Letter from Espargal: 1 May 2015

This past week, like the week before it, began (or ended, if you insist) with labours in the park. I reckon that we have now cleared much of the scrub away from about half the area concerned. With luck the boys will be back this weekend to carry on. The park is looking a great deal more park-like for their efforts.

I take the canine stragglers around it morning and evening, a walking stick in one hand and a light hoe-like implement in the other. With this I whack out the undesired pricklies and nasties that flourish. As often as not, the orphans worm their way under the fence to join us.

Monday (Wed & Fri) brought acupuncture sessions. In the course of these I have made the acquaintance of Dick, an 80-year old fellow sufferer with similar symptoms to mine.

Like me, he is concerned about whether he will be fit enough to enjoy a long-planned trip. He is hoping to go on a Baltic cruise in June; I to visit my brother in South Africa in July.

He confided that he had been impressed by a neurosurgeon at Gambelas hospital near Faro, a woman who had come highly recommended by his GP (who happens to be our GP too).

THE FISHMONGER AND THE CATS

Coincidentally, Jodi the physio, after chatting to the local doctor, had recommended the same surgeon. I was able to book an appointment with her and was heartened (for the first time) by what she had to say after checking my scans.

In short, I am due to have an injection into the spine under CT guidance this coming Wednesday with the possibility of a future foraminotomy should this prove necessary. The difference of opinion among consultants has been quite scary.

Enough of these matters.

Tuesday Natasha came to clean. In the course of this, she wiped down the computer keyboard on my desk. Unbeknown to her (and to me), although the screensaver was up, there was an open (although invisible) spreadsheet file on the computer.

I returned to find some of the fields with changes including strikethough characters and missing columns. It eventually occurred to me that those columns had simply been hidden and merely needed to be unhidden.

It took another 30 minutes to discover the keyboard shortcuts necessary to undo other changes.

While Natasha was at work we dined at the Hamburgo with friends, I standing at the bar as usual - until a glass of wine took exception to my medication (or vice versa) and I thought it wiser to join the usual suspects in the car.

No harm done other than to my reputation.

We returned from physio late afternoon to find Armenio Palmeira, a farming neighbour much my age, grafting almond trees in our field.

This he had promised to do several months earlier when he guided us in cutting off limbs with a view to prompting new growth. On to these hardy trees he is grafting several plum and peach varieties, sometimes two or three on to the same tree.

Equally generously, he has given us three fig cuttings and, when two of these looked poorly (in spite of our efforts to nourish them), he replaced them with healthy new saplings that he dug in himself.

FIG BRANCHES GROWING FROM AN OLIVE TREE

As he suffers from knee and back problems and recently had a hip mended, these are no small favours. It is hard to know how to repay them.

Twice we have enjoyed the company of UK friends, Mike and Lyn Mackrill, who date back to our early Quinta days. They are staying at one of Fintan's villas at the bottom of the village.

After treating them to a good barking at the gate, the dogs were pleased to indicate that it was just for effect and to welcome them in. The beasts have surprisingly long memories.

Wednesday Prickles was severely out of sorts. Indications of his indisposition came in the early hours when he vomited on the sheet beside Barbara's head. More throwings up followed.

Post acupuncture and a lunchtime meeting with May's nephew, Ken, down from Edinburgh, we took Pricks to the vet. Barbara feared that a bone she had given him (a rare event) had got stuck. And so x-rays indicated.

The vet gave us prescriptions for laxatives and stomach protection products with which to dose our little dog in the hope of clearing the blockage.

Thursday: In spite of the syrupy laxative that we managed to squirt down Pricks's throat and all over his muzzle, he failed to deliver the goods. So we phoned the vet, aware that the surgery would be closed the following day for a public holiday.

Bring him back at 15.00 for an enema, said the vet. We did. The vet declined my offer of assistance. It's a dirty business, he informed us as he took our little dog inside. I needed no persuading.

Fifteen minutes later he came rushing out again with Pricks on a lead. It was to no purpose. All Pricks wanted to do was lie down in the sun.

A second enema proved no more fruitful. Much against our instinct we agreed to leave Pricks behind at the surgery. He hadn't eaten anything and the vet said he would put him on a drip.

At 19.00 we got news that we might fetch Pricks for the night. But unless he brought forth, he had to be delivered back to the surgery at 09.00 the next day.

So we fetched our constipated little dog. Any hopes that he might clear his obstructed bowels overnight were dashed the following morning.

Friday: We arrived at the surgery in good time with Pricks motionless on his cushion behind the passenger seat on the floor. I feared that surgery was imminent. Pricks feared that he was going to be handed over once again to the vet, a prospect he didn't fancy. (Nor would I after consecutive enemas.) Barbara carried him inside. I waited in the car.

Twenty minutes later the pair of them reappeared. A new x-ray showed that the blockage had both shrunk and moved. A third enema did the trick. Out came the remains of the bone and a good deal more. That was joy. There's no relief like a good bowel movement after a tough couple of days.

Letter from Espargal: 24 April 2015

ANDREI TRIES TO WIN OVER A SUSPICIOUS MELLO

Saturday Slavic arrived early with a friend, Andrei, for a day's clearing in the park. (Slavic's brother, Roslan, now works six days a week for a small builder and is unavailable.)

For some years the shrubs and plants have been taking over all available spaces to the point where the hillside had become a semi-impassable jungle.

The aim was to leave as many as possible of Jones's flowering plants in place while clearing paths between them and the trees.

I conducted affairs like a maestro, pointing with one or other walking stick at the bushes and low branches that had to go.

We cleared around the trunks of the numerous hardwood trees in the park and nipped off the season's suckers.

As fast as we cleared, we burned - albeit reluctantly.

At present I am unable to drive the tractor and it was simply impractical to try to remove the mountains of cuttings or to leave them to become a fire hazard in the summer.

Monday: Still disabled by sciatica, of which you will be as weary as I am, I went to consult more doctors. At Loule hospital I took an immediate liking to Dr Ricardo Soares who gave me 45 minutes of his time and a lot of information about spinal fusions - should things come to that.

My other appointment was with Dr Sun Bian, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, who has been proving a little more difficult to understand, if only because of her English pronunciation.

She comes highly recommended by several friends and lives barely 20 minutes away, which is handy.

ANOTHER JONES SKY PIC

Since acupuncture is a great deal cheaper and less traumatic than back surgery, I am giving her a try.

Her sessions last up to two hours. She deals with patients three or more at a time, moving from bed to bed. Treatments are scheduled every second day.

I certainly feel the benefit of her prickings but only until such time as I get back into the car. Sitting is simply not my thing.

DON'T MESS WITH ME

The pups have joined us each afternoon in the park when I take the regulars for an amble. Mello has been making eyes at Prickles, sentiments that Prickles didn't reciprocate. He's a bit of a curmudgeon.

Finally he flew at her to make his feelings clear. Mello fled, howling her distress although the injury was only to her feelings.

Prickles is our smallest (regular dog) but the others treat him with respect. He doesn't tolerate approaches by his fellows to his bed or his bowl.

Tuesday we went shopping. En route I thought I spied Luis the electrician's van parked in a neighbour's driveway. We stopped to check. As it turned out, the van did belong to an electrician although not to Luis. He introduced himself as Francisco. We asked him to pop around later in the day to sort out the bathroom lighting.

While in Loule we took a call from a neighbour who was unhappy about the pups' behaviour. It seems they had been visiting her property and making a proper nuisance of themselves as well as upsetting her elderly parents. (The pups love nothing more than chasing cats, ours and anybody else's.)

We invited the complainant around to see the miscreants in situ and managed to reach an understanding.

That afternoon Barbara interrupted my siesta apologetically to say that the electrician and his mate were at the gate. I hurried down. Electricians are like gold dust. Francisco proved to be a willing and able fellow. He confirmed that the electronics for the old mirror lights were caput. But, with a few modifications, he was able to replace the old lamps with two others that I had bought as stand-bys.

It was only when he installed the second of these that I discovered it to be slightly different in design from the first - very irritating! Still, they work perfectly well. Visitors may peer at themselves in the mirror once more.

We have been following a TV series about Harley Street; the second episode was about people seeking cosmetic surgery and why - as well as how much it cost.

Jonesy disapproved of using medical resources simply to look better - although she does sometimes mutter about her wrinkles, few though they be.

On matters of appearance, it's a couple of weeks since I have had to comb my hair. That's partly because it's thinning out but mainly because Mary, the hairdresser in Benafim, shaved me like a coconut without so much as a "how do you like it".

I haven't looked quite so bereft since my time in the Air Force Gymnasium.

The appointment was my first with Mary, whose salon is handily situated midway between Espargal and Jodi's physiotherapy rooms in Alte. Jonesy doesn't seem to mind the results, nor do the dogs, so no harm's done.

Wednesday we supped with the Espargal expats and a Canadian couple who are touring the world (much of it) on their motorbikes.

They were spending the night with our neighbours after bumping overseas into the neighbours' son who, with his girlfriend, is likewise on a mega motorbike tour.

The visitors were in their 40s, she a medic and he a financial adviser. They had planned the trip for two decades, they said.

They were doing it in phases over several years, returning to Canada between times.

Thursday morning Jones interrupted my sleep-in (my second post-toast and coffee sleep-in) to say that Barri wasn't well. The dog, usually high powered, was evidently ill, vomiting, trembling and still.

Jones managed to get her into the car and we hurried in to Loule to see the vet.

Carlos thought that she might have eaten something nasty or possibly even ingested and then vomited some poison. He gave her a shot and told us to keep an eye on her. We did. By evening she was pretty much back to her usual self.

Friday: I don't know what Dr Sun did to me this morning but I was both whacked and sore afterwards, putting in an effortless two recovery hours on the bed after lunch.

To be sure, I haven't done so much sleeping in years.

Dr Sun reckons that she can fix me. I sure hope she's right.

PS. I need one more millimetre to record 500mms of rain for the season. The skies are encouragingly grey. (The picture is a Jones dawn.)

Letter from Espargal: 18 April 2015

Monday was lazy - no May or classes. That evening my sciatic leg felt much better as I arose from my mattress in the lounge. The relief was welcome. Perhaps Friday's cortisone injection was taking effect at last - and about time. The nurse who administered it had said 24 to 48 hours.

Severiana, one of my English pupils, sent me an email:

"We are missing you very much," she wrote. "All of us love your English Lessons. So, please get better very soon, and come back to our sckool."

I was touched. Another pupil offered to fetch me at any time if I was unable to drive myself - kindness indeed!

Tuesday my sciatic leg relapsed into its usual querulous state. So much for a cortisone shot in the bum. We had a mid-morning appointment at the notary to register our wills. Also present were our lawyer, her assistant and two witnesses. I stood behind the group rather than joining them at the table.

Line by line the notary and lawyer went through the wills, making small adjustments and discussing the occasional point of law. As we have mirror wills, they covered all the controversial ground with the first. For the second, they merely changed genders appropriately. Ninety minutes wrapped it up.

Overnight it rained - 8 valuable mm. We slept in. That's to say, Jones slept in for once (after first getting up to let the orphans out).

I generally arise at 9 these days to lead the late-sleeping dogs into the park for a 30 minute amble. (Ono and Raymond dislike being separated from me!)

The more energetic ones go walking with my wife. We meet up for treats on their return.

Jones's beans (BELOW RIGHT) are looking good. And the three young fig trees from Mr Palmeira that she planted are all thriving.

Wednesday: In the postbox Jones found a notice advising us of a postal item to be collected from the parish office. From the post lady's scrawl, it appeared to come from the IMF, a body with which I've not had dealings (although Nigerian benefactors pester me daily with bequests).

We got to the parish office just as it was about to close for lunch. Ana, ever helpful, went back in to fetch the item. This turned out to be a letter, not from the IMF, but from the IMT, the Institute for Mobility and Transport. It contained the driving licence I applied for last May - valid till October 2016. (From age 70 to 80 drivers in Portugal have to renew their licences every two years - after that every year.)

As Natasha was busy at the house, we continued on a leisurely drive via Paderne to Boliqueime where Aldi has recently opened a new hypermarket.

Shopping done, we resumed our search for a country restaurant that neighbours had recommended. A previous search had proved fruitless.

With traffic building up behind me. I advised Jones that I would pull over to let other drivers through. We stopped and stared in disbelief. There it was, staring at us.

My dad sometimes used to say: lucky it wasn't a snake or it would bite you. That's how it felt. It was clearly a popular stop judging by the number of cars parked outside. We lunched instead at JL's, which does fabulous toasted tuna sandwiches, best eaten out on the patio where one can admire the view over a glass of wine.

Wednesday evening the hospital phoned to postpone for a fortnight Thursday's appointment with the neurosurgeon. I googled likely alternative surgeons and booked an appointment with one of them in Loule for Monday - a case of getting as many opinions as possible.

IN THE PARK

Thursday: Jones complained that Ono, who sleeps between us, had been making poos overnight. (Jones can't say "farts") She'd had to flap the sheet at him, she confided. I was grateful that he'd been facing me although his breath is hardly honeyed.

I phoned the pharmacy to see if it would renew my supply of pain killers without the prescription that I'd planned to repeat at the hospital that day. The pharmacist was both sensible and sympathetic.

Portuguese pharmacists tend to use common sense where their UK and (in my experience) North American counterparts stick rigidly to the rules.

As long as you know exactly what blood pressure or similar medication you require, pharmacists are happy to sell it to you over the counter, more especially if you're a regular customer and you can't get high on it.

We came home via the agricultural road through the valley. The fields of wild flowers were glorious. Jones identified some as marigolds and others as convolvulus.

The poppies needed no identification.

The valley is a deep, damp green carpet, rolling up to the village at the top of the hill.

Fresh shoots are powering out from the orderly rows of vines. It's a lovely drive. Yesterday we encountered a party of walkers who'd been bussed in to appreciate it.

Friday: As an ex-monk/student of theology and church history, I have taken a keen interest in a BBC documentary series entitled Sex and the Church, presented by Professor Diamaid MacCulloch. It explores how Christianity has come down the centuries to hold the views that are still prevalent among the hierarchy if not always the laity. Given the gender battles in the Anglican church and the dripfeed of priestly child abuse scandals, I found it enlightening. One of my fellow ex monks pointed out that it is also viewable on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua7eHAjg1Vg

CONVOLVULUS

Changing tack: For some months we have been using Whatsapp for informal smart-phone communications with friends and family, often in the place of emails and messages. We find it both flexible and easy. However, my cyber-guru, Llewellyn, swears by the Google alternative, Hangouts instead. I've downloaded both apps. While Whatsapp has picked up other users from my phone book,Hangouts has not. Please let me know if you're a fan of the latter. For the record, Jones and I are not facebookers and we're certainly not twitterers.

MAUVE POPPIES

Letter from Espargal: 10 April 2015

Friday: I will soon need a suitcase to accommodate all the medical files and scans that have limped along with me to various consultations this past week, growing like weeds along the way.

In short, the neurosurgeon in Faro with whom my files have landed suggested yesterday that I try a cortisone injection or two to relieve my sciaticly (?) stricken left leg before considering surgery.

With this suggestion I have gladly gone along.

I was puzzled when he merely gave me a prescription to obtain the cortisone instead of actually injecting it himself. "Any health centre will pop the injection in", he assured me casually as he ushered me out. His next patients, waiting in line, were pleased to see me emerge. Having waited for over an hour myself, I sympathised.

Anxious to avoid the queues that populate health centres, I went along this morning to Loule (private) Hospital where an attractive young nursing sister did the necessary after the briefest of waits.

Thursday: We got a lot of overdue shopping in - groceries, dog biscuits, pills for Ono, bones for the strays - before heading to Faro Beach for lunch and thence to the nearby hospital. Jones used to love lunching at the beach but she says she's beginning to associate it with hospitals.

At a table in front of us some young giggly French children were telling their wrily amused parents about contraceptives.

The occasional aircraft came and went from the airport just across the estuary. They seem to gather speed so slowly as they trundle down the runway before clawing their way miraculously into the air.

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled these past two days because the French traffic controllers are on strike again (and again and again).

TAP's aircrew are equally unhappy as they face the prospect of privatisation and such horrors as collecting all the passengers' rubbish in plastic bags themselves. Where-ever did the glamour go?

I remember mum sitting beside me, hatted and gloved, in 1960 as the family flew in a BOAC Comet to London, with several stops along the way.

Wednesday: The orphans come wriggling under the fence to join the regulars on an evening amble around the park.

The encounters are still a little fraught but they are working out.

A gentle amble has been about the limits of my athletic abilities.

Jones takes various animals out on longer walks that she needs as much as they do.

An overnight storm brought us a welcome 10mm of rain and some very unwelcome thunder and lightning.

I was just making my way downstairs to yank out the plugs for sensitive electronic equipment when a great flash of lightning seemingly right overhead fried the Skype phone base station with a hiss and a flash - the second time that this has happened.

The good news is that the vastly more expensive TV set and various digiboxes survived.

Tuesday: Natasha came to work in the garden and clean upstairs.

We left her to it, taking ourselves to lunch at the Hamburgo. Manuel serves us at the bar where I stand and Jones perches on a bar stool.

The food and, more importantly, the wine, tastes just as good as at the table.

Thence to Alte for another physio session with Jodi.

The evenings have been cool enough for a small fire. I settle down on a thick sponge pad that Jones has brought downstairs for the purpose. I have to get down pretty quick as the dogs also make a dive for it. They know a good thing when they see one.

Monday: Was rough. We cancelled lessons and May. Her good friends Wendy and Chris stepped into the breach at short notice.

I suspect that they will be sitting in somewhat better seats when we find ourselves in the great amphitheatre in the skies.

I shouldn't be surprised if that great final trip is also delayed by the contrary French air traffic controllers.

Letter from Espargal: Easter Sunday 5 April 2015

Easter Sunday is upon us. A happy Easter to us all! The poppies in the valley below are in their glory. If I had to choose just one flower to populate the earth, I think it might be the poppy. We admired them, a great red stripe across the valley floor, as we returned from Sunday brunch at the Hamburgo.

This bloglet is rather late. That's mainly because I had the services of the Ukrainian brothers over the weekend and spent much of my time overseeing their labours in the fields. They are great workers, the pair of them. The work itself was overdue. The lands are drowning in vegetation because I have not been able to plough the growth under. And the trees badly needed cutting back.

In-between times I have been having scans on my back and consultations. More lie ahead as we try to work out what to do about my troublesome spine. For the moment I'm taking things easy and spending a lot of time on the bed.

Jones has spent long, hot hours on the banks above the Great Wall of Espargal, hauling out the most undesirable weeds and encouraging the wild flowers that are trying to eke out a living. At night we have taken it in turns to drag ourselves out of bed and go downstairs to turn the hose on the barking orphans in a bid to shut them up. We can claim some success. So, I suppose, can the orphans.

Barking at the moon aside, they are joyful little creatures that share their lives and happiness with us, alongside a host of other creatures that need no further introduction.

So without more ado, let me wish you again the compliments of the season as an Easter Sunday siesta beckons.

Letter from Espargal: 27 March 2015

This is a short, standing blog. Standing blogs, unlike standing orders and a bit like standing stones, actually involve standing, a stance that I find does nothing for either incentive or inspiration.

As you may gather, I am still suffering from sciatica. This, for any readers lucky enough never to have experienced it, is a bit like fighting a tug of war with a demon for possession of one's leg - one or other of them. At least I'm still managing a twice-daily walk.

I have embarked on scans and consultations - of which enough for now!

Last Saturday we travelled five minutes down the road to the village of Nave do Barao for a presentation of Algarvian wines. Two euros bought visitors a glass and the freedom to taste any of the wines on offer.

These included several from the estate owned by Cliff Richard, a label that came with a premium that I thought undeserved.

We came away with several bottles from local estates that will serve us well. I should add that the Algarve is not a region of Portugal that has been traditionally associated with serious viticulture.

We also watched a film, The 100-foot Journey, a feel-good "comedy" that was so determinedly feel-good and predictable as to be slightly depressing. Nay, I exaggerate. It was okay.

Apropos of nothing, I note that the second woman bishop chosen by the Church of England, Canon Alison White, is herself married to a man bishop.

One wonders what they talk about over breakfast. And how do their children feel about being the offspring of two bishops? To be the offspring of one bishop may be considered unfortunate; to be the offspring of two starts to sound incestuous.

All we need now is a transgender bishop and a cross-dressing bishop and everyone will be well served.

Monday's achievement - since repeated - was to take both our dogs and the orphans on a harmonious joint walk, with just a little "what are they doing here?" from the regulars. The orphans squeak and squeal as they chase shadows merrily through the bushes, almost like three little fish darting through the water.

They are such a joyful trio when at liberty that their happiness is infectious. Paleface came back from one excursion covered in ticks, most of which he allowed Jones to remove. We have since bought insect repellent drops and are considering how best to administer them. The little beasts refuse to wear collars.

We continue to let the orphans out twice a day in the hope that they will return for their food in short measure. Barbara goes out to open the gate of the pen at 7.30, when they start squealing. In theory she shuts them in again a couple of hours later when she feeds them - with a similar story in the afternoon.

Half the time one or more are late to return and she agonizes over their fate. I tell her that we lock them in for our sake and let them out for theirs.

They certainly get around. All the village has got to know them.

Tuesday's air-crash and Thursday's news conference about the likely cause came as a huge shock. It felt close to home. My heart goes out to the families of the victims.

Jones has made another batch of lemon marmalade - her third in about as many days. In spite of her doubts, it's just as good as the first two, which is very good indeed.

Even better news, the peony that she has been nursing these three years past has put up this beautiful flower. And while her garden is awash with flowers of every kind and colour, none gives her more pleasure than this one.

The clocks go forward this weekend!