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My dear family & friends
I’ve not that much to report. All is domesticity and hard work. Lucia is the one working incredibly hard and I’m doing the domestic bit. She is fully into her new position at MillwardBrown which entails the reintegration of a slice of the business which had previously been spun off into a separate company. But she also has to keep a grip of part of her previous roll until the person slated to take over comes back from maternity leave in mid-August. All this means she has been working twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hour days, plus weekends.
But she has managed the odd break. This past weekend we met Ann, Richard and daughter Polly at the nearby Charlecote Park on Sunday for a stroll around the 16th century manor house now owned by the National Trust. Afterwards we continued on to Ann and Richard’s house near Shipston-on-Stour for a late afternoon barbecue which got later and later as the weather refused to play along. Still it was a most wonderful dinner with all the vegetables coming fresh out of their garden. The leg of lamb, which Richard eventually had to cook in the oven, was sublime.
The weekend before that we went to lunch at the Fosters, the parents of Lucia’s former boss in South Africa and who are also acquainted with Lucia’s parents. As Lucia got chatting with one of the other guests, Jill, it struck her that Jill’s description of the places she stayed in South Africa sounded remarkably similar to those of a young girl Lucia had employed in Cape Town. So Lucia asked her: “Do you know Nikki Cunliffe?” and Jill said “Yes, she’s my niece.” We all remarked at what an unbelievable coincidence this was and what a small world we live in, except Jill’s husband, Richard, who noted that: “It’s not so much a small world we live in, but the small circles we move about in.” I liked that. It’s probably a far more accurate reflection on the nature of coincidences.
We also had dinner a couple of times with Lucia’s colleague Monica, husband Sayure (pronounced SY – as in Simon, YU – as in you, and RE) and daughter Cecelia before they returned to Spain. Monica had been in the UK on a year-long secondment from Madrid. On the first occasion they joined us for dinner after a walk across the fields to The Saxon Mill. You can see the pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. Well, when I say they joined us for dinner, what I mean to say is that they brought all the ingredients to our house and cooked it. We should find more guests who are as accommodating as that. What I found truly remarkable though, was how much their six-year-old daughter Cecelia sound like a proper little English girl after just a year of living in this country – so much so that she was speaking largely English at home with only a few Spanish words thrown in when she didn’t know the English equivalent. Cecelia also just loved Hazel, our Otterhound, Retriever, Terrier cross. When she was asked at some point what she was going to miss the most of England, she said Hazel and Edgar. We never had to entertain her for a moment, and Hazel being Hazel just lapped up all the attention.
What else?
I went to Malvern one day to take the dogs walking in the Malvern Hills. I forgot to take the camera so no pictures to show for it. I did take a few with my phone, but I had it on the wrong setting and they were all out of focus. I walked more-or-less straight up the side of the hill to the beacon, which at 425m, is the highest point in The Malverns, or just about as high as the King’s Blockhouse on the slopes of Devil’s Peak in Cape Town. What is interesting is that I used to walk up to the Blockhouse three or four times a week without breaking stride. Now I am clearly not as fit as I used to be because I was fairly shagged out when I got to the beacon. I lay down, told the dogs not to wander too far, and rested my eyes for ten or fifteen minutes. When I woke up the dogs were nowhere to be seen, but my most piercing whistle had them instantly racing back to my side through the long grass. Walking back down the hill Hazel kept a constant vigil for rabbits which she only ever chases as far as the nettles. She’s learned to keep her snout away from the stinging green stuff.
Hazel has also turned out to be a bit of a fox hunter. She goes mad every time she hears them in the field on the other side of the fence. One night, when I took the dogs up the road for their bedtime wee run, a lone scrounging fox made the mistake of barking when s/he saw the dogs. Hazel instantly bolted after the fox in attack mode – sprinting low down with a high-pitched I’m-going-to-kill-please-send-for-reinforcements bark/whine. Edgar looked on in confused amusement, or perhaps that was bemused confusion. I whistled my loudest come-back whistle. The fox run up a neighbour’s driveway and around the corner into their garden with Hazel in hot pursuit. It took a few more whistles and calls before Hazel obeyed, but by that stage neighbours were already looking crossly out their windows to see what all the commotion was about. We’ve already had one neighbour complain to the council that we let our dogs wee on the grass at night. I ask you!
What more? I have discovered – quite by accident, don’t ask – a new personal cure for hayfever: inhale water. I don’t mean breath it so that it goes into your lungs, but just so that it covers the sinuses. It’s just like when you go swimming and you get water in your nose; it sort of burns for a second, but probably clears out whatever was bothering you.
And finally, Lucia was lazing in bed one weekend morning when she suddenly leapt up and whipped her night dress off. A bit like Edgar I looked on in dazed confusion. In explanation Lucia breathlessly blurted out that there was something on her. On closer inspection and with due consideration, I replied that she could have fooled me.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
I’d rather be on a beach (and, as soon as we win the lottery, we will be.)
We had a lovely weekend with Barbara & Terry in Portugal. You can see all the pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
But to begin at the beginning (which seems about as good a spot as any,) we woke at 02h40 last Friday to shower, get dressed, and make the zoo comfortable before the hour-long drive to Luton Airport for our 06h35 flight to Faro with EasyJet. Google said it would take us an hour and a half, but I surmised that it wouldn’t take us quite so long at that time of the morning. Lucia had arranged with one of her colleagues, Laura, to babysit the zoo over the weekend. We locked them out just after 03h00 with plenty of food and water to see them through the day until Laura arrived to take charge after work. Edgar bid us adieu beyond the glass of the patio door with that cocked head look that dogs give when they want to manipulate you.
I pointed Lucia’s Mercedes towards Luton and floored it. There was almost no traffic on the roads until we reached the M1 near Daventry. On the M1, the main north-south motorway out of London, I was taken aback by the amount of traffic on the road for that time of the morning – almost all of it big articulated trucks. I stuck to the right hand lane and did the speed that I wanted to do. But at that time of day it was easy to see what the problem is with UK motorways. The trucks are essentially a moving roadblock. They are limited to 60mph by statute and speed limiters on the vehicle itself – but there obviously going to be slight variations due to the physics of moving such weights and the technology on board. So, what happens is that a truck travelling at 61mph will always overtake a truck moving at 59mph. This blocks lanes one and two for miles essentially turning the freeway into a single lane road for cars. There are only two ways to get around this: ban trucks from overtaking, or add an extra lane to the motorway. I don’t really see either of those two things happening, but I can always dream.
Strolling around the departures lounge at Luton we couldn’t help but notice the news on the giant screens that Michael Jackson had died. You know how I feel about that paedophile. I might have mentioned to Lucia in passing that it was a great day for music. On the other hand, I can imagine quite a few news editors (in this age of 24-hours news) thanking their lucky stars that he died on a Thursday rather than a Monday – giving them an entire weekend’s worth of fluff to fill out their bulletins.
Disembarking at Faro airport, we followed everybody else – the wrong way. It’s amazing how people follow each other rather than the signs – bloody sheep. So when everybody turned around and started walking back the way they had come, we were at the front of the queue. Barbara and Terry (& Prickles & Ono) met us on the other side of passport control and baggage claim. We got a great big welcome from the dogs who now recognise the airport as a source of new guests. Then we wandered up and down the arrivals concourse looking for our car rental agency. We’ve always used AutoAlgarve – one of the discount rental agencies – but couldn’t find them anywhere. Back in December, Paulo – the agent – told us that the airport company was going to move their stand. He neglected to mention that this would be out of the building, across the approach road, through Parking Area 1, across another road, behind some trees and next to Parking Area 4. We got there with some guesswork and luck, and eventually drove away a little Renault Clio to meet Barbara & Terry at “O Electrico” (The Tram) just across the causeway on Faro Beach. The café used to be a tram carriage and hence its’ name – now it’s just another café on the estuary island of Faro Beach where you can watch aeroplanes take off and land at the airport across the mudflats. Sitting outside under the parasols, Lucia and I basked in the dry heat and simply absorbed the aromas of the sea, coffee, wild thyme and fish. Terry told us about the new Honda CRV he had just bought (and how delivery had been delayed by a strike by the people who make number plates in Portugal), but all I could think was: “Wow, smell that” as the aromas and warmth titivated our senses.
I also remembered – this time – to ask Barbara to bring some beach towels along when they came to greet us at the airport so that we could wander straight onto the beach for a swim. We had packed our costumes right on top of our suitcase for quick and easy access. So after coffees, tostas (toasted sandwiches), and a warming bagaçeira (grappa), Lucia and I went for a swim while Barbara and Terry went to check on their new vehicular purchase. Going straight to the beach definitely helped get us into a relaxed, holiday mood right away – you’ve got to get into the groove as soon as possible when you’ve only got four days.
From the beach we drove (slowly) to Barbara and Terry’s home – Casa Valepena – in Espargal with the windows wide open to feel the warm air ruffling our hair. Just a short note here on the name of Barbara and Terry’s home which is a play on words in Portuguese: their house overlooks the Pena valley (Vale de Pena), but “vale a pena” also means “worthwhile”. So they’ve got a worthwhile home in the Pena Valley.
Let me speed up here. We had a long, languid lunch of tapas, followed by an afternoon zizz and then a walk around the Espargal hilltop to exercise the dogs. In the evening, Barbara and Terry took us into Loulé which had fenced off the old town for the FestivalMed, an annual festival of music and gastronomy. We were aiming for the Igreja Matriz (mother church) where the Orquestra do Algarve was performing works by Bizet and Voríšek. Let me give you Terry’s description of the event from his own letter to friends and family: -- “Those attending were required to pay a 12-euro entrance fee, which is steep by local standards. Having obtained tickets, we made our way through the crush in the narrow cobbled streets, past endless stalls hawking knick-knacks (jewellery, clothing and music, adds Jones) to the church. Jones complains that I have not done justice to the event, with its alternative flavours, Bohemian atmosphere and smell of hash hanging in the air. It’s life as life has been lived in bazaar towns for centuries – if that’s what you like. Certainly, lots of people did.”
Like Terry, I didn’t know either of the pieces of music. Hell, I hadn’t even heard of Voříšek . We arrived a few minutes late and had to scuttle to an empty pew on tiptoes as the orchestra belted out the first movement of Voríšek’s Symphony in D Major. I was mesmerised by the music, but was frustrated by the fact that I had no idea what the hell I was listening to. I dashed back to the church door after the second movement to buy a programme, and then had to tiptoe back to my seat under the glare of other concert goers because the conductor had the temerity to launch into the third movement before I was ready. Through the third and fourth movements I felt like one of those fluffy dogs with noddy heads that people who drive LOUD cars put in the back window of their vehicles. I just couldn’t stop nodding my head and tapping my foot to the beat. The first thing I did when we got home to Leamington Spa was to see if I could download the music, which I couldn’t – so I actually had to BUY the CD on Amazon. (Still waiting for delivery.)
Afterwards we found a table in one of the numerous places to eat. Unsurprisingly – given how busy the old town was with the festival – the service was slow and the ambience distinctly noisy. But we were hungry, so we stuck it out and yelled at each other to be heard. My half-deaf ear popped and whizzed and zinged in the noise.
On Saturday morning Barbara and Terry took us around to João Rafael’s medronho distillery at Monte Ruivo for a brief tour and to make some purchases which we would be cramming into our suitcase for the journey home. Medronho is made from the fermented and distilled fruit of the wild strawberry tree, arbutus unedo . I have developed quite a taste for it over the years of visiting Portugal.
In the afternoon, Lucia & I went to the beach at Dunas Douradas (Golden Dunes). We go back to the same beach every time 1) because we know it, and 2) because it gives us a barometer of how the Algarve is changing. When we first went to this beach together in 2001, there was virtually nothing there – just some dunes and pine trees. Now it’s a mass of high-end property developments and golf courses which make for a continually changing the landscape.
I’ve lived with the beach for most my life so it’s difficult to describe how it feels to flop into the sand after missing it for so long. In Leamington Spa we are about as far away from the sea as you can get in England, and we really miss it. We used to absorb as much of the sun as possible when we were younger; now we spend most of our time under the umbrella. But it’s still the beach and it feels so much like the natural place for us to be. As a teenager I cycled many thousands of kilometres riding to a beach every single day of the summer vacation.
In the evening, Barbara and Terry attended the annual banquet of the Senior University of Loulé, while Lucia and I went to the Churrasqueira Angolana (churrasqueira = grill room, I suppose) in Loulé. No prizes for guessing that I chose the chicken piri piri; Lucia had steak. The dishes are served with rice, chips and salad. (No wonder then that Lucia and I both put on a couple of kilograms in just four days.)
Sunday was much the same as Saturday. In the morning we walked the dogs in the valley, we went to the beach in the afternoon, and in the evening we took Barbara and Terry to dinner at a new restaurant in Salir, a small village in the hills near Barbara and Terry’s home. Of course, that short monologue doesn’t do justice to how it felt – and it felt fantastic.
On Monday morning – all too soon – we had to pack our bags and go home; but we really felt like we’d had a good break. We did a lot without rushing. I drove slowly (mostly). This is where we’re coming to live if we win the lottery.
Back in England, Lucia was immediately thrust into her new job which involves integrating two business units in MillwardBrown. We expect this to take a lot of her time over the next few months, and exercise all the management skills she has learned in her career.
What else?
It was great not to suffer from hayfever for the few days we were in Portugal (given that grass pollen had to do its job months ago on the Algarve.)
Back home I traced an old friend, Julian, in England this week with whom I had lost contact in the late 1990s when he came to the UK. I had been talking to Barbara in Portugal about people who had influenced me for one reason or another and Julian’s name jumped out at me. I came back to the UK determined to try to find him if I could. The Internet is amazing. First I found his brother who is a senior pilot with Air Mauritus, and then, with a couple of good guesses, I tracked Julian to Anglo Irish Bank in London. He certainly seemed to be pleased to hear from me, and noted that he had recently been talking about me to somebody else. Of course I’m fascinated by the coincidence that we had been talking about each other at more-or-less the same time after no contact for twelve years. In classic British tradition where weekend diaries fill up weeks and months in advance, we have arranged to get together at the beginning of August.
The foxes are multiplying. Lucia hustled me to the study window yesterday evening to point out that the two adult foxes had been joined by at least three cubs in the playing field behind our house.
I was lying on the lawn after mowing the grass the other day and I started thinking about marbles for some strange reason. A couple of weeks of every year at primary school was devoted to “marble season” (which was usually followed by yo-yo season and then dingbat season.) If this strikes a chord, you’re probably male and you’re probably getting old. Ask any teenager now what a dingbat is, and I bet you £1 that they’ll say it’s a stupid person or a MicroSoft font. (Who remembers the little rubber balls tied to a plastic bat with a rubber band?) When I was in Standard Five (or Grade Seven, or whatever they call it now) I discovered a very cheap source of the highly prized “triple crystal goons” at a toyshop in the Highlands North shopping centre near where we lived in Johannesburg. The “goons” cost a mere five cents each at the toyshop, but I was able to flog them at school for Two Rands each, a mere 4000% profit. The toyshop also had pure-ies (as in something that’s pure, which is bit of a contradiction because they were milky rather than clear) which I was able to sell for vastly more than I paid for them. My friend, Brendan, also had a limitless supply of ball bearings of various sizes through his engineer father which didn’t cost us anything and which we sold for stupid amounts of money in the school playground. I have absolutely no recollection what we did with the profits; we probably splashed out on the high life – chips, sweets and cold drinks. Sorry, there’s no point to this anecdote. It’s just something I remembered with fondness; maybe I should have become a shopkeeper.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
