7aJuly1997

My dear folks,

The Quinta: Monday afternoon:
Jones was at the airport. We collected a spanking new Ford Fiesta from Auto Jardim & made our way foolishly to Faro beach for a coffee & bagaceira so that Jones could celebrate the start of our holiday. “Foolishly” because half of Faro was there & there was nowhere along the 1 km strip where we could park the car, full of luggage, within eyeshot of a café. Instead we found a tiny cabina, run by a man with a huge tummy (& a small son who was following in his father’s footsteps), just at the end of the bridge over the estuary. There we sipped his fiery home-made bagaceira & watched the planes swooping down on the runway. There was no shortage of arriving visitors & perfect weather for them, a hot sun in blue skies! Home to the Quinta, a much drier, browner Quinta than the one I left three weeks ago, but still a Quinta spattered with an easel of flowers.

Both cottages are occupied by families. I said my hellos & then accompanied Jones on a walk. First down to a dog which is chained (like many dogs in Portugal) to a kennel just over the road. The dog used to belong to a family which lived in a large house just below us. Its owners did a bunk in circumstances we’ve never quite fathomed, leaving food on the table, cars in the drive & dogs in the garden, as though they planned to return five minutes later. The long & the short of it is that Samson – the dog in question – was left to his own devices. He was eventually taken in hand & is fed & watered, but not loved. So we went to give him some love. Jones feels bad about him. We’d love to adopt him but it wouldn’t be practical.

Next to Casa Olinda, the house of a neighbour who is away & whose “flock” Jones has undertaken to look after in the meanwhile. This comprises 2 goslings & 4 chickens (two medium sized, curly feathered white jobs & 2 small brown jobs). They all occupy a small fenced run during the day & are required to retire to the upper (chickens) & lower (goslings) reaches of a bird house at night. The 3 pairs march around like sets of inseparable twins, the goslings plucking at the grass & the chickens doing their thing. The chickens know they’re meant to retire for the night & take up their perches before we arrive in the evenings. The goslings prefer the outdoors & have to be herded in. They wave their featherless little wing stumps as they rush hither & thither.

Sunday night happened to be the last night of a 3-day celebration of Alentejan music & dance. I love the music. So we drove down to the festival grounds & joined the crowds supping at long bench tables on a choice of either fish or bean specials. We chose the fish – very good - although the price caught me by surprise as I’d come out with the equivalent of a £20 note in my pocket & it barely sufficed. The aim, as the compere made clear soon after, was fund-raising & had obviously been successful. On stage, the various choirs were so keen to perform & so reluctant to give way that they had almost to be shoed off after going through a repertoire. The acoustics were awful but we forgave them that. Jones liked the folk dances especially.

After letting out the chickens & goslings, we repaired to Casa de Pasto for a breakfast meeting with Tom & Joyce. Jones says social breakfasts have a lot going for them & I agree. They allow her not only to indulge her favourite meal of the day but the pleasure of seeing friends without the danger of boozy & wasteful extensions. From there we walked 100 metres to the premises of Joe, the motor mechanic, who has been trying to repair our strimmer. He’d managed to get it going once before but I’d been unable to start it on my previous visit, my constant pulling of the start-cord serving only to skin my finger. Joe showed us the stripped down motor & the damage done by (a neighbour) running it on the wrong mixture at some point. He was trying for new parts, he said, but these were unobtainable locally & expensive. We thanked him & asked him not to pursue the project. Jones lamented the money we’d spent on the strimmer & the little use we’d had from it. I wrote if off mentally as an expense & spent most of the rest of the day hoeing the lower terrace by hand instead.

Tuesday morning saw Maria & younger daughter, Simone, join us for a big raid on Makro, 30 mins down the highway. All credit to the car that it hardly murmured at the additional burden of £300 worth of groceries for the journey home. Jones & Simone shared the back seat with supplies of beers & cokes designed to see us through till Christmas. Our guests departed mid-afternoon &, excepting Andries, we now have the Quinta to ourselves for a week. I spent an hour further extending the hoses. The garden has long since outgrown the irrigation system we put in some years ago & requires two hours a day of watering by hand to stay up with the roses, fruit trees & numerous pots. Jones was horrified at the price of the hose fittings as she’s used to living frugally & not to putting a price on her time. But I reckon I can save her at least 30 minutes a day & that’s worth quite a lot.

Andries came over to say that something was shorting out the electricity on his side of the Quinta. I’ve no idea what the problem might be. Will try to get hold of an electrician in the morning. The mozzies are out in force. Must make a plan to frustrate the little f…..ers.

Let me call it a day.
Blessings for now
T