Letter from Warwick: 40 of 2008

My dear family & friends

We’ve been to Portugal and we’re back. The weather didn’t quite play along with our plans, but it was good enough. Well, better than it was here. The Avon is full to overflowing and has burst its banks in several places, which means that it must have truly poured with rain while we were gone. The fields under the flight path into Birmingham Airport looked quite sodden as we glided in to land. Today has been dull, grey and overcast, but it hasn’t rained. That didn’t bother the dogs too much though as they were overjoyed to see me when I picked them up at the kennel this morning. I took them out for a long walk as soon as we got home, first to the Pastelaria Portuguesa and then to St Nicholas Park in Warwick. The dogs made a great game of chasing each other through the shallow, flooded areas in the park. I watched with interest as Edgar edged closer and closer to the river bank hidden beneath the flood waters. Finally, and inevitably, ground gave way beneath his front paws and he pitched into the river nose first with bum following over the top in a great splash. Slightly embarrassed, but undeterred, he reappeared to scrabble up the river bank and charge off after Hazel again. I wish I’d had a camera to capture the moment.

But let me skip back to last Thursday when we set our alarms for 03h30 so that we could get to Birmingham for our 07h00 flight to Faro. We could have slept another hour; it only took us about 20 minutes to get to the airport which meant that we had to sit around for nearly two hours until the flight was called. We did have one heart-stopping moment when we arrived and couldn’t find our airline or our flight listed on any of the boards. It’s just that second of panic when your heart skips a beat and you can hear blood rushing in your ears. As it turned out, however, Birmingham Airport has two departure terminals more-or-less right next to each other, and we were in the wrong one. A short walk through a shopping concourse took us to our check-in desk.

We were met by (my sister) Barbara and (husband) Terry at Faro Airport and proceeded straight to Faro Beach where we hunted around to find a café that was open and would afford us either a view of the beach or a view across the estuary to the city of Faro. Most of the cafés and kiosks (a quiosque in Portuguese) were closed and shuttered for winter. We settled on “O Electronico” (The Tram) where we ordered coffees, ham and cheese sandwiches, and medronho (meh-dron-yo), a Portuguese firewater distilled from the fruit of the arbutus, wild strawberries. Lucia and I basked like cats in the bright sunshine. Later Lucia and I strolled down to the water’s edge before driving inland to Barbara and Terry’s home at Espargal in the Algarvean hills.

I’ll give you a précis of our time. (The pics are in the usual place at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.) On Thursday evening we went to dinner in the village of Benafim with a few of Barbara and Terry’s expatriate neighbours. The proprietor of the Café Coral and his French wife were a somewhat surprised to see us because Thursday and Friday had got a little muddled in French when Barbara made the reservation. On Friday morning we walked the dogs with Barbara around the fields and hills of Espargal. Terry recently injured his knee and has been unable to participate in the twice daily ritual. We began the walk in bright sunshine, which turned to cloud by the time we got home over an hour later, and then to a drenching downpour. We took Barbara to lunch in Alte and then to view the wares a local art gallery and one of the town’s many handicraft shops. In the evening it was out to dinner again with David and Dagmar Davies, old neighbours and friends of Barbara and Terry’s in Portugal. Saturday was more of the same: Walk the dogs down to the Algibre River in the morning, and then off to Loulé to pick up a few bits and bobs in the market. In the evening we had dinner at the Adega in the village of Nave do Barão (the nave of the baron), a favourite of Barbara and Terry’s.

And then, on Sunday morning, it was time to leave again, all too soon. The bright sharp light, even behind clouds, and some afternoon snoozes did us a world of good. Lucia was combing the web for more dirt cheap flights last night.

Love, light & peace
Llewellyn

Letter from Warwick: 39 of 2008

My dear family & friends, 8 Dec 2008

You probably noticed that I didn’t write a letter last week. I’m hibernating. It gets dark here sometime between 16h00 and 16h30 and it’s difficult to motivate oneself to carry on with the day as if the sun were still shining. I’m ready for a beer by 16h15 as if the day is over, even if the sun did only poke its nose above the horizon at around 08h00.

It has also been cold, very cold some mornings; cold enough to freeze the bird bath solid and leave the canal with a thin layer of ice. Have you ever seen a duck ice skating? Me neither, but I’m hoping to see it soon. I usually see plenty of ducks on the canal but they seemed to disappear when the canal froze over. It’s like they’re hiding. I’m just waiting for one of them to forget. I have this image in my mind of a duck trying to keep its balance while making a duck landing on solid ice. I’m expecting a good laugh.

The dogs are quite good at avoiding slippery patches on the sidewalks and paths on their twice daily excursions. I follow them closely but still occasionally find myself practicing the wild ballet of someone trying to keep his balance on ice. I haven’t fallen yet, but I know it’s going to happen. At night, when I take the dogs out to lift a leg before turning in, the frost on the ground and the roadway looks like millions of tiny diamonds sparkling under the streetlamps. I have also finally learned the difference between frost and hoarfrost. Frost is when water vapour condenses on the ground (or other objects) and then freezes as the temperature drops. A hoarfrost is when water vapour freezes in the air and then the ice particles settle on the ground; it almost looks like a light dusting of snow. We’ve had a couple of hoarfrosts over the past two weeks.

I’ve felt the cold as I have never done before. When I was 17 I jumped off a roof (after retrieving a tennis ball) and snapped the heel of my right foot. They call it a parachute fracture because it’s the most common fracture experienced by skydivers. The point now being that I can hardly walk in the morning or when it gets very cold. At these times my foot feels about as sore as it did when I broke it 25 years ago leaving me limping around.

It’s coldest after a clear night with no clouds to trap the heat in. I like to go outside and look up at the stars which seem to manifest themselves so seldom behind the clouds. I always look for Orion which is clearly visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres. When I can see Orion it means I’m not too far from home.

There haven’t been too many happenings over the past two weeks. Most important was that our landlord wrote to tell us that she will not be renewing our tenancy agreement when it expires at the end of March. So we’re looking for a new place to stay. Our landlord would clearly like to get a higher rental from the property which we have also clearly indicated that we won’t pay. It’s just a bit of a bitch to have to go through the process of looking for another place to stay which is a bit more difficult because we have dogs. Landlords aren’t keen on dogs.

Last weekend we went to a birthday party for one of Lucia’s Spanish colleagues, Monica, who is spending a couple of years here in the UK. I met a journalist and someone in the PR business here in the UK and arranged to meet them again during the week to discuss the industry and jobs. Like any other sector it seems that they are going through a tough time given the global economic difficulties. I wasn’t too surprised by that, but they did give me some leads.

This past Friday night we had Ann, Richard and (daughter) Polly around for dinner. They stayed overnight to beat the zealous drink driving rules here in the UK, which left Richard and I to debate the problems of the UK and the world until 03h00. The others went to bed.

And last, but not least, I bought a new Skypephone from Amazon. (Our old one was still useable but was giving problems.) This one plugs directly into the broadband router as well as the telephone line. This means that we don’t need a computer to use Skype, and that we can use both Skype and the normal telephone line from the same handset. It works like a dream. Well, I say that, but I had to buy a separate telephone ringer because the Skypephone doesn’t ring loud enough for me (because I’m going deaf in my right ear and it’s getting worse.)

This coming weekend we’re off to Portugal for a couple of days. The long range weather forecast says we can expect bright sunshine from Thursday through to Sunday. We are so looking forward to it.

Love, light & peace
Llewellyn