t had great write-ups but we came away well satisfied.

Jones has had a very Portuguese week. After Portuguese lessons on Monday she went to tea with Maria of the Conception.
JONES,MARIA & HER DOG - RAYMOND'S DAD

On Wednesday she joined other expats at Elsa’s house for tea and Portuguese conversation – a new venture. Tuesday and Thursday she went through Portuguese exercises with Marie and Olly. I tried joining in this revision but found my companions too technical and precise for my taste. They want to know what the rule is (a Jones strong point), which verb tenses are required and why. I prefer to go with the flow. I guess it’s whatever works for you.

During one neighbourly visit, we were summoned next door by mad Dina into the cottage she shares with old Chico. Although she is unable to speak, other than a few barely-decipherable words, Dina loves to sit in front of the telly. The picture was fine but the audio was lacking and Dina was understandably unhappy. We fiddled around with the wires and aerial but were unable to restore the sound.

Later we were able to secure another elderly set in working order, which I took around to the cottage. Stepping carefully across the food-strewn floor and between puddles of dubious liquids, I installed the set in the front room. Dina was thrilled to have her programmes back. She laughed wildly and tried to hug her knight-errant. She's a large woman with a vast bust, whose hugs are better avoided. Side-stepping the hospitality that was being pressed upon me, I made my escape.

Early next month we are expecting guests, whose sojourn gives us the opportunity to spend a few days away. I searched the internet for hours for a venue that would take dogs (sadly, our favourite dog-taking pousada is closed at the moment) and eventually came across a holiday cottage in the Alentejo whose owner was prepared to have us.

In preparation for this, we have been allowing Raymond inside the house (where he has to lie down on a mat) and taking him for outings in the car.
MOVE OVER

While the other dogs travel on the back seat, Raymond is consigned to the rear. If the journey lasts more than a few minutes, he is messily car sick. Yuck! I have been busy cleaning the car and Jones equally busy putting our dog towels through the laundry.

Such episodes aside, the dog is growing both affectionate and obedient. He loves to play with his brother, Bobby, who is smaller but more assertive. Bobby was adopted by an 88-year old neighbour, Zeferino, who remains fit and active in spite of his advanced years.
We came across the pair of them during one of our walks and joined them for the next hour through the fields and orchards.

The final kilometre of the route home can be taken either gently by road or up the slopes of Puffer Hill, where the paths are steep, stony and slippery. Zeferino opted to accompany us up the hill. Our doubts about the wisdom of this proved to be needless. Although the old man was slow he didn’t falter, declining any support. It gives one hope for the years ahead.

Letter from Espargal: 37 of 2008

In view of the growing demand for the rescue of vehicles in distress, I am giving consideration to going commercial. You will be aware (if you’ve been diligent) of the recent rescue of Mr Frosty’s lorry after the driver had graunched his differential while making an ill-advised 3-point turn. Well, hard on its heels came a call-out to save a neighbour from a sandy fate on the banks of the Algibre river.

Fintan’s plea for assistance reached me as I was concluding a purchase in the spare parts department of VW in Faro.
In consequence, he and his son, David, had to wait an hour to be rescued while I drove home and fetched the tractor. Even so, when I arrived at the scene I found the pair of them in good humour although I have it from impeccable sources that the air had earlier turned blue. (It’s not that the river was in flood or that there was any danger to life; in fact, there was hardly a puddle to be seen in the river-bed.)

The problem was that their car was firmly stuck in a steep, sandy rut near the ford where the tourist jeeps cross. (We provided a diversion for one of them.) It wasn’t the easiest of rescues. The car’s tow-point was awkwardly concealed behind its low-slung front spoiler and David had the devil of a job trying to thread the thick rope through it. Once he had managed this, Kioti hauled the car to safety with his usual SOS nonchalance.

Another minor adventure called for rather more effort, although not on the part of the tractor. This one entailed the removal, what my wife refers to as a “repatriation”, of a rock – nay, more of a boulder - that had taken her fancy. She had long admired the this particular stone and was thoroughly put out to find it pushed aside during the road making activities of the machines that have been grunting around the area. As we passed by with the dogs, Jones ventured the opinion that the rock would look good on our property (never mind that it weighed half a ton).

The hint was clear. Armed with two large crowbars, I drove to the scene – about a kilometre away. As usual when collecting large rocks (we have a line of them along the bottom of the property) I was able to back the tractor up and wedge the base of the box underneath it. But strain as I might, I couldn’t get the thing on board. Nor could I both lever the rock and hold it up while I tried to slip smaller stones
underneath it.


It so happened, as I was puffing and heaving, that a neighbour, Liz Brown, came strolling past with her dogs. Accustomed as she is to local eccentricities, she still evinced some surprise at my antics. I explained the situation. One has to hand it to Liz. She is not the sort to watch a man making a fool of himself without assisting him, and with barely a comment about some neighbours’ proclivities, she put her shoulder to the boulder. Between us, in a matter of minutes, we’d shoved
that jolly stone on to the back of the tractor.

Getting if off again, at the entrance to one of the fields, was easy by comparison. I’d planned not to say anything to Jones (who was having tea with Maria of the Conception) but she was alerted by another neighbour to my activities and pleased to find the handsome stone now firmly ensconced in a position where it was unlikely to be further disturbed.

Midweek we fetched Natasha, who was unhappy with aspects of her young son, Alex’s, new bicycle, and took her to the shopping centre where she’d bought it on the outskirts of Faro. It was apparently missing a bell and other features. While she confronted the sales staff, we took a leisurely coffee. Back at the car she confessed that she’d had no luck. Other bicycles came with a range of extras but hers
apparently did not. We stopped for an hour on the way back to install an anti-virus suite on a friend’s computer (Kaspersky’s – I really like it); then another hour to attach some more racks to the walls of Natasha’s flat.

JONES WITH HALO

By the time we’d finished, our haloes were burnished to a gleaming dazzle.

On Thursday we took ourselves to the opening a small art exhibition at a fancy hotel near the coast. One of the artists, Liv Wedset, is a fellow pupil in our Portuguese class. Several other class members arrived to lend support.
Jones, who is the family art fundi, was impressed by what she saw and resolved to acquire a number of pictures as soon as we win the Euromillions lottery.

From there we continued to a celebratory supper at the Adega. We are about to mark our 29^th wedding anniversary. I had duck rice, Jones stuck to her usual salad and we shared a really classy bottle of wine. (I needed a small baggy to restore my nerves earlier in the week after hearing from a friend, who’d been on a Scandinavian cruise, of the wicked price of beer and wine.)

One of the two brothers who run the restaurant was comparing building woes with a party of Dutch guests. He’d tried to build his own house, he told them, but was eventually defeated, not by the construction but by the impenetrable wall of bureaucracy that surrounded it.

Friday dawned cloudy. We took ourselves on a long trek through the hills. Half way down the road (now under re-construction) to the river we found our passage blocked. Two large machines were creating a culvert. One of them, a picapau was bashing its way laboriously through solid rock. All the holes that have been drilled for
electricity posts are also into solid rock. We conclude that our hill is a big lump of rock, like several others around us that are now giant quarries. On the far side we ran into more machines and people, erecting poles and running cables through them. All these poles appear to be intended to take electricity to a single remote house. Either that or there's a vast secret project about to unfold.

Fintan and Pauline invited us around to their house in the afternoon to meet son Geoffrey and his wife, Yvonne. Pauline is famous for her teas. We went, of course. At one point I went outside to give the dogs leg-lifters, only to bump into the tractor salesman from Benafim. One of his new tractors, identical to mine, had been incorrectly wired and wouldn't function for more than a few minutes before overheating. So he wanted to check the wiring on mine. I took him home to show him.

I’ve been scarifying our fields in preparation for the showers that are forecast for tomorrow. They’ve turned green, already, after last week’s rain. The weeds grow so fast that they reseed themselves within a matter of weeks. Some villagers are already planting fava beans. That will be our next task. We’ve nearly finished consuming last season’s, beans that Jones has stored in the freezer, and they’re as good as new.

P.S. Take a look at this fruit. Do you recognise it? I'm prepared to bet that you don't. No it isn't a tomato. It's a persimmon, given to us by Leonhilda. My wife tells me that one has to eat them very ripe. The skin is bitter and must be peeled. There you have it.