1August1995

Portugal: Tuesday 1st August 1995
My dear folks,

(Part 2:) Back to reality with a bump. I walked out of Heathrow's Terminal Two last night into a sweltering London August evening, the temperature up in the 30s. A bus took me to Paddington Station & my legs carried me home, plus backpack, laptop & bag. I stopped, still all slung-about, outside my neighbour's basement flat. In my absence, a strong metal door had been installed (largely at my expense) in the under-stair storeroom from which thieves stole my bike after kicking in the previous door. I obtained a key & made my way upstairs. Neighbours had kept flowers & cat going for the previous fortnight, returning a compliment I'd paid them earlier. The news was of the nasty murders of 3 children & the horrible air pollution caused by the heat & exhaust emissions.

After sorting through the mountain of mail, I phoned Jones. The Boys had extended the phone line from 7th Heaven to MCP & transferred the phone. (I discovered by a lucky accident that the contacts had been wired so that we could phone out but were unable to hear incoming calls - & managed to rewire it with help from Jones on the other line.) Jones was well but wished that I was there. So did I. One of these days, there won't be any return flight. Meanwhile, I have to content myself with holiday reflections.

We made it up to our Guadiana cottage for two nights, finding it exactly as we left it, a kilometre from the farmhouse. We were welcomed by the farmer, his wife & small daughters. He's a handsome man, she's beautiful & the kids are both lovely, a family that would have advertisers drooling. But their appearance is strictly practical. She is to be seen driving the dusty farm bakkie down the rutted track, the 2 kids perched on the front seat, husband crouching in the back. The season has not been kind to them. It's been desperately dry & the crop losses - fodder for the cattle & Angora goats - were severe. They hope they will survive; so do we. We bought an Angora goat skin for MCP & supplies of marmalade & honey & tried to encourage them.

The farm is a reserve, an official status obtained at great pains by the farmer in an effort to keep the hordes of hunters off his property. As a result, rabbits run riot. This doesn't bother the farmer, his big brown cattle or the self-confident goats, such knowing beasts! Magpies stride importantly around the cottage & terrapins still haunt the banks of the river. It wasn't really a river this time, as the water had stopped flowing some weeks before; huge pools still separated us from the Spanish border. The stars of the show are the European bee eaters who swoop over the bee hives in flashes of colour that had us catching our breath. It was only the flies & ticks we didn't like & took pains to dissuade. In the evening, we barbecued & drank lots of excellent regional red wine.

We had one outing, to the ancient walled city of Elvas which we'd missed on our previous visit. Most of the towns in the region are ancient & walled, a product of their violent pasts. But Elvas's fortifications are particularly well-kept & famous. A huge aqueduct still brings water to the city. We found parking in the steep, narrow streets (always a bonus) & stopped for refreshments, coffee & the famous local cheese cakes (queijadas). Then we wandered a while. Like so many old towns, Elvas has struck a bad compromise between its history & the needs of the 20th century. TV aerials mar the houses; pavements are miserly, cars block the roads & buses struggle to negotiate the streets, forcing pedestrians against the walls. We glanced at the castle (about to close for lunch) & admired the lines of tiny, neat houses. Then we went home.

Cathy & daughters had 2 weeks at the Quinta; (husband) Rolf joined them for the 2nd, losing no time in raiding the market for tuna steaks. He grills the best in town. The girls were at their ease. Erica might be found lolled back on the double bed in the downstairs bedroom, pleating leather bracelets & bead necklaces to the strains of her favourite musicians (not artists I was well acquainted with); Anita sprawled with a book in the study in which she was comfortably ensconced. Cathy (& later Rolf) were upstairs in comparative privacy. The family were clearly relaxed & at ease in familiar surroundings, something that brought us great pleasure. We drank a toast to absent members, wishing that the Canadians & South Africans might have been present.

As on previous stays, our visitors insisted on making a substantial contribution to the welfare of the Quinta, installing the hefty aluminium & glass workshop door that threatened us with bankruptcy. Let me add that we dined out regularly & royally - on a draft which Mother had sent from Johannesburg - little wonder that the return to London was sobering.

Also present, in the adjoining cottage (Casa 3) were our long-standing guests, John & Olive, (a retired British couple) whose house is finally taking shape some miles away after titanic struggles with bureaucracy - a nightmare of expired licences, dodgy builders & insane officialdom. The good news is that these problems have forced the pair to stay the longer with us. I have reached the perfect deal with John by which he fixes & paints anything at the Quinta which he would do if it were his own house. He's a craftsman whose infinitely careful painting is frequently drawn to my attention by Jones as a model of its kind. We have agreed a rate & he deducts his fees from the rent. The Quinta is kept looking marvellous & both proprietors & tenants are content. J & O look forward to the completion of their house in October with an enthusiasm we do share.

A stream of short-term guests meanwhile moved in & out of Casa 2. Many of them turned to Andries (sunning himself on the neighbouring patio) for advice & guidance which he was well qualified to give. One had to run the Scylla of Andries's patio en route to the pool. He would glance up at passers-by & immediately proffer a bottle of chilled rose wine, a glass (or two) of which it was never easy to decline. Andries's bar would never have succeeded as a commercial enterprise. He simply gave too much away. But it could be a delightful pit stop & at least 2 guests who lingered there too long one night were to be seen (sensitive & dark-glassered) paying the price the following day.

Jones had intended that I should have a restful holiday but there was simply too much to be done to make this a practical proposition. Paths had to be built, walls painted, the workshop fitted out, the irrigation system mended. The list was long; it inevitably is, in spite of Jones' hard work & John's. Even so, the pair of us managed to combine a great deal of enterprise with an equal deal of socialising, collapsing into bed at night through a combination of exhaustion & good living. It was a very satisfying holiday. We have a sense that the worst is behind us. The place looks good & we are gradually cracking the garden. I did have occasional visions of potentates who built palaces they were never to occupy. But since neither potentate nor palace is involved, I dismissed them again.

Tomorrow night, it's back to work, on Bosnia, Chechnya & all the other hellholes that make journalists a steady living. But, tomorrow night, as they say, is another day.