Letter from Espargal: 8/9 June 2017

It was Slavic last Saturday morning who pointed out to me that my scarifier had lost a limb. Indeed, the heavy metal arm had broken midway along its length, leaving the blade somewhere in the field. The jutting stub brought to mind a man chopped off at the knee (if you can imagine a 7-legged metal plough-man).

FROM THE ARCHIVE

It took us the best part of 30 minutes, after Slavic had finished strimming in the park, to find the missing piece in the tumbled earth, a task we supported with cold beers. There are occasions, especially on hot and weary afternoons, when beer serves to improve one's vision. Saturday was one such. If proof were required, Slavic had taken only a few sips before he spotted the missing piece right in the corner of the plot.



The following day I took the scarifier down to Vitor, who had offered to help. He pointed out that the metal had fractured along the line of a previous weld. To be sure, the implement was well into middle age by the time I acquired it at a discount from the tractor dealer in Benafim. Vitor said the best course of action was to replace the whole arm, a task he undertook on my behalf.

INTRICATE SPIDER'S WEB, ATTACHED TO SEVERAL GARDEN PLANTS

In this he had no luck; the manufacturers informed him that the model had long since been discontinued. Instead, Vitor directed me to a specialist welding firm at Cerca Velha, high in the hills between Paderne and Benafim, to which we wound our way with instructions to talk to Arsenio.  We found Arsenio and his mate hard at work amidst a welter of dismantled machinery. Evidently, their services are in high demand. Arsenio took a disapproving look at the previous welder's effort. Come back Friday, he said with the authority of a man who can do things. We will.



Still on the mending front, a road repair team has been busy replacing worn sections of asphalt on the main road into town. We had watched curiously as a couple of yellow- vested workers carrying long GPS-readers first marked the road in anticipation. Then a convoy of heavy vehicles shambled and clanked into action: vehicles to tear up the old surface, vehicles to carrying away the detritus, vehicles to spew out new asphalt, vehicles to pack it down - and more vehicles for whatever. The team was efficient, directing traffic around the areas under repair and resurfacing several hundred metres a day. They were nearly finished the job when somebody else's road called and they clanked off again.



In spite of our best efforts it's been a tough week on the tick front. Sprays, belts and gaiters proved equally ineffective against a tick that somehow concealed itself in my underpants one morning before Jones pronounced the rest of me a tick-free zone. Of its presence I knew nothing although I was aware of an itchy bump that grew itchier and bumpier as the day progressed, right on the crack of my butt.  The moment came, out with the dogs in the park, when the intensity of the itch drove me to investigate. There was no option but to drop my pants and feel around. There I found the little bugger, still guzzling away. Horrors! I was being eaten alive. It was his first meal and his last!



As if to add insult to injury, as I was about to step into the shower the following evening I saw yet another tick emerge from my undies on the floor. The wretches are impossible. It's time for action. I'm going to hack back the bushes along our walk, a desecration of nature that will inevitably upset my wife. Sorry, but I've had ticks up to eyebrows, literally.



In my English class, we talked about living wills. The subject didn't go down well, as though somehow seeming to hasten our final hours. One woman refused point blank to participate. As we arrived back in Espargal afterwards, we were waved down by Portuguese neighbours who passed over two large, light cardboard boxes delivered by a courier in our absence. The neighbours were as curious as we were as to their contents. So we opened one, extracting a gripper that could barely have occupied 1% of the volume.



Talk about a mountain giving birth to a mouse. We were astonished at the wasteful scale of packaging (although it will certainly be recycled). The parcels had come from Spain - ordered from Germany by my sister, who said that she'd been charged only 6 euros for their dispatch, a bargain!. Thank you, sister.



I received a call from Ana at the parish office, who was renewing the dog licences. She said several of the dogs' passports were incomplete. They required the features of each animal had to be filled in - breed, colour, type of coat and the like. This is normally done by the vet who issues the passport when the dog is first vaccinated. The details were lacking for the three orphans who'd had an unconventional introduction to domesticity. So I took up photos of the threesome to show Ana, who helpfully filled in the necessary.

PRICKS, SETTLED DOWN FOR THE NIGHT

One night we watched Jackie, the story of Jacqueline Kennedy's struggle to come to terms with the death of her husband and the events that followed. The movie received rave reviews. Yet, as so often, we were both disappointed, especially by the audio. Not even our new speaker system served to make the dialogue clear. Jones decided half way that bed was more appealing and left it to me to recount any highlights the following day.

SCABIUS & LARKSPUR

The blog is coming to you early. This Thursday the people of the United Kingdom are going to the polls. I don't expect to get much sleep tonight, at least not until the result is clear. Although we've been following the campaign closely, we are little the wiser. The outcome, apart from the political implications for the country and the fearsome Brexit negotiations to come, will mightily affect the pound and the income of many thousands of expats with sterling pensions. As the man said: the times, they are a-changing!

Letter from Espargal: 3 June 2017

Friday dawn: Jones has been busy with the camera while the house sleeps.

Let me begin last Saturday, the start of the blog week:



Slavic joined us in the afternoon, having had other commitments in the morning. Our first job was to replace a leaky elbow joint in last week's leaking tap. This meant removing all the rocks around the base of the pipe, not my kind of work. At the same time we cemented in the metal pole that supports the tap and surrounded the new elbow with sand. Then we went clearing in the park.



The dogs camouflaged themselves in the undergrowth to watch us at work. There are still sections of the park that haven't been cut back in years. Unfortunately, these tend to prove highly attractive to some very prickly and invasive customers. The worst are esparga, the wild asparagus, and a tough, very nasty creeper called silva. It's resistant to just about everything short of nuclear attack.



Jones appeared one afternoon with some old glass and ceramic objects that had been dumped by the wayside. They included this Limoges ashtray that I thought might be worth a few bob. However, a brief perusal online showed numerous similar objects being offered for sale at two-figure prices.



Other treasures included this crystal bowl and the ceramic jug, both perfectly usable. From a neighbour we gathered later that all the objects concerned came from an adjacent house whose elderly occupants have passed on. A relative had set about clearing it out. Jones hates to see anything useful being thrown out. Her previous acquisitions include two elderly dumped chairs that I have coaxed into a reasonable state of sittability.



One object that I haven't been able to mend is an Ettore Gripper. It was one of two given to me by my sister some time ago, ideal for picking up objects from the ground without having to bend down. (I use it mainly for the dog plates, 18 of which have to be picked up each day!) Much to my dismay, one of the devices suddenly gave up the ghost. I had to drill out the rivet-hinges holding the pincers to get at the works. A close inspection revealed that the plastic mechanism controlling the pincers had simply disintegrated. As the gripper was both expensive and hardly abused, I felt cheated. It had come from the US so there was little point in following up.



Of an evening, when she finds time, Jonesy likes to take a minor baggy up to the talefe on the summit of Espargal hill, both to contemplate the sunset and to escape briefly the doggy and dinner duties awaiting her. She took some wonderful pictures of giant fennel against the background of the hills and the clouds. I think this one's a masterpiece. It reminds me of some of Salvador Dali's works (unless I'm thinking of somebody else)!



Here's another!



That's enough - for the moment, at least!



We watched hours of coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. To our surprise, more than one of the gardens featured a variety of grass that we do our level best to eliminate. Jonesy calls it sprinkaan  (grasshopper) grass. The seeds have harpoon points and stiff backward-thrusting hairs that hook into the dogs' coats and are the very devil to get out again.



We root up handfuls of these grasses every time we go through the park and dump them on a pile, to be burned. The weather has turned hot. Even so, on days when there's little or no wind, the bombeiros are still permitting people to burn off heaps of cuttings. I spent a morning at it. It was hard work.



Also hard at work are our commuting neighbours, David and Sarah, who are down from the UK for a few weeks. Jonesy popped over to say hello one morning, as she does. While there, she noticed the bees refreshing themselves on the thin layer of water that lay upon the pool cover.



We haven't had any encounters with bees for a while. And I've managed to keep the ticks at bay this past week. Jonesy came across one that was just about to settle down to a meal in her groin, a favoured spot, as I know from painful experience. She needs to wear gaiters around the bottoms of her trousers, as I do.



Midweek we drove across to May's house, which was to be sold that day. Ken and his son had vacated the house at dawn after a two-day visit to make final preparations. As agreed with them, we removed a sack of goodies that they had left behind and a magnolia tree that Jones feared might perish if left unwatered for any length of time.



It took us half an hour to get the pot into the boot. What a to-do! We came home via the back roads with the foliage sticking out, praying that we wouldn't bump into the cops. They take a dim view of any such adventures. Thank you to Fintan for helping us to extract it on our arrival. It weighs a ton.



This agave's expansionist inclinations were starting to to block off an entrance to the field. Jones took a cardboard cutter to it to get rid of the lower limbs. One has to do this with care as the thorns are needle sharp and the juice that flows from the plant burns the skin. Jones got away with a few pricks - very sore pricks, I should add.



Here's our typical lunch table. Jones has fruit, dried fruit and her home-made yoghurt. I prefer the low-fat commercial variety, along with muesli with a spoonful of honey and whatever's going. The orange bowl contains the remains of half a bucket of first-season peaches and plums from our grafted trees, with a great many still ripening.

BUTTERFLY ON A FLOWER

Thursday pm: Jones has gone off to visit a neighbour. I have been working on the blog. This time next week the people of the United Kingdom will be electing a new government. As Labour's fortunes have improved, the Pound Sterling's have worsened. We are watching and listening with more than a little interest and concern.



Here's Jones's Thursday evening sunset to round off the day and the blog.

Letter from Espargal: 26 May 2017

Saturday: Slavic and I laid another strip of concrete to smooth out the section of roadway between the dirt circuit that approaches the house and concrete driveway. The roadway is steep and the gravel surface can prove treacherous to pedestrians.



I'd rescued some cast-out aluminium shelving struts from a roadside bin to act as reinforcement. My part in the operation was to tractor barrows of fresh concrete 25 metres from the mixer to the site. Slavic's part was to do everything else.



After our walk I managed to take a tick off my neck before it bit into me. I'm still on anti-biotics following the last bite. Barbara was less lucky. The tick she discovered had already latched on to her skull. It's all but impossible to avoid the blighters on our walks at this time of year, no matter how carefully we check ourselves.

FIELD OF CENTAURY & HELICHRYSUM

On the spam email front I can report that the UN Deputy Secretary General and Melania Trump are among the philanthropists who have sought to bestow a fortune on me in exchange for a smidgeon of personal information and a modest deposit - as usual, via their West African offices. Bliksems! They're as bad as the ticks.



You may have come across my recent blog queries about a 1937 German nursing award made to an aunt of my neighbour, Liz Brown, who has been anxious to learn more. Now, from the Museum of Military Medicine in the Netherlands, the Browns have received the following background info:



The German pocket battleship, (Deutschland) that was moored at the Spanish port of Ibiza, was mistakenly bombed (May 1937) by the Spanish Republlcan Air Force during the Spanish Civil War. This attack killed 20 German sailors and seriously wounded 80. (British) medical personnel from RAMC and QAIMNS rendered assistance and some of the wounded were evacuated to and treated at the British Military Hospital in Gibraltar. Out of "appreciation and gratitude to the medical officers for the care of the wounded", Hitler granted the award of the German Red Cross to medical personnel involved. The decoration came in 3 classes with a fourth termed the"Ladies Cross". 23 crosses were awarded to the medical personnel. As to the ethics of wearing the award, there was much debate and it is believed that no recipient wore it.

As the incident was news to me, I turned to Wikipedia:



On May 29, 1937, a pair of Tupolev SB Soviet bombers attached to the Spanish Republican air force raided Nationalist air bases and the port of Ibiza.. The German heavy cruiser Deutschland, which was part of the International Non-Intervention Committee patrol, was anchored off Ibiza and was allegedly misidentified by the bombers' crew as the Nationalist heavy cruiser Canarias. Two Soviet pilots, Captain Anton Progrorin and Lieutenant Vassily Schmidt, dropped their bombs on the Deutschland, causing large fires on the ship, killing 31 sailors and wounding 74.



Sunday: The day dawned thick and mucky with sand from the Sahara. Yuck! Over lunch with friends, I used Google's "find phone" facility to seek the whereabouts of a missing phone belonging to one of our companions. Google regretted that it couldn't trace the device. The owner said maybe that was because the battery was flat. It's also possible that the phone was not configured to reveal its location. (It's still missing!)


On the subject of phones - I've set the Google Maps app in my phone and Barbara's to reveal our locations to each other, as much as an experiment as anything. In subsequent tests I found the software eerily accurate. At least it should simplify any future attempts to trace a missing phone. I don't doubt that the facility is a boon to parents. It was brought to my attention by Llewellyn, who uses it to follow Lucia's journey home from work in order to have dinner piping hot and ready to be served when she arrives.

OUR HOLLYHOCK

In the garden Barbara called my attention to a gurgling sound that was coming from a rockery that housed a tap. Testimony to the leak came from the surrounding plants, which were as happy as Larry. I hurried to shut off the valve. Barbara saw euro signs in the damp earth (like dollar signs, only worse!) The repair is a job for Slavic on Saturday.



Late evening I watched a Western entitled The Homesman - the strangest movie! A battered-looking Tommy Lee Jones (who also directed) assists Hilary Swank to escort three mentally-disturbed women across the plains to a refuge in the east. It's a movie where very little is predictable - rewarding rather than easy viewing. It reminded me of the Coen brothers' productions.

ORIENTAL POPPY, ONE OF THREE GROWN BY BARBARA FROM DONATED PLANTS

Jones slept, or tried to, against the background of occasional distressing howls from the unfortunates. She's not into stressful films.



Monday: My English class talked about the Blue Whale phenomenon. A Portuguese youth living in Ireland has died, apparently after taking up the online "challenge". The Portuguese authorities are warning schools of the dangers and investigating numerous reports of self harm arising among followers of the craze. It was created by a Russian student who felt that it was a good way to rid the earth of inferior individuals. I hope he takes some of his own medicine.

SWALLOWTAIL

I watched a 30 minute TV interview in which an unusually hapless Theresa May was flailed after succumbing to party pressure to reverse an unpopular tenet of the newly-issued Conservative manifesto. As dreadful as the Manchester bombing that evening was, both Jones and I reflected that the prime minister must have been grateful to be out of the headlines. It brings to mind the infamous 2001 Jo Moore episode when the UK Labour government adviser suggested that the government publish its bad news in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Centre. Machiavelli would have approved.



Tuesday: After visiting Olhao, just beyond Faro, we tracked back west along the coast to lunch at the Electrico, a favourite snack bar on Faro beach. Sandwiches and a glass of wine are typical fare. However, there's a group of older men for whom the proprietor sometimes prepares a sumptuous meal - not sure how often.



From their conversation and tastes, we speculate that they are professionals of some kind. Over sandwiches, with the dogs at our feet - too hot to leave them in the car - we watched in fascination as a succession of plates and bottles of wine were delivered to their table.



On the way home we stopped at the newly-opened Ikea store that has risen like a giant box midway between Faro and Loule. The site  looks  more like a township than a shopping centre, reached  off the adjacent highway via a confusing series of traffic circles.

WHERE DOES ONE START?

All around the warehouse-like Ikea building, construction continues apace. Signs inform visitors that more than 100 shops and a multiplex are coming. We didn't explore the store, contenting ourselves with coffees (once staff had shown us how to use the self-service coffee machines).



Wednesday: Carlos the vet arrived at 13.00 to vaccinate the dogs - that's our nine and two of our neighbours'. In preparation we had buried tranquilizer pills in the three orphans' breakfasts and managed to enclose the little dogs in the south patio. Even so, tranquilized they were not. Between us we managed to secure them all long enough to be jabbed, and for Sparky to have her problematic ears treated. (The improvement is encouraging.)



Then we bribed the rest to sit still long enough for Carlos to inject them, having blocked off the door to the kennel to prevent Bobby seeking refuge there. It was done in an hour. Proof of rabies vaccination is required for the renewal of dog licences.

GIANT FENNEL

Thursday: After our walk I got Jones to check my torso and neck for ticks. She found none. Ten minutes later I plucked one off the back of my head. And ten minutes after that I plucked another off my crown. How on earth do they get there? I always wear a hat outside the house. I'm sick of ticks. Jones is sick of hay fever. So is Jodi, who gave me my weekly tune-up today. She says she needs a double daily dose of allergy suppressant in order to function.



I trimmed Russ. At this time of year he needs trimming at least once a fortnight. Russ was never intended by his genes to endure Algarve summers. He was designed for cooler climes. He's the sweetest guy, albeit a bit strange. His den is the spare room. When I come downstairs, he emerges. When I go upstairs, he returns.



Later we went to the Browns  for a joint house-warming cum farewell to our old friends and long-standing Sunday co-brunchers, Sadie and John. The couple has decided, after decades in Portugal, to return to the UK.



Sadie's in her 80s, John in his 90s. For their company and reminiscences, we thank them. We shall miss them. Go well!

SOME OF THE GANG AT THE FAREWELL