Letter from Espargal: 18 of 2011

Dawn Friday: Our fences are finished. That sentence encompasses more wire, metal and work than you can easily imagine – hundreds of metres of fencing, dozens of poles, litres of paint and the same amount of perspiration. The final result is both pleasing and practical.

We now have one fence around the house and garden, most of it hidden by trees, and another encircling the larger property where the dogs may run to their hearts’ content. Already we are playing the most exciting games of Hide (me) and Seek (them). They leap upon the discovered me in biscuit-expectant glee.

FENCES GONE

At the same time, the old wire fences - that marked the border between our original property and the newly acquired plot – have been ripped out. I took two bulging tractor loads of chain-link fencing around to Steve’s lorry, to be dumped at a scrap-metal yard.

As a result of the changes, the garden has suddenly expanded by half an acre, an unruly half-acre, much in need of attention.

I have spent several hours with a strimmer taking out the worst of weeds that have reigned supreme there these several years past.

GLORIOUS PYRAMID ORCHID AMONG THE WEEDS

More hours lie ahead, as many as I can fit in these next few days before we take ourselves on holiday.

That’s a deadline that has been approaching uncomfortably fast. Our house-sitters are due on Sunday evening. Monday brings my final English lesson. On Tuesday we pack the car and depart (on the first stage of the holiday), all the while trying to think up ruses to distract the dogs, which won’t understand why they can’t come.

The plan is to spend the first 4 nights at a B&B in Cordoba, (an historic Spanish city that we’ve long wanted to visit). From there we take a leisurely drive back across the Portuguese border to the vast Alqueva dam (Europe’s biggest) on which we are renting a boat for three days. (http://www.amieiramarina.com/)

There are numerous towns and villages dotted around the shoreline, more than 1,000 kms of it, where one can moor up, dine or simply wander.

The final leg is a small, once deserted village, Aldeia de Pedralva, in the south western corner of Portugal (http://www.aldeiadapedralva.com/) that has been bought up and turned into holiday houses. Llewellyn and Lucia paid it a visit during their stay – they flew home early on Tuesday morning – and gave it the thumbs up. I overheard Jones saying she’d love to spend a few days there, and obliged. It’s the kind of place where you do very little except walk and read, and possibly visit the wild west coast beaches.

From Pedralva we return home to Espargal for two nights that will prove the first serious test of the Bijou Ensuite; the main house will be fully occupied by our house-sitters and their in-laws. Jones’s little jewel is already quite habitable but she has been pressing for the finishing touches.

Here let me interrupt myself to say that a Dutch couple, who provide a variety of domestic services, have spent most of Friday assisting us, first with those finishing touches and then in the garden, especially the garden extension. With much assistance from my wife and some from me, they performed wonders. The place looks almost ready for the arrival of the house sitters.

The second stage of the holiday, to continue my story, is a Baltic cruise – our first visit to that part of the world. We fly to Copenhagen, where we spend a couple of days before joining the ship. The cruise takes in the port cities of half a dozen countries bordering the Baltic. The highlight is St Petersburg, where the ship spends two full days. It’s the only city where, of necessity, we have booked shore excursions. For the rest, we intend to do our touring ourselves.

I should add that this is my first cruise and Jonesy’s second. (She spent six weeks some years ago escorting an older friend on a Mediterranean and East African voyage.) The company (NCL) offers relaxed cruising – no formal dining and no formal clothes. The vessel sails mainly at night and ties up during the day. I spent long hours researching the possibilities and the reading the reviews before committing us. (I fume over the cruise company ruse of advertising artificially low prices and then bunging on so-called gratuities and fuel surcharges.)

It is likely that we will have only intermittent access to internet and mobile phone comms during our absence, especially in the last week of May and the first week of June. Blog updates may have to await our return home on June 5.

June 5 also happens to be the day that the Portuguese go the polls. Although Portuguese elections attract little international attention, this one will be all about the austerity programme that the IMF, ECB and EU troika are demanding in return for a 78-billion euro bailout.

It’s an election that we will watch with some nervousness, not only because we will be hit by additional taxes but also because of the real doubts about the country’s ability to repay such a loan. The consequences of a Portuguese default down the road, on top of a looming Greek default, would be really scary.

Letter from Espargal: 17 of 2011

While most of our weeks are sociable, this one has been more sociable than usual. In fact, it's a blur of sociability that's proving quite difficult to get into focus. One of the spurs for this outburst of social interaction was the arrival last Sunday of Llewellyn and Lucia. He's a dab hand with a camera and I'm pleased to be able to promote his work. Here we are at the Coral.

The big event of the week, apart from that wedding, was the inauguration of the Bijou Ensuite. Friends and neighbours were invited around for snacks, conversation and, of course, to admire our achievements. For the occasion my tractor was turfed unceremoniously out into the cold and its residence turned into an informal parlour.

An upturned section of roofing panel made for a useful table top. Jones had planned to set up things outside but threatening weather scuppered the plans. The weather hasn't just threatened, mind you.

Ferocious thunder storms have rocked the valleys. A downpour towards the end of the week flooded roads and dumped over an inch of rain on us within an hour. The car was throwing up twin wakes on our return from Benafim.

On several occasions my wife joined the two Ls on an outing, trusting me to run the ship in her absence.

One of these was the first leg of the "Sovereign Mother" festival, a colourful parade during which the statue of the Virgin is carried down the hill to Loule from an historic church on the outskirts of the town.

This event is taken equally seriously by both the faithful and the faithless, to say nothing of the bearers, who train hard for the task, which requires both fitness and stamina.

They move almost at a jog with a strange side-to-side bob. To be appointed a bearer is considered a great honour.

Crowds line the streets and follow the procession up to a church on the square.

Here the Virgin presides until it's time for her to be marched back up the hill again.


Our visitors, unlike ourselves are beach people. Few days out do not take in one of the many beaches along the southern and western coasts.

One afternoon, however, they decided to try the local river, 2 kms away.

They report that they were initially dissuaded by the sight of two snakes swimming through the water.

However they waded upstream until they found the pool at the foot of the weir, where they plunged in.

There, fortunately, they encountered no more snakes. Instead they found themselves the centre of attention of a shoal of small fish that nibbled the dry skin from the swimmers' flesh, a goose-pimply experience. We are given to understand that such skin nibbling is available from select beauty parlours at considerable cost.

While the others were having fun, I was hard at work back at base, caring for the animals, weeding the garden and cleaning the house. Note Raymond filching biscuits from my pockets as I labour away.

On the subject of biscuits, let me mention that while most of the dogs are gobblers, Ono is a cautious eater and Pricks likes to guard his biscuits for a suitable moment. The pups, on the other hand, swallow theirs with a single crunch and then look around for any crumbs. Here they may be seen talibanning in on little Pricks, who is emitting warning growls as he guards his interests between his front paws.

Also hard at work, between rain storms, have been our two fencers, Steve and Luis, under the eagle eye of old Zeferino. The sections of fence encorporating the new property have proved particularly challenging. These have had to leap over boulders and stride across dongas, leading to multiple hops, skips and jumps.

The perimeter fence is virtually complete. Already we are able to take the dogs out for a 20 minute stroll around the property, leaving the pups to rush and tumble about in their endless jousts. The only drawback is that the combination of wet weather and my temporary inability to use the strimmer has left the flowers and weeds in charge of the property.

We are forever having to de-bur the pups, whose long fur proves an ideal home for the wretched seeds.

Before I sign off, let me salute the fine dinner to which our guests entertained us to mark Lucia's approaching half century. Although we dine out a great deal, it's seldom over linen-clad tables in smart restaurants.

This was the exception, a night on which I unhesitatingly sacrificed my diet and non-alcoholic resolutions. It was not the only night on which I have had to make such sacrifices but that's another story.

Letter from Espargal: 16 of 2011

It’s been wet. We should have known better than to bring Natasha in to clean the windows last Monday, ahead of our house-sitters arrival in a fortnight. Lest you think us indolent for failing to clean our own windows, you should be aware that much of the house is glazed and

Natasha is pleased to have an additional day’s work. Not only does she have a young son to support, she also needs to save for the six-week holiday that, she tells us, she will be taking in her native Russia in the summer.

Whatever the case, we have woken to heavy showers. The kitchen suppliers, who arrived early on Tuesday as promised, were grateful to lay out their stall in Casa Nada in the dry while my tractor stood out in the rain. The unit they were installing in the Bijou Ensuite was a display model that the firm was writing off. They were as pleased to find a buyer as we were to get a bargain.

For the uninitiated or the forgetful, Casa Nada – the Nothing House, because it doesn’t officially exist – is an old dwelling on the property, long used as a tractor shed cum workshop. The Bijou Ensuite is the smaller half of the house, which I have generously bequeathed to Jones for her cottage development.

As we have come to learn, Carlos is a meticulous worker. Everything has to be just right, and woe betide his plump assistant, Manuel (pronounced Mun-well) for the least imper- fection. Carlos trimmed the back of the units to fit the curves of Casa Nada’s old walls before fitting the cupboards and drawers, along with a sink and a two-plate gas-hob. Throw in the existing mini-fridge and an elderly freezer and you have a spanking new kitchen.

With all of these we were well pleased. The only drawback to the whole process was the cloud of sawdust that settled over all the shelves and tools which Jones and Natasha had so painstakingly cleaned the previous week.

So on Wednesday morning, as I sat down for an English lesson with Natalia, Jones launched herself afresh into a Casa Nada spring-clean. I found the place gleaming when I joined her shortly before lunch. Not that she was entirely satisfied for, as she pointed out, some flecks needed my attention. Jones, I may tell you, has a sharper eye for unseemly motes than an eagle for a mouse.

Also on Tuesday the fencers returned to continue building the fence. They weren’t best pleased with the weather as they slopped down to the field bearing fence poles. But little as they relished getting wet, they felt it a lesser evil than missing the deadline for completion.

Natalia and I could hear the cement mixer grinding away in the rain as we worked on her English pronunciation.

(She struggles with “v”s and “w”s as well as with “i”s and “o”s. Fit becomes feet and cost becomes corst.)

The day cleared up as things went along. The fencers finished cementing in the poles, ending the day much happier (and somewhat wealthier) than they started it. With luck, the fences – one around the perimeter and the other enclosing the garden - should be completed by the end of next week. It will be lovely to let the dogs run free at last.

Speaking of which, we have a notable success to report. We got the pups to the vet and back home without either of them being sick in the car. This accom- plishment we ascribe largely to their daily training outings, as insisted on by Jones. We’ve had them up to the Coral and out under the patio tables, getting them used to foreign faces and places. As they’re both verging on 17 kilos and powerful pullers, there is much to be said for such training.

The Coral, by the way, was the venue for an estrangeiros’ English breakfast last Sunday morning. Twelve of us seated ourselves for Brigitte’s eggs, toasted ham and cheese, sausages and fruit salad – and none was disappointed.

I am nearing the end of Michael Lewis’s THE BIG SHORT. I compliment myself that I have come to understand the reason for Ben Hockett’s anguished cry as he foresaw the imminent collapse of Wall Street. “How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a Double-A tranche of subprime-backed collateralized debt obligation?” How indeed?

For the third time in as many weeks I have had to donate an elderly pair of trousers to the ragbag. As my wife will attest, I do not willingly part with my pants. They really have to be coming adrift, as the donated pairs were, in spite of much patching. Because my cupboard is now growing bare, I will have to invest in new garments.

However, I am reluctant to do so until I have shed a few pounds. My formerly athletic profile has sagged somewhat and is no longer attracting the admiration it once did.

Determined to beat the bulge, I have forsworn all liquor and put myself on a sensible diet. Already I can glimpse that wash board tummy.

Jones, who has seen it all before, is not entirely persuaded. Like much of spoiled humanity, the difficulty I have it not losing the pounds, but subsequently keeping them at a distance.


On Thursday, while Jones went to a ladies’ lunch, I took myself to Faro on a double mission. I was very pleased with myself for getting several shelves cut at Maxmat and acquiring a data simcard for (my brother-in-law) Llewellyn, who is due down this weekend with his wife on holiday. My only failure was to walk through a plate-glass door. I was grateful that just one small (rather puzzled) child witnessed my attempt.

Letter from Espargal: 15 of 2011

We have been half watching a series on BBC TV about the state of Europe’s great cities in the 18th century. I say “half-watching” because there is a limit to the amount of blood, guts, urine and excrement that one can assimilate over supper, when the series is transmitted. Muck, stench and poo-strewn passages were the order of the day, as the presenter has been anxious to demonstrate by recreating scenes over lurid readings from the time. Special clogs, attached to one’s shoes, helped to lift the more fastidious citizen partially above the unspeakable mess.

What brings this to mind was our attempt to complete the inoculation process of our pups last Monday afternoon. The pups are suspicious of the car at the best of times and generally sick on any journey lasting 15 minutes or more. (Loule is 20 minutes away.) Jones yells as they’re about to throw up but there’s never a place to stop in time. Although we take along numerous old towels to contain the damage there’s generally a generous splash of dog-sick on Jones’s clothes.

As you may well imagine, such outings are stressful as well as yucky. When we do arrive the pups are excited and difficult to handle. We managed to manoeuvre them into the surgery only to hear from a less than sympathetic receptionist that the vet was performing a complex operation and wouldn’t be free for at least an hour. Rather than hang around awkwardly, we retreated to the car.

This mini-adventure came at the end of a long day’s clean-up of Casa Nada, mandated by Jones and executed largely by Natasha. Jones had decided, now that she has a proprietary interest in half the building, that the other half should be cleaned from top to bottom as well. Admittedly, a fair bit of dust and dirt had accumulated there over the years and not everything was in barrack room order. But at least I knew where to find things, however many sacks they lay under.

No longer! Every single item was taken outside to be wiped down, tossed out or given away. I got a say in these decisions and was able to dissuade my wife from scrubbing my tools with soap and water. But that and a cuppa was about all I got. Jones concentrated on strategy, Natasha decided how items should be repacked and I gophered feebly about, trying to look important. So much for being created in God's image.

The fencers, who (fortunately) had postponed their arrival on Monday, began work on Tuesday. They are Steve, a large South African, and Luis, his Portuguese sidekick. From their truck they unloaded a cement mixer and their ultra-useful muck-truck, a motorised barrow that can convey a full load of cement across rough ground.

It took them a sweaty morning to dig holes and plant the corner poles for the remaining section of fence. In the afternoon I induced them, at Jones’s suggestion, to add several steps to the steep right-of-way that will replace the existing path across the property. Idalecio had already greatly improved the new passage with a number of steps but after watching old Zeferino (88) staggering down, we thought it expedient to upgrade them.

Wednesday morning we took all the dogs walking the in valley as part of a policy to get the pups accustomed to travelling in the car. From there we continued on to Benafim to fetch Natasha. Of Natasha we found no sign. Instead I discovered an SMS message (that had pinged during the walk) informing us that we needn’t worry to fetch her as she was bringing herself. Her partner has gone back to Ukraine on holiday, leaving his car and (more importantly) the keys at her disposal.

Thursday took an unplanned turn. Our friend, May, had joined us for lunch in Loule - as she does each week - when she had a funny turn. Jones and I supported her while the restaurant called an ambulance. Fortunately, there were very few diners about.

She was taken to the local health centre and later admitted to Faro hospital for a closer examination. But there she apparently persuaded the staff that she was well enough to go home – and was fetched that night by a kindly neighbour.

Friday Nelson returned to tackle a range of jobs; the trickiest of these was removing a pile of sand from the old sheep pen without harming the numerous poppy plants that Jones was determined to keep. I have to say that the poppies are in their glory.

It would be wonderful if we could find a way of rooting out the weeds without damaging the wild flowers that bring so much colour to our spring seasons. Speaking of which, it’s been hot – going on for 30 degrees, and this in April.

A new flower bed that Nelson and I created earlier to Jones’s order has been expropriated by the dogs. It was intended to rehouse plants that Jones has been nurturing in pots. But since the bed contains the only soft earth in the property, it became the instant venue for wrestling matches and digging competitions. Jones has decided, wisely in my view, not to plant any flowers in the bed for the moment.

We have picked the last of our beans – 5 buckets full of them. It took the pair of us, with moral support from the cat, the best part of an hour to strip the plants of their pods, after which I brought in the tractor to dig over the area.

The greenery, a mixture of bean plants and weeds, was waist high and becoming hard to negotiate. One bucket of beans I’ll keep for seed. The rest we’ll eat or freeze. Jones generally boils up a plateful in the evening to mix in with the salad.

I have been reading an extraordinary book, THE BIG SHORT, by Michael Lewis.

The book gives an account how the US subprime loan bubble came to nearly cripple the financial world.

It has the reader blinking in disbelief at the mass “Emperor’s new clothes” syndrome that overtook Wall Street, doubly so that most of those involved had little idea how the obscure financial instruments they created really worked.