20April1996

My dear folks,

This is a very difficult letter to know where to begin even if, as Alice said - I think it was Alice - one should always begin at the beginning. In this case it’s much easier to start at the end. If there is a beginning, I suspect that it is with the Quinta roof, of which more later. Or at least with the Quinta flowers which were displayed in all their April glory across the length & breadth of the garden, wild flowers & cultivated blooms overlapping in a rainbow of colour. Swathes of yellow daisies mingled with red sprinkles of poppies. Bushes of blue borage were everywhere, busy with bees. Even the shy succulents had pushed up bright blooms in their celebration of spring. The roses were thriving; the fruit trees were coming on. It was a sight that gave all endless pleasure.

As so often, I'm on my way home from Portugal. Spain lies miniaturised in the sunshine below. I left Jones sitting around the table on her patio with 3 agents from a company who have expressed an interest in block-booking one or more units at the Quinta from next year. I had the best part of an hour with them, over a light lunch, to discuss the finer points of any deal. If we went ahead & assigned one or more units to them, they would pay us a fee & take over the marketing side of the operation. Lots of pros & cons there as you can imagine. We showed them around a couple of units. Most are occupied at the moment but the occupants were mainly down at the market.

We had a little drama mid-morning when a couple arrived out of the blue - very pleasant, middle-aged Brits. I said hello & explained that we were expecting several visitors that morning & asked which they were. They, it turned out, were guests with whom I'd agreed a late booking for Casa 4 before leaving London & then forgotten all about. Jones near flipped. The gods at least were on our side. I had, fortunately, explained to the newcomers when they made the booking that the cottage was being vacated that same morning & that it would be mid-afternoon before it was ready. Jones made a frantic call to Maria & then served the visitors tea before piling into Casa 4 with the troops who, God bless them, poured up the hill in response to her pleas.

It's the first time I've clean forgotten guests & the last. The experience left me laughing aloud with nervous tension as I shot down to town to fetch fresh bread for lunch. Casa 4 had been occupied for several months by Hannie, our Dutch guest, & her 2 dogs. She's nice & got on well with Jones - the pair of them taking long walks thru the countryside. Hannie is a few months older than Jones but you would hardly know it. It amused the pair of them during one of their walks when a Portuguese woman with whom they fell into conversation complimented Jones on her daughter. Some compliments you don’t need. Hannie's husband, Wim, is a businessman who managed to get down for a few days during my stay. We liked one another & dined together twice, once to celebrate Hannie's 53rd birthday. Hannie flew back to the Netherlands with dogs - she's asked to return next winter - while Wim is driving the car back.

Andries, our resident retired diplomat, is back in Casa 1 for the summer, as bronzed as ever & occupied as usual in swanning down to the beach in his smart open-top Rover & then returning to read the papers on the patio. It’s a hard life for some. Casa 2 is empty for the moment. Casa 3 is temporary home to Eddie & Lesley. He is the all-purpose renovations man who has done much of the work required on "my" London flats. Lesley, studying for an MBA, is his partner.

I offered them free accommodation in return for Eddie's help in waterproofing the roof of Casa 3 which has leaked like a sieve all winter on our unfortunate tenants. In the end, we let the tenants off most of the rent but that's another story. The cause of our woes became abundantly clear when we stripped the tiles, several of them broken, from the roof which had some bad cracks. If ever a roof had been designed to leak, that was it, particularly as it was covered in the traditional tiles which look lovely but are porous & brittle. It took half a day to dismantle the solar heater & strip the roof, another half to acquire the waterproofing materials from local vendors & 2 days to apply them. The weather was ideal for our purpose, warm enough to work in all day & then to tempt us into the pool for bracing swims - the emphasis is on "bracing". April is not normally regarded as a swimming month in Portugal.

In the evening we barbecued or trekked off down to one of the local restaurants. We found time to take Eddie & Lesley to the "Atlantis" rocks a mile way, a natural outcrop that heave themselves 10 metres out of the hillside & show signs of having been shaped by wave motion some 15 million years ago. Eddie, a scuba diver, was fascinated by the contours which matched those he'd seen beneath the sea. We clambered all over the rocks, quite challenging - in-between glasses of sparkling wine & Jones’s rissoles. We’ve a German neighbour who's convinced that the rocks represent the remains of Atlantis. They certainly come from beneath the sea. On our return, Eddie found a big fossil & we bore it home to add to our growing collection.

Afterwards, the 4 of us went with Andries to the Angolana, a chicken & chips restaurant that alarmed Jones with signs of having moved upmarket. But her favourite chilli sauce was as fiery as ever, the food excellent & the bill sufficiently modest o encourage us to return. On the way home we stopped over for a drink at Paixanito where the local expats were having their usual uproarious Friday night get-together. It can be a bit overpowering. At least it served the purpose of bringing us up to date on events in the valley, always useful. I was also able to pay John Vincent, our former tenant, for painting he has continued to do for us on a Sunday when he & Olive come up for a cuppa & a chat & to await any telephone calls from family in Britain. It’s a service I greatly appreciate and one he seems to enjoy.

One afternoon, I collected from the lawyer the annual rates demand which she always receives on our behalf. Since she charges £30 to make the payment, I thought we'd pay it ourselves & take ourselves to dinner on the saving. The actual amount is not great, about £300 for my part of the property, which was re-rated after being officially renovated, & about £30 for Jones's, which was not. On paper hers remains a peasant cottage & one is reluctant to disabuse the authorities of this notion. I noticed that the rates demands bore the "multibanco" logo, sign of the "universal " cash dispensers located outside most banks. I was thrilled to be able to punch in all the relevant numbers in a few moments & dispose of the matter. Portuguese banks, like those in RSA, are way ahead of those in Britain as far as flexibility of the cash machines is concerned. In most other respects, they are not.

Enough! It’s been a hard week. I must to bed. I fell asleep in the plane even before it took off. The pilot made the sweetest of landings at Heathrow, a far better job than the fellow who put us down at Faro a week earlier - with a bump that woke me up thinking that the bottom had dropped out of my world.

Blessings ever,