11July1997

11/07/97
My dear folks,

Thursday lunch-time:
I wish you could peer over my shoulder for a glimpse of the Quintassential scene this eleventh day of July. I’m seated in the cool of MCP’s patio as the temperature creeps up towards 30C mark. The garden in front of MCP is dominated by 3 trees, a palm, a fig & a carob, in whose shelter scores of plants seek respite from the burning Algarve sun. There are pink holly-hocks everywhere – self-seeded; a bright blue morning glory is draped along the fence; roses of various hues are either climbing the walls of MCP or dotted around the lower patio. Earthenware pots, bursting with their own miniature gardens, flank the patio & fence. The only sounds are the shrilling of cicadas & the welcome rustle of a breeze through the leaves. Noite lies on the plastic chair beside mine on Jones’s little patio. Jones is in her kitchen preparing lunch. It’s a world utterly remote from London & quite delightful.

It’s not always this quiet, mind you. I was woken in the middle of the night with an agonising seizure of cramp down one leg, & my groans woke Jones who tried to banish the infliction. No sooner had we got back to sleep, or so it seemed, than a cat fight erupted in our ears. Noite is much troubled by a large tabby which has been making determined efforts to colonise the Quinta. The two beasts were perched on the bedroom window sill, separated only by the mosquito mesh, & squalling fit to bust. The tabby, which Andre has christened “the lynx”, is a friendly guy & only too happy to have his ears tickled. The problem is his imperial ambitions & Noite’s resentment of them. I’ve turned the hose on him twice to dissuade him from visiting the immediate garden. This hasn’t prevented him from raiding the kitchen & helping himself to Noite’s nosh. In face, he burst out as I rushed in this a.m., he making an alarmed escape, I hurrying to answer one of several birthday phone calls to Jones.

Speaking of which, thank you callers, faxers & letter writers all. Several neighbours also remembered the occasion & turned up with cards & gifts to wish Jones well. We celebrated at the local last night with Andre & a Scottish couple. Also there were an English couple who joined us for Senhora Odette’s (Thursday night) Feijoada (Brazilian bean) speciality. It was a convivial & informal occasion. Senhor kept replacing empty bottles of wine with fresh ones as the party became steadily merrier. Jones was honoured with renderings of Happy Birthday in both languages & there was some dancing in the aisles & several final toasts of brandy or bagaceira before we staggered out on to the road close to midnight. Jones had taken Andre’s arm, as much out of concern as politeness, & I was guiding my Scottish guests up the track. I’m not sure that they’d have managed the kilometre ahead of them, had it not been for passing neighbours who gave them a lift. On the driveway ahead, Andre was having his own problems; to be sure, it is a very steep driveway & it was very dark.

The electricity supply to Andre’s end of the building has been cutting out irregularly & for no obvious reason. I got Maria to call an electrician who duly arrived & tried to establish the problem. He suspects that it’s the fuse box & has suggested we replace it with a bigger one. It’s going to mean bashing a large hole in an interior wall of Casa 3 to accommodate it. I said I would do it. Jones blanches at the prospect of dust everywhere. We are grateful only that we do not have guests there at present & for my being here.

Our days begin & end in the garden & at the neighbour’s chicken run. I thought the chore of letting the birds in & out twice a day would soon pall but it hasn’t. They’re such a fascinating lot to watch. The white fluffy pair are the bosses although in the main they leave the two bantams alone & pick on the goslings who shuffle around like huge babies. The male bantam, a cheeky little bugger who struts around like the owner, also picks on the goslings - a David challenging twin Goliaths. Thus are the goslings – whose whistley alarm calls fill the air - harried & pecked wherever they go. They have to make swift raids on the grain in the food bowl as they’re chased away the moment the fowls catch sight of them. It’s a hard world for big babies.

We plunge into the pool after six as it’s the best way of getting clean as well as good exercise. Then we go for a walk, always taking a fly swatter & a walking stick to wave at intrusive insects & dogs. Thus do the days pass in a flash.

My two big tasks have been the reorganisation of my workshop – nearly complete - & some redecoration along the front of MCP where there were ugly gaps around the ends of the wooden beams which prop up the roof. We hope to go away on Monday night to Tavira, for the briefest of breaks, but this will now depend on the electrician & his doings.

Saturday:
I have to think hard to recall what happened to Friday, which seems so far away. Just about the only way I can do is by working backwards. We braaied last night, tender salmon steaks that we accompanied with Portuguese champers. The problem was that Andre had opened a bottle of rose wine mid-afternoon which with he plied us while we were working in the garden. It was an excellent rose, light, cold & refreshing. His patio made for a welcome stop after each wheelbarrow of light gravel which I was spreading across a rock garden. When that bottle was finished, he opened another that was just as good. So that by the time we’d finished in the garden & toppled into the pool to cool down, we were anything but stone cold sober. The fowls didn’t mind when we arrived to put them to bed & the odd Portuguese neighbour we met on our subsequent walk would have been none the wiser. I have a clear recollection of grilling the salmon under the stars & then laying sweet smelling rosemary branches on the barbecue but none of going to bed.

I dreamed first that I’d managed to park a Ferrari belonging to Kevin half way down a cliff & then that I injured my fingers. Each examination of a finger revealed new & horrible injuries. I knew during my dream what had caused them but the memory vanished with the dream. (I managed to extract the Ferrari, by the way!) Next night I dreamed that Jones’s nephews were sailing a weird, high speed yacht that was passing the speed boats, so fast was it going!

Oh yes, we celebrated Jones’s birthday on Friday with a visit to Faro beach where we retired to a favourite café for refreshments & a perusal of the many letters & faxes I’d brought down for Jones to read. The beach was bopping. It’s full of little beach houses that fill up for two months each summer. There’s a steady passing stream of lissom lasses & slim hipped youths who eye one another with greater or lesser degrees of honest appraisal. They settle down young here in Portugal, as well they may for the looks & spectacular angles don’t seem to last very long. Most of their papas walk around behind big bellies & the mamas run swiftly to solid rectangular shapes, substantial bosoms firmly belted into place.

Next we visited to adjacent airport where the friendliest of ladies in the “Achados & Pedidos” quickly traced the pneumatic cushion I’d left on the plane on Sunday & returned it to me. How pleasing it is to recover a lost item, however insignificant. A glance at the arrivals/departures boards revealed the usual European destinations as well as a direct flight coming in from Moscow. Little Faro airport is clearly growing up.

We rose sixish this a.m. to make tea & to find our pussy cat objecting strongly to the presence of the lynx who was crouched between the door & the grill behind it. The lynx ignored Jones’s admonitions to it to “shoo”. So I opened the door & beat it over the head a few times with a sponge cushion & it got the message. Back to bed for another two hours of glorious kip & thence to Loule where Saturday is market day. My purchases included a final length of hose for Jones’s garden & six gold fish for our two cisternas which are full of mosquito larvae. [At least one of the goldfish didn’t survive the experience. It was swimming with difficulty & I hauled it out & stuck it in a bucket where it duly perished.]

Sunday morning: Another lovely day. We have let the impatient fowls out of their house & watered the roses & miniature lawn with special muti. I have trimmed the palm tree which needs its lower fronds removed at least twice a year. Jones has iced a cake, maybe for a braai we’re going to tonight. The hole is bashed in the Casa 3 wall, ready for the electrician to begin work first thing on Monday morning. I peered into the cisternas this a.m. without catching sight of the goldfish. They’re very little goldfish so this is not particularly surprising. On the other hand, it would have been reassuring.

That’s enough, don’t you think.
Lots of love
T