2March1996

My dear folks,

Half an hour to dawn this Saturday morning. I have taken Jones a cuppa, revived the fire & fed the cat, who agitates relentlessly until she gets her breakfast. The BBC World Service Newshour programme has briefed us on the state of the world. Now the Portuguese classical music station is filling the kitchen with guitar music. It's a super station, one we keep the big radio tuned to, the only sound of its sort among a dozen pulsating pop stations.

I'm given to think of a big poster that we saw as we drove to Cacela Velha, one that caught our attention with its picture the first time we passed it & revealed its commercial content on closer inspection as we returned. The picture is a pun on the HMV dog sitting listening to the trumpet of a gramophone. It shows two dogs, both listening, while they are copulating. The caption is "More Music, Less Talk" on the pop station which the hoarding advertises. It's sufficiently tongue in cheek to offend only more delicate souls. But we did notice a reference in the local English paper to complaints from several readers about a vulgar advertisement featuring animals.

Mainland Europeans are much more casual about these things than the primmer Brits (& no doubt good Canadians). Television ads are much more explicit without being in bad taste. And it's common to find on the small bags of sugar, universally served with coffee, a picture of a couple riding a condom-shaped rocket through the skies towards a heart-shaped moon. It's part of a campaign to educate people about AIDS, here known as SIDA.

It's time to drop you a line - fingers crossed that the printer plays the game - & think about the last few hours. We've left the last day relatively free after a mammoth painting session in Casa 3 on Friday. It began about 10.30 & ended close to midnight.
John & Olive kindly came up to lend a hand. We had feared a washout, especially after heavy rain on Thursday night, but thankfully Friday dawned bright & sunny. Rain would have ruined our plans as the cottage is leaking badly. Water simply streams down the interior walls after a downpour. We've spent several days trying to dry the place out after the soaking it got while J & O were tenants there.

Hannie, our Dutch guest, joined us for lunch out on the patio in the sun where generous servings of red wine with a bread, cheese & ham meal served only to spur the workers on to greater things. By 10 p.m. when our helpers had long left, Jones & I had switched to Macieras & Coke. Hannie poked her head in the door shortly before we had finished & expressed amazement at the transformation. It was striking; the acreages of fungus had given way to virginal white walls, although for how long is another matter. I took her & dogs upstairs on to the patio for a night view of the Algarve. Finally, Jones & I dived into a bath with the last dregs of M & C.

There's some tidying up in my workshop on the cards today & hopefully a walk, possibly to Loule for lunch. Jones wants me to trim a few more branches from a fig tree. And we'll wander around a bit & see how plants have grown & think about the things we still want to do. The plane leaves late afternoon. Jones generally comes to the airport & walks & buses back. The time has flown, as always. I go back reluctantly. Life is so much saner down here. I've much greater pleasure using my hands creatively at the Quinta than screaming around in televisual circles in London.