12March1994

London to Faro: 12 March 1994
My dear folks,

It's Saturday, March 12. We are heading for Portugal in BA's choc-a-block DC10 jumbo. I'm seated right in the middle of the cabin trying to keep my elbows out of my neighbours' ribs, no easy matter in this aircraft. Jones is seated directly in front of me with two people trying to talk across her. We arrived at the check-in desk spot on the requisite hour, but too late to secure adjacent seats. I declined an offer to sit beside my wife in the smoking section. I have absolutely no objection to smokers fumigating themselves but count me out.

Nor did I make myself popular with my wife at the check-in when I pointed out to the clerk that my suitcase held two large tins of polish which would show up suspiciously on x-ray. BA had allowed me to carry the identical product on a previous flight. This time they declined. So out the tins came. I took them down to 'left-luggage' to store them for a week but when the gentlemen there informed me that the charge for this service would be £31, I made them a gift of the polish instead.

At the time of writing, Jones is not aware of this. I shall wait for an auspicious moment to inform her. She wondered why I had not kept my mouth shut. I had feared that the shadows of the tins would have raised all kinds of questions at the x-ray point and that we might be hauled off the aircraft to explain, causing all kind of delays. (Following the IRA's mortaring of Heathrow this week, the authorities are jittery. Gatwick was crawling with security people. We had our boot searched before we were allowed to park the car. Crazy! There's five miles around the airport to pop mortars off if one really wants to.) Anyhow, my popularity rating, like Bill Clinton's, could do with a boost right now. You know how it is.

All this is by the by. The news is that I'm married to a pensioner. The good news is that as pensioners go I could do worse. The bad news is that this pen¬sioner does not draw a pension, not yet anyhow. We still have to sit down with NBC's pen¬sion person and decide on a launch date. The sooner you go for it, the less you get; and in¬creases are at the trustees' discretion. To make matters worse, the sets of figures they give you to chew on make allowance for inflation, so that projected sums ten years down the line have a glittering but false allure.

Anyhow, Jones got back last night close to the witching hour, having been caught up with late feeds on the events in Bophuthatswana. You will be familiar with developments yourselves. We had dramatic coverage - as you probably had too - of the aftermath of the exchange of fire between the Bop cops and right-wing zealots. The saddest part for us was the death of the BBC television correspondent, John Harrison, in a car crash on the way to the feed point. He left a widow and twin children. I know there's no shortage of widows and orphans right now but they're mainly anonymous.

Jones couldn't believe that she just retired. I had a bottle of champagne on ice and a snack of smoked salmon and fancy cheeses to help her start getting used to the idea. It was real champagne too. Absolutely delicious. We drank to the rest of her life. She had hardly breathed a word at work about her intentions, but the chap who was taking over her job gave her a special leaving card. So did I. It was a big day. (There were some messages of goodwill on the answerphone from other admirers when we got back from Portugal. Jones was highly thought of. It's a good time to go.)

Back to the present. At Faro, Jones waited for the luggage while I went to through to fix up the car. It is a baby Citroen, the first I've driven. It has far more comfortable seats than the Ford Fiestas and Renault Clios which are our staple fare but too low a roof to accommodate a Benson head. (These come in sizes through large, extra-large, and ultra large.) That rules out the purchase of a Citroen down here some day. Jones is keen to bring the Rocket down. But the old lady (getting on for 10), even if she were to last the distance, is right-hand drive and Portuguese roads are dangerous enough with a conventional layout.

The Quinta looked okay, just overpowered by spring vegetation. The terraces were 18 inches under a sea of grasses, weeds and thistles. Ditto parts of my once neat, gravelled driveways. Vegetation grows in the Algarve with special vigour. Seeds explode into life, driving up out of the soil with a force that penetrates plastic sheeting and thrusts aside the puny weight of gravel. Plants take root in invisible fissures of rock, thriving without access to water or soil. Knee-high bushes made merry along my formerly immaculate paths. As always, we were struck first by the huge amount of work waiting to be done. There have been occasions when I have felt overpowered by the immensity of it. But I have a better measure of myself these days, if not of the garden. And, as I told Jones, she'd have time enough to take the garden in hand this year.

We wandered through the jungle, looking for signs of the things we'd planted in January. Fernando, the builder, had done a really splendid job of raising the wall and fence at the back of the pool. There was no sign initially of Noite, the cat, in spite of Jones' loud whistles - not until we started braaiing when there came a series of plaintive meows, closely followed by Noite herself. She was ever so pleased to see us and, as soon as she had fed - first things first - she came over and stood on our feet to express her pleasure. We were also pleased to see her, we reassured her, whereupon she sprang into my lap and starting drooling copiously, as is her wont, in an ecstatic dribble down my pants. We had more champagne (Portuguese 'champagne' at least) and watched the valley and the skies come alive with lights. And so passed the first day of Jones's retirement.

Sunday dawned slowly. We'd retired by 2200, that's 2100 British time, almost a re¬cord. But the pair of us woke up at least once an hour with raging thirsts that required repeated visits to the kitchen for new bottles of soda. After each dowsing of the flames, I sank back into a deep sleep and dreamed soul-stirring new dreams. I am a great dreamer, as I may have told you before. My eyes are barely shut at night before I become Sir Lancelot, Rambo, Friar Tuck, someone minus trousers, a pilot and various other personae in quick succession. On a heavy night, sleeping can be quite exhausting.

Sunday morning was greyish and cool till about 1100 when the sun broke through. Then suddenly it was summer. Noite followed us about, finding a handy warm stone to relax upon close to the action. Jones had brought down half a dozen small lavender bushes, each of which required planting along a new path we were building. Maria arrived middayish for a chat, largely about problems she was having with varicose veins in a leg following an infection which had been slow in clearing up. I wandered back down the drive with her, inspecting the cement repairs that Fernando had carried out in the most heavily-worn sections and carrying on to her house where her new dog regarded me suspiciously.

Within the fence, her family of fowls pecked a stylish living (strutting fowls of the field these, not your ordinary old hens). Down the in the valley, we could just make out our neighbours on their patio. They waved and we waved back. It felt as though we were taking part in a film. I liked it better than London. You can breathe deeply without coughing and hear birds in¬stead of police-sirens. I can't think why we live all jumbled up in cities.

In the afternoon, I fetched barrow after barrow of stones to line the new path. Each barrow weighed more than the previous one. At 19:30, we staggered to a halt to watch the sun setting. It was a perfect red ball balanced on top of a hill to the west of us. It shrank to a bright, pink igloo and then, in an instant, vanished altogether. From here, the Portuguese have watched that sun set down the centuries, and the Arabs who ruled Portugal for centuries before them, and so on - back to Neanderthal man, Cro-Magnon man and his early ancestors. There's the remains of an early village to the north of us that dates back deep into BC, far past the Romans, the Phoenicians and the Egyptians, where the spirits linger of those who also watched millennia of set¬ting and rising suns. This is an ancient land.

Monday morning: The sun was up before we were. I recounted to Jones four of my more dramatic overnight dreams. She was impressed. It had been a busy night. After coffee and a slow rise, we set out for Loule and breakfast at Portas do Ceu (The Gates of Heaven). We had almond croissants and coffee and scanned the local English papers. Utterly delicious! Then we went shopping. At each stop, I told Jones I'd be back in a moment. Thirty minutes later, I'd reappear. In Portugal nothing is ever accomplished in a hurry.

Still, we got a lot done. We saw the timber yard about the mosquito screens they had been making and arranged to fetch them at 1400. We drew cash from a compliant Multibanco cash machine (they decline as often as not, pleading a breakdown in communications); we raided the hypermarket for supplies, including the rear third of a large salmon; we acquired several bags of potting com¬post from the nursery in Almancil to stimulate Jones's roses; we bought a circular washing line, salt to go in the water softener; and much more; it was a proper expedition.

The mosquito screens were works of art. Because our windows are all different sizes, we could not simply order the standard aluminium variety. Each frame had to be measured and made individually. They were meant to be ready in January when we were down last time, but the yard had not got around to them. Not to worry, I told them then, we would fax them with the dates of our next visit. And so we did. I sent one fax in January and, when there was no reply, another in February. Still no reply, so I merely kept fingers crossed.

Now for a wee tale of Portugal. Carla is the charming young Portuguese woman who works at the timber yard. She is bright and speaks reasonable English, which is more than can be said for her companions. When I arrived, she hauled out my two faxes, said all was ready, that she had tried to reply, but my machine had been out of order. Strange! I couldn't think why. In the afternoon, when I went back to fetch the screens, I checked with the manager. Had Carla used the right country code, I wondered. We checked with Carla. What did I mean by the country code, she wanted to know? And so the mystery was solved. Together we hauled out the latest fax directory to explore this new world. Even the manager had never faxed or phoned over¬seas; he merely knew that special numbers were required. They were wiser at the end of the afternoon and so was I. All things are relative.

The same day, I recovered my giant strimmer from my neighbour, Tom, and set about the jungle obscuring my drive. At the end of an hour, it was possible to distinguish the thoroughfare from the garden. Aching and shaking, I retreated to the pool with a bottle of bubbly and two glasses. We watched night fall and the crescent moon rise - the end of Ramadan (no small development in the Arabic Service, I can tell you). Then we retired inside for a steaming bath (invigorated with bubbles within and bubbly without).

For supper, Jones made a huge salad and a lethal pudding (involving alcohol-rid¬den figs) and I fried our salmon steaks. Jones nipped out to fetch a lemon from the tree. That's particularly satisfying, having a permanent store of lemons hanging around on your own tree. We feasted. Kevin phoned from Toronto. He should simplify his life and come to Portugal, we advised him. Maybe he would, he said, one day - for a visit at least.

Tuesday started pretty-well perfect. There was just enough sun up when we tumbled out of bed to warm our skins over cups of coffee outside. Not a breath of wind; a marvellous March day. Noite had vanished. She had been outside when we retired and arrived in the early hours to find a brand-new mosquito screen blocking her normal window. No problem - simply bash a hole in it! She'd have ripped it to shreds in no time if I hadn't come downstairs to berate her. I was newly-woken and blunt. Noite doesn't take kindly to such treatment and took herself off in a huff. There was no sign of her in the morning. But the huff wore off as hunger wore on. She reappeared at ten, loving us both and standing all over our feet to show that all was forgiven.

I spent the morning varnishing the mosquito screens. Jones spent it gardening. (Jones spent every morning and afternoon gardening. Please take it as read for the rest of the letter.) Then I moved the old washing line to the lower terrace and dug a hole to cement down the base of the new revolving line I had bought. After lunch (salad on brown rolls) I went off to Faro to hunt for a fax and other odds and sods (while Jones returned to the gar¬den.) I discovered three outlets selling fax machines, two of them at outrageous prices - easily double what they go for in Britain. I expressed genuine shock-horror. The third was half the price of the other two and I became more hopeful. Jones is coming back down here for several weeks in May/June and July/August - periods when we have heavy bookings and need a close eye on things. Daily phone calls might break the bank, but we can still afford daily fax exchanges. The London fax already more than earns its keep.

We had supper at the Joli Bela - chicken piri-piri as always. Jones has extra piri-piri. Throw in two huge plates of chips, a salad, half a bottle of wine, a bottle of fizzy water, bread and butter, olives and pudding for one and you still get change from £7. Truly, it's the best value in town. And most people in Loule know it. They must fill the place four times a day.

Friday afternoon: Here allow for a pause of several days. We are back on BA's DC10. This time, at least, we are in the rear of the cabin where the mid-section has only four seats abreast, I am seated on the aisle and we are sitting together. I don't know why these little things should be so important. I guess that when there are only trivia at stake, they swell in importance. Anyhow, we are going home. For the first time on our many return trips, Jones does not have the morbs because she does not face going back to the office the following day. This is a new experience for me and for Jones. We like it.

We left the Quinta mid-afternoon on just the most heavenly kind of day. Andries joined us for lunch. He had arrived early on Wednesday morning, having flown from RSA and overnighted in Lisbon. He is spending his foreseeable future in Casa Three. I ran him up the same morning to a little town just across the border in Spain where he had left his car (for reasons of Portuguese taxes and bureaucracy). These days, on the new freeway, the Spanish border is less than an hour away. We could have taken the fancy new bridge over the Guadiana River which marks the border. But, at Andries's suggestion, we took the old ferry instead. He suspected that there might be less paperwork involved (as he still travels on his SA passport) and he was right.

We parked my car and ambled on to the ferry. A few years back, it would have been crammed with cars and people. Now there were barely a dozen passengers. Not good for business. Of officialdom there was no sign whatsoever. Ditto on the Spanish border. We found the warehouse where the car was parked, retrieved it and drove back to the ferry. Still all clear. I thought that the Portuguese customs would stop him for the mandatory 3-page form, but the solitary official dozed in his cabin and Andries drove through as happy as a sandman. If this is the new Europe, I can handle it. Now all we need is a common currency to avoid the expense of the constant exchanges.

Also on Wednesday, our elderly, extremely part-time gardener, Manuel arrived at Maria's bidding to help reduce the jungle to manageable proportions. I do not know his age but it is considerable, seventy plus (a fair bit). His face is brown and lined and his hands are hard. His cap merges with his hair and face so that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Nevertheless, his vigour is considerable. We built a series of steps from the second terrace to the third to allow Maria easy access to the washing line. They are hand¬some steps, if I say so myself. They do not have a name yet. That will come.

We had supper with Tom and Joyce, our neighbours. There is very little that they do not know about what is happening in the Algarve so that supper there is both pleasurable and useful. Tom tried out his home-made wine on us, plus a local witblitz. I was sufficiently cautious with both to wake with a clear and grateful head the following morning.

We went down to Loule to make some arrangements with a two-woman company that specialises in organising services for expatriates. Jones bought two loaves of our favourite breads from a tiny bakery in the back streets where you can watch the baker hauling the breads out of the oven with his long wooden spatulas. That afternoon, our fax arrived and was installed by two technicians who kept on having to phone their office in Faro to dis¬cover how it functioned. Not reassuring! But it worked. Fax and phone are on the same number. 351 for Portugal, 89 for the Algarve and 415411 for us.

All this time, Jones was hauling out weeds, planting, fertilising and watering. She was too enthusiastic with the transplanting of one plant from a pot to the earth and sat back, unpleasantly surprised, as the trowel she was using to dig it out whacked her in the face and gave her a bloody nose. A paper towel and a little sympathy saw her right. In the back¬ground, Manuel was working his way steadily through the weed patches and the garden was reappearing from behind the green curtain. He pauses only for lunch (insisting on a bowl to wash his hands and a chair to sit down on) and deep draughts of water.

We went down to the hamlet of Paixanito for supper at our favourite restaurant. We were the only clients. Business was up and down, the restaurateur told us. Lunch had been up; dinner was down. You took each day as it came.

Today, Friday, our last day was devoted largely to packing and rearranging. But we managed to get in our walk of the neighbourhood. On a really good holiday, we get in a walk every day. But this one was devoted to fine-tuning the Quinta for the busy summer ahead. A walk was a luxury.

We set off down the drive and through the local hamlet, looking at the old places quietly disintegrating and the new places invading the surrounding hillsides. The prospect gave us no pleasure. Every new villa intrudes on our privacy and reduces our claim to live in the country. Still it was a lovely day for a walk. The wild flowers bloomed on every hand. The birds twittered in the trees. The local dogs - Portuguese burglar alarms - snoozed in the sun and were put out to discover our passage only when we were beyond effective barking distance. Very annoying when good bark at a stranger is the highlight of the day.

We had a bottle of cold white wine with salads for lunch and then bid our crew adieu. We have been through the routine so often now that we could do it in our sleep. The garbage is dropped off at the roadside bins; the empty bottles go into the bottle-bank; the car is topped up at the garage on the outskirts of Loule; I drop Jones off at the airport with the bags (empty apart from a collection of lemons, figs and nuts) and the car off back at the depot where a shuttle waits. Jones has checked in when I arrive and we go upstairs for our mandatory departure fare - large coffees, local brandies and coke. Over these we muse until our flight is called and the fat airport buses roll us out to the plane, one bus for the few Club-class passengers who rattle around in it, and another for the likes of us, squeezed like olives in a bottle.

And so back to Gatwick where, the pilot informs us, the weather is not very nice. What's new? In spite of strong winds, he put the plane down like a baby in a pram and got a round of applause from his passengers. He deserved it.

Saturday: Jones went to do some shopping. I set out for Heathrow to pick up Cathy, Erica and Anita. Two young women - who turned out to be Swedish - were emerging with luggage from a neighbouring flat. It emerged that they were also heading for Heathrow and were glad to accept a lift. The sun shone.

In a perfect world, the road to the airport would not have been undergoing repairs - snarling up the traffic - and the Gohdes plane would have been on time. But equally, these were not unreasonable burdens and I didn't mind at all. I merely breathed a sigh of relief that the IRA had taken the day off.

Cathy, Erica and Anita eventually emerged through the arrival hall with beaming faces. Erica greeted me with a: "Why, you've dyed your beard, Onkel Terry," and, after re¬serving her position in view of my protestations at the thought, declared that the redness definitely came out of a bottle - a bottle of get-younger potion if not a bottle of dye. She still, quite rightly, suspected the latter. So much for trying to get the better of razor-minded young nieces. After lunch (food had been scarce on the British Midland flight) we took them for a brisk walk down the canal and around Re¬gents Park. The ducks and geese were on parade and the first brilliant summer display of flowers was out. Today, after a stroll along the Thames, we saw them off at Water¬loo for an overnight visit to friends in Hampshire. Micaela left me with parting advice not to resort to either the dye or get-younger potion in their absence.

This evening, we went to see another of the films on our list, The Piano. Very strange! Quite good, too, I thought, but definitely not everybody's cup of tea (in spite of the Oscar nominations I understand it's won). There was a hush in the cinema. At the end came a collective gasp as people released the pent-up tension. Strong stuff! Next is Schindler's List, even stronger. Cathy wants to see it, as do Penny and Richard.

Meanwhile, I've had such faxes and letters from around the world as deserve a hearty thank you. I have been thinking of you much, Canadians, in the last weeks of your winter; and of South Africa in these turbulent times. Robbie and Carol are become grand¬parents, however little they look the part.