Man Goes To Portugal

More Door Two months have passed since I last laid a log.  There have been more doors, trips outside Almodovar and to the farm and our first Christmas and New Year in Portugal.  I've selected these photos to give a flavour of what we've been up to. Can I take a photo of you eating crisps with chopsticks? Harry continues to occupy himself with chores, cooking, dog care and clearing brambles on the farm.  He is itching to move there and be able to get properly stuck into developing the land.  Ichiro has polydipsia (drinking too much) and polyuria (peeing too much) which worsens his bed-wetting.  Although we suspected diabetes, the vet's blood tests came back with a normal sugar level although a single reading doesn't rule diabetes out.  He's at an age where it feels cruel to put him through invasive tests and it's not clear that any results would lead to a simple intervention.  I don't know how Harry does it but every day he tirelessly washes the sponge ...

  Quem não arrisca, não petisca Since the last uploading I have started online Portuguese lessons with the university language school in Oxford.  Very enjoyable, very organised and the homework is encouraging me to do some studying.  I thought that this Portuguese proverb was rather amusing as it had losing out on a snack as the existential consequence of not being brave and daring. I have lots of photos to share, but not today.  My favourites are of Ichiro sleeping on the floor on top of a towel, teddy for a pillow and an old silk curtain as his blanket.  I joke that he wraps himself up when it's chilly (as it now sometimes is) but, in fact, it's Harry's inexhaustible doting.  I'm not convinced Ichiro gets cold as he has a lovely fur coat on all the time but Harry says he shivers when lying on the floor and somehow manages to get a towel under him without getting him up.  "Ichiro is cold!  Put a towel under him!"   How?!   "How do you t...

  Almodôvar takes its name from the Arabic al-Mudawwar , meaning The Round One.  I see no obvious traces of this or other, previous pasts, nor signs of its etymology.  I can only wonder at what the settlement and its surroundings once looked like, forever on the fringes of imperial consciousness.  Today, late-modern buildings––typical of the then Iberian peninsula and its corresponding  colonies––create hap-hazard streets as they line up shoulder-to-shoulder to usher any pedestrian or automobile towards the mother of all  churches,  the igreja matriz .   Atop a great sprawl of grey stone steps, t he regular base is c omposed  of oversized cuboid blocks which, stacked full height in each corner of the edifice and either side of the giant doors, send the middle and upper sections over and above  the surrounding village-town.  Only the cellular communications tower with its skeletal scaffold-like red-and-white frame is taller.  T...

J'adore.  Beja. Harry and I return without Mrs Fatima for his appointment The Grandest Door So Far View from a café – note the blue sign in the foreground I have noticed that despite being very far south, every now and then I happen upon a sign for the Camino de Santiago.  It seems ridiculous and as useful as having a sign to London, New York or Canberra.  "Yes, if you keep heading in that  direction you'll eventually get there."  I imagine the surrounding landscape strewn with the skeletons of lost pilgrims. The grass (again) And again but with the tower this time Back home Harry prepares lunch Mrs Fatima takes Pirata out at night for a walk.  She sprints around – chase me!  Chase me! Water Indefatigably helpful, Mrs Fatima mused that there must already be water at the farm.  She had visited the area some years ago and a neighbour was accessing water provided by the council.  This seemed a far-fetched idea: that there would be mains water in...