Lost in Translation

There I was, in the middle of breakfast (toast and marmalade for those interested) when Filomena arrived. Nothing unusual in that for she arrives every weekday morning at the precise time of 9:07 and, knowing us Brits are interested in such things, presumably to the exclusion of all other things, proceeds to give me the daily weather report.

I knew something was wrong, seriously wrong, when the morning’s opening line was not the usual ‘Bom Dia, muito calor’, followed be the weeks forecast,  the time of high-tide at the nearest beach and the fact that parts of the uk were in flood. But what really gave it away were her shoulders which were in rapid repetitive Gallic shrug mode, the beating of her ample breast and the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.

Immediately jumping up and placing a sticky hand on her arm I asked what the problem was. Between hyperventilating sobs the only words I could make out were meu, marido and morreu my, husband and died. Now although over the years I had only met the man on perhaps a dozen occasions, I really liked him. Whenever I saw him and whenever he spoke to us he was smiling – a proper smile, a smile where  the eyes also smile, he was charm personified, even when he pruned our two-hundred year old olive tree just before winter set in and the need for firewood was at its height.

I called Sophie in and explained, she was both upset and horrified that Filomena had come in that day and would not take the day off. No she couldn’t do that as she ‘needed to work as usual’. “Stay with your daughter” said Sophie and let me do something for you, can I make you some food?” Now Sophie’s answer to any crisis is to make food. Someone’s ill, make food. a failed eye test, make food. The dog’s been run over, make food, but Filomena was insistent that only she makes the food. Just as well as for I don’t think Sophie’s signature dish of Salade tiede of mousserons. mussels and crosnes would have gone down too well with the natives of our village.

Eventually I managed to understand that the funeral was at 10:30 the following day at the church in the old town and knew that I needed to be there to show my respect to the family but never having been been to a Portuguese funeral and come to that, not many church funerals at all, I needed a quick update on procedure. Flowers to the house, flowers to the church, flowers to the undertakers, no flowers?

I telephoned my Portuguese neighbour/language teacher. “Anthony, are you ok?” she said. When I said yes she shrieked at me to get off the phone I was costing her a fortune - she was in New Zealand. This was not my day and I hadn’t even managed to finish my breakfast.

The following day at ten fifteen and flowerless I, with approximately one hundred others, was at the entrance to the church and watched the coffin being taken in. I took a seat at the back and stood and sat when everyone else did and scanned my fellow mourners. I saw Filomena up near the front with her son-in-law but they were the only people I recognised. After the service I followed everyone out of the church and, hatless with the sun directly overhead and the temperature in the mid-thirties prepared to dutifully follow the cortege to the outskirts of the town. I looked at the hearse bedecked in flowers, to which I had not contributed and did a double take, for there, directly behind the hearse with his nose almost touching the rear window was Philomena’s late husband’s twin brother. I never knew he had a twin but he had to be as he was identical. He was even wearing the same watch with the red and black fabric strap, the only difference between the two brothers was that this one wasn’t smiling but then I reasoned, he wouldn’t would he, following his late brother’s body.

 I dodged behind a parked van and made my way back to my car thinking, well between all that breast beating and sobbing anyone could miss a few words from the phrase ‘A mae do meu marido morreu’  My husband’s mother died.

Ants

I know I’ve myself this question before but until now I never had an answer. However I now know why I am sitting here writing this, this blog which started a while ago after coming across other life-style diaries. The only reason I am continuing is because now I have a follower, yes a follower, just one but I’m sure she’s lovely. I know she is interesting because of her personal blog of which she is prolific and I also now have someone who actually reads my nonsense and follows my inanities. And this is, as I understand, the be all and end all of blogging. Not having a following is akin to spending your entire life talking to yourself. There is a downside of course and that is I now have to continue and even worse, should my follower un-follow me the rejection could be quite painful. So dear follower, I beg you, when you stop reading my drivel, don’t tell me.

I have to write this down, for if I don’t I may forget how I spent a totally bizarre two hour chunk of my life. It was one afternoon last week and had you walked into my kitchen at that time you would have found a somewhat bemused man standing next to a carefully placed blob of marmalade on his white floor tiles while his eyes swept  the room’s perimeter as if they were surveillance cameras in south London. Why, I hear you ask, why would reasonably sane man place marmalade on the floor?  A fair question and the answer is that I was trying to trace where the ants were coming from. Ants black, floor white, they should stick out like the proverbial thumb even if they are minute. You know the ones; they are approximately 2 millimetres long and meander across surfaces in a conga-like fashion. Actually, if you think about it they don’t meander, they are pretty quick on those tiny legs, in fact, size for size I reckon they are all little Usain Bolts’ and Mo Farahs’.

After approximately ten minutes of standing over my marmalade blob without Usain or Mo appearing the mind starts to wander. Should I have used fine cut rather than coarse cut, after all you can’t expect a 2mm ant to carry off a heavy piece of peel. At this stage I realised that I was verging on the ridiculous or probably already passed into it. I binned the blob thinking perhaps they prefer Marmite or peanut butter I could set out a row of delicacies for them to choose – oh hell, madness is setting in I should be looking out for men in white coats not ants.

As I raised my binoculars (ok, it’s a big kitchen) and surveyed the granite worktop the blinding flash of realisation hit me like a thunderbolt. Slapping the side of my head and shouting Eureka (as one does) I looked at the worktop. The granite is of mixed colours, grey, beige and black, yes black. Do you remember as a child playing musical chairs? When the music stopped you had to find a chair to sit on, well that’s the answer – when someone walks into the room the ants rush to the nearest black bit and play statues – they hide on the black bits.

 

Algarve Rock Choir

The blog-meister has metaphorically wrapped my knuckles and castigated me for not having written anything in yonks. It’s all very well for him, he is probably sitting in his minimalist office facing a floor to ceiling window overlooking a beach full of bikini-clad blondes whilst sipping good white burgundy. He doesn’t understand that we hillbillies have a tough life up here. Between the constant weeding of the vegetable garden, the uphill battle to stop the pool going green, the weekly dosing of pesticide that the date palm has to have to keep it alive and the never ending wall painting, not to mention a plumbing system… ok I won’t mention the plumbing system. But the bottom line is – hillbillies are, during the day, busy people and in the evening we are what the newspapers like to call ‘tired and emotional’. So Sir, that’s my excuse plus the fact that I am the procrastinator of procrastinators and always have been. And frankly I have always felt that if you cannot write something either of interest or humour then don’t write at all. But now I have something that I think I should share – well at least share with the Algarve community.

There is a little known group of like-minded people down here who call themselves ‘The Algarve Rock Choir’  This thirty something group consisting mainly of Brits but also some Swedes, Germans, Dutch, Irish and Portuguese have one thing in common – they are all delusional. They are delusional but delusional in the nicest possible way for although they all believe they cannot sing and most can’t they come together and meet weekly to belt out (in four part harmony) rock and pop songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

A while ago I was invited to one of their concerts (whoops, sorry you rockers out there, gigs) held in a restaurant in Sao Bras and came away impressed, for what they lacked in professionalism was more than matched by their fervour. They have an incredible backing band (unusual in a rock choir) consisting of lead, bass and rhythm guitars and keyboard, with synthesised percussion tracks. The atmosphere was amazing; the audience of 150 plus were jumping up and down in their seats and trying to sing along. (The last time I saw this was when I at a screening of Jailhouse Rock in 1957)

A few weeks later I went to a 50^th birthday party where the choir were singing, they had added a few other numbers and had improved by leaps and bounds. Two of the female choir members, with seriously good voices, took some of the solos with the choir doing the usual  ‘woo bob de boop’ type backing. Their repertoire opens with Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and continues, amongst others with Abba, Billy Joel, The Carpenters, The Supremes, The Beachboys etc.

Enthusiastic they are – if you get the opportunity go and see them, go, even if it’s for just the chance to see a group of people singing songs you love whilst all moving in different directions. It’s a hoot but it’s fun.

 

 

The Fifth Season

The months have yet again passed quickly, the croci are coming up, starting their annual battle against the weeds and as they appear I know that our peaceful autumn/winter has drawn to an end and that a new season is upon us. This oncoming season is unfortunately, a season that spans two seasons and is known only to a few. It is a fifth season recognised to ex-pat’s worldwide as the ‘Visitor Season’ which this year runs, for us, from end March until the last of the buggars go home. I use the term buggars hesitantly as it does not include my immediate family (well, perhaps some of them).

These intruders into my well-ordered private space can be categorised in various ways and the following examples have all been our guests at one time. But only one.

The no-car brigade - will not rent a car but expect you to show them the ‘sights’.

The sun worshippers - lie by the pool all day while you bring drinks. 

The parsimonious - you feed and water them for two weeks and they magnanimously give you 25 euros at the end of their stay to go towards their upkeep

The morons - insist on having the TV on all day whether they are in the room or not

The thoughtless – leave the air-con on and open the windows – also sit on white sofas when covered in sun cream

The sanctimonious - tell me I’m drinking too much wine with dinner

The Germans - spend an hour having breakfast and want fresh orange juice, cold meats, cheeses, toast and both scrambled and boiled eggs and bring their own coffee.

And one couple who, when we were about to split a dinner bill, complained that they only ordered one dish to be shared between them.

The problem is that you only find out that they are like this after they have arrived and by then it’s too late. Our first guests this year arrive shortly and I see problems ahead. The main problem being the fact that I only know her and Sophie hasn’t met either of them. We have never been out with them, never been to each-others homes and never had a meal together – this could be disastrous, thank G-d it’s only five days. Why did I invite them? Don’t ask, I don’t know. And if you add to this the fact that they lean, politically speaking, slightly to the left of Lenin and Marx, certain conversations are out of the question, we shall not be able to watch the news together without a major heated discussion, which they would win as they are both highly intelligent and used to debating. I suppose it could be worse …… no it can’t, I’ve burned my boats, I’ve  made my bed, I’ve crossed the line, there is no going back. My guests shall arrive later this month and I/we must greet them with smiles and bonhomie because if it doesn’t work it’s not their fault – it’s mine.

Anyone you like

I’ve been here a while now and the more people I meet the more I realise that ex-pat’s can, and often do,  re-invent themselves to create personas that are far removed from their actual selves. I’ve met ex bankers who used to have a single figure golfing handicap until they “did their backs in”, ex ‘computer gurus’ who decided they had had enough of jetting around the world and instead now want the simple life of living in a motor home and ladies who decided to eschew their designer handbags, Michelin starred restaurants and Louboutin shod feet for a more simple, down to earth life – think big fish, small pond. I’ve come across obviously gay men who insist on talking about their ex-wives and cast off girlfriends and major players in almost everything who can get caught out on the simplest question. I know singles that live together but pretend to be married (why is this so important).  I’ve met doctors who aren’t and men who can’t wait to tell everyone that their divorce cost them a million. Strangely enough I haven’t met anyone who admits to a life in Blighty that was not up there with the movers and shakers of Brit society.

In fact I would go so far as to generalise that if someone insists on bragging about their past it’s probably not true.

But we can all play this game. Perhaps I could say that I came second in the qualifiers for the men’s downhill in the winter Olympics of 19?? (try to check that in Google)  in fact second place in qualifiers is generally difficult to check so in future I may well use this ruse to top these Walter Mitty’s. I could claim second qualifier place for James Bond stand-in, just missing being the stunt double for Mark Damon but was an Oscar red carpet walker for Emma Thompson and fathered a love child with Michelle Pfeiffer (well if you are going to dream you might as well dream big).  Oh, I nearly forgot, Lloyd George ‘knew’ my grandmother but she was obviously too ‘vanilla’ to be granted a title.

However I was a) presented to  the late Queen Mother – b) danced with a woman who danced with Fred Astaire – c) had Beatle George Harrison, after asking him for an autograph, tell me to p*** off (apt as we were side by side in a discothèque’s urinal), and d) chatted with Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr Kildare in the television series (showing my age here) at our mutual tailors - and e) can finish up with the fact that shortly after Joan Collins went to Hollywood I gave her author sister Jackie (of international chick-lit/crap book fame ) a lift to Edgware, Middx.  So I’m not altogether unknown, whoever is reading this is one click away from a man who has LIVED A LIFE. Google my name and you will get 869,000 results and, if you want to risk ‘repetitive strain injury’ (aka RSI) I’m there somewhere.

Blogs & Facebook

As this is now my fourth post I have now officially joined that illustrious band of people that call themselves’ bloggers.  Now I can understand blogs that promote a business or services, I can understand blogs that are written by persons with a particular passion for something they wish to share with like-minded people but I find personal blogs – such as this – somewhat mystifying. Why do we do it? We are not receiving monetary gain – are our egos that frail?

In February this year someone took it upon themselves to count the number of blogs out there and reached an amazing 156 million with rate of 1 million posts per day. Previously I thought it was vanity driven (and many, I know are) but, with the exception of those who crave publicity such as politicians, sportspersons, actors, media folk and C list celebrities etc. I believe most blogs are written anonymously with a nome de blogue. So what’s in it for them? 

The above quandary has been brought about by my lying awake at 4am pondering as to my reasons for adding to the amount of useless words floating around in the ether. But a thought has just arrived and is nagging away in the corner of my head.  Could the reason be a form of Munchausen’s - praise by proxy. If you agree/ like what I say, I feel good but if you disagree/dislike what I say, well it’s not my name at the bottom and I can still walk around with my head held high.

Hmmm, I’m not sure whether I like the new me.

Whilst on the subject of web writing, last week I received an email from Facebook telling me that Jasmine Higginsbotham (not her real name) wants me to be her Facebook friend. Now Jasmine, with whom Sophie and I had dinner with 30 years ago and have not seen or heard of since, suddenly contacts me and gives me, on my screen, a choice of two buttons to click on. YES, I confirm our friendship or SEE all requests. This is akin to her bumping in to me in the street and saying “hallo, do you like me?” In the unlikely event of this happening I could always say something such as “Well I don’t know you that well but I’m sure if I did we could be good friends”. Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t give you that option therefor rather than be rude I always click the ‘confirm’ button.  So, Mark Zuckerberg if you’re reading this, could we please have a third button marked ‘WHY’. Clicking on this could open up a dialogue box in which I could write “Listen you sad person your insecurity is showing. We haven’t been in touch for 30 years and then we didn’t have much to say to each other. Why do you need me to be your 984^th friend?”

Ho-hum. I’m off to plant a palm.

The Partridges Ate my Brocolli

The partridges ate my broccoli. No seriously - they did. I should have known they would because Barry told me. He said “put up some netting or you won’t be able to eat your greens”. But what do I know, I’m a townie and what do townies know about veggie growing?  One minute I have a five square metre balcony in London and the next I’m perched on a bloody great hill in the south of Portugal.  Barry however, knows all about these things but then I would be surprised if he didn’t; he is a man of the soil, he’s a man in touch with nature but most importantly - he is a man with a tractor.

He is, I should explain, a neighbour and like myself an ex-pat Brit. He showed up one day astride his John Deere insisting that I needed furrows.  Furrows!  I thought furrows were wrinkles in the forehead but evidently it’s an agricultural term, like mulch, polyculture and hilling which are words that are alien to me, these words relate to pastimes far removed from my comfort zone. Apparently not only do I need to learn to speak Portuguese but if I want a balanced diet I also have to take on board a new vocabulary in my own language. And Barry, nice man as he is, is the reason I have an aching back, he is also the reason I now possess a pair of green wellies and why my field, once a shimmering carpet of wild flowers, now looks like a showroom belonging to a manufacturer of black plastic irrigation pipes.

And that is how it started.

So far I’ve terraced a piece of land and formed a level now given over to vegetables; I’ve built four raised beds and am growing more veggies than our family of three can eat in a month of Sundays. As we harvest a crop we visit friends and neighbours to offload surplus cabbages, lettuces, onions, carrots etc. They, unfortunately for us being occupied in the same manner, offload their surplus melons, rhubarb, broccoli etc. and the only people who profit from this mass barter are the local white goods retailers who are selling out of freezers faster than they can get them into stock.  Hell’s bells! What became of the urbane, man-about-town sophisticate, who believed retirement in the sun was going to be relaxing each afternoon, swinging slowly in a hammock after a long languorous liquid lunch? Well if you’re interested, he’s surfing the internet for garden sheds, Googling shotguns and gulping down Ibuprofen.

But this is not going to be a blog about vegetable growing, well hopefully not – it’s just that, that’s all I seem to have been doing for the last few months and yesterday my aversion to heights was tested to the extreme when Sophie decided she wanted to harvest the olives. Harvesting, to my wife, means I do the bending, climbing and digging whilst generally getting sweaty and dirty and she puts things in the fridge and freezer. Yes, a true division of labour. There I was, roughly fifteen foot (whoops, I’m a European now) five metres above the ground, plucking olives (from a tree that possibly took root around the same time Henry Ford produced his first car) in order for my wife to put them in jars of salted water and stand them on shelves in the garage for three months therefor displacing my half-full paint tins, dried out tubes of silicone sealant and calcified irrigation spray heads, all irreplaceable and bound to be needed in the very near future.

I’m almost pleased winter is arriving.

The Curious Incident of the Bite in the Night

apologies to Mark Haddon

 

I'm writing this while looking out over the valley. The weather is now cooler but the sun still shines; this really is my favourite time of year. We have had the first autumn rainfall and the hedgerows and fields are no longer shades of khaki but brilliant green; the air is fresh, the dew glistens on the stonework and the streets are once again empty of pink tattooed flesh. For now, in my few square metres of this beautiful part of the world all is well. But life, as we know, is about checks and balances and the past week has not been too great.

It was Thursday morning, Sophie was in the UK for a few days and I awoke around seven o’clock feeling somewhat rough and with a high temperature, shivering body and a strange feeling in the face. Staggering into the bathroom I looked in the mirror but what looked back wasn’t me. This person had a lumpen face twice the size of mine, an off centre nose with peeling skin and nostrils in which you could hide your shoes . I don’t know what a stranger would have made of it but it frightened the life out of me.

Reckoning I needed some anti-histamine, I headed off to the pharmacy where there were two pharmacists on duty. The woman in front of me waiting to be served, turned to wish me bom dia and, seeing my face quickly jumped into the other queue. Wow, I thought, now I know how lepers must have felt and when the pharmacist took one look at me and said “Health Centre, NOW” I started to get worried.

At the Health Centre I was poked and prodded, given a prescription, charged €50.00 and told I had Herpes. By now I was beside myself, herpes, how could I have herpes - I mean - you know – there’s only one way of catching herpes. Isn’t there? I know it stays dormant – but 40 years dormant? How do I tell Sophie? How do tell the kids? How do I tell the pneumatic blonde cashier at the supermarket – forget the last bit – untrue. I knew it was a wrong diagnosis but I was still worried.

Looking at the prescription in my hand I realised that I couldn’t go to my regular pharmacy brandishing possible anti-herpes medication without raising a few eyebrows so I took my anonymous self to an anonymous pharmacy where I bought the potions anonymously and drove around aimlessly for a while trying to collect my thoughts. Eventually common sense took over and I made an appointment for the following day to see my own doctor.

And just as well. He took one look at me, said it certainly wasn’t herpes and that the first doctor had mis-translated and meant shingles (evidently a similar strain) but it wasn’t that either. It was purely a nasty bite that had become infected during the night, probably from bacteria that was lodged under my fingernails and transferred when I unconsciously scratched at the bite.  I was given some antibiotics and some good advice that I would like to pass on.

Evidently there are some nasty spiders in the Algarve and when working in the garden or clearing out a shed/garage and particularly when collecting wood from the wood store – wear gloves, thick leather gloves, thick leather gloves that cover the wrist and after you have washed your hands rub some antiseptic gel under the nail. I know I will in future.

Parking

With winter on its way I needed a waterproof cover for large umbrella on the terrace and went to my local supplier with the measurements to ask if he could make one up. No problem, I was told, it will be ready in a couple of days.  After a week I went back to enquire and was told that the woman who was going to make it was unable to do so at the moment as she had to harvest her olives.

I rather liked that, I liked her priorities and it made me realise that since I have been here I’ve changed, I’m more laid back; if the umbrella cover would take a while longer, so what.  It was then that I recalled my Damascene moment of years ago, the moment I realised that I wanted very much to live here – away from the big city, the noise and bustle and the must do it/want it/have it now aspect of my then life.

Loule, at that time, was a much smaller town, with just the main roundabout where the four roads met but it was starting to expand and parking was becoming a problem. To address this, the Camera installed parking meters in each of the four main roads and assigned four men as parking attendants – one to each road. The meters were the old original coin in the slot type with the flag that went into the red section when your time had expired and to complement their new shiny meters they also bought a new shiny wheel clamp. Yes that’s right a wheel clamp – just one, well perhaps it was a trial, to see whether they liked it enough and whether we hated it enough but the upshot was if you saw a car clamped you knew you were ok for a while.

So there I was parked in the Avenida going about whatever I was going about that day when I returned and saw the clamp – on my car. With no idea what to do and at that time not speaking the language, I phoned a Portuguese friend who said I should meet her outside the Camera with the parking ticket and every possible legal document relating to both the car and myself.

We met, presented ourselves to the Camera, were duly fined and told that in order for the clamp to be removed I needed to look for the man with the key and that he would be identifiable by his green armband. Off we set, receiving strange looks as we examined all the male arms in the vicinity. It took a while but we eventually found him enjoying a drink in a bar and convinced him to leave and do his job.

Whilst he was unlocking the clamp I glanced at the meter and saw that it had five minutes to run before expiry time. I pointed this out to my friend with the key and asked why he had clamped the car in the first place. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a well-thumbed notebook, turned a few pages and said.

“Yesterday Senhor, you were parked in my street and yesterday you overran on the meter but yesterday it was not my turn to have the clamp.”

How can you not love that?