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A nearby freshwater well with hand-pump, Mrs Fatima and a local German Shepherd
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Mrs Fatima powers the pump
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| Let me out. I want to see what's going on (and bite the German Shepherd!) |
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| Terrifying dog (Rafeiro Alentejano) asks us to leave the area |
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| A beautiful old door in Almodôvar |
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| The fountain in the small square, Almodôvar |
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| Danger of Death |
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| Spearmint Valley |
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| Some of the original cobbles exposed |
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| Harry prepares a prickly pear with the van key |
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| Harry and I consume the prickly pear |
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| Long shadows as we return to Mrs Fatima's from an evening dog walk |
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| Planted cork trees, some harvested this year |
I am dreading winter. Inland, away from the coast, an increasingly familiar cycle repeats every twenty-four hours. The morning air is cool––even cold––in the shade with blocks of sunlight providing a welcome glow. Then an almost-bearable heat ratchets up until late afternoon before it gives way again to a fresh, perfect evening temperature after sunset. Come winter, the same large circadian swings of some fifteen degrees Celsius or more will continue in this semi-arid, desert-like terrain but with the nadir close to freezing.
Having reclaimed Monty and stocked up on our shopping trip to Castro Verde, we've been able to be a little more self-sufficient and give Mrs Fatima time to herself to tend to her various duties. Although now almost four o'clock, the loosely-defined siesta stretches on with humans and animals alike, silent in the heat. Indoors, construction methods provide natural refrigeration. Normally, all the windows and doors would be shut up at this hour to lock the heat out, but today our rice cooker puffs plumes of steam up and out of the small open kitchen window with metal shutters as it prepares pork belly and chouriço with black beans.
Earlier in the week Harry was charged with cooking lunch, Mrs Fatima and I having picked up a few supplies the night before. Her eating routine is to have a hot, cooked lunch and cold small evening meal or snack. At least this is what she has told me when I sit at her kitchen table and she nibbles one thing or another outside of meal times. That same day, Harry and I were held up in Almodôvar, missed lunch entirely and apologised to Mrs Fatima on our return that what was to be hot lunch would now be hot dinner. "I can have everything ready in twenty minutes," a confident Harry asserted. Yeah right, I said and Mrs Fatima thought. Some hour and a half later of me whining Are we nearly there yet? and feeling faint with hunger we sat down to eat. "Would you like some aguardente as an aperitif?" Mrs Fatima offered before we'd had a chance to tuck in to Harry's improvised dish. "Yes please!" came the firm response from Harry with more of a shoulder-shrugging noise coming from me. Mrs Fatima explained this spirit had been made from her figs in the Algarve. She poured us each a shot (or two), toasts to good health were pronounced, and we sipped the burning water. I'm not much of a fan of spirits and the feeling that I'd just swallowed something akin to battery acid would have confirmed my prejudice were it not for the incredible aroma and taste of dry figs which suddenly expanded then lingered on my palate. After some exchanges of ooh's and aah's about the liquor we were ready to address our hunger. During the meal, Mrs Fatima finished off the last of her home-made wine which may or may not have been the reason she chose this particular setting to give Harry a good ticking off for using the wrong form of address with her. "You don't say você! My daughter does that too! It's rude!" She was unforgiving of those who don't have Portuguese as a first language. To be fair to Harry, it is a bit of a booby trap because the equivalent term for 'you'––usted––used in Spanish is very much the formal way to address someone. Both words translate to 'Your Mercy' and were historically the way to speak to someone when showing respect but for some reason it has been demoted in Portugal to be replaced with 'o senhor' or 'a senhora', "sir" and "ma'am". I don't know if it was the aguardente, mild heatstroke from waiting for the dog food delivery or something else, but following the meal I crashed and for the first time that I can ever recall, had a siesta at 7pm.
For our twice-a-day walk with Ichiro we do not climb the road to reach the end of Bernados––where there is another small collection of dwellings––as there is a German Shepherd that has attacked other dogs. He is usually free to roam this area but within our little complex of houses, Atrevido, and sometimes Yoshi, dogs that belong to the immediate neighbours, ward the Alsatian off should he come too close. Atrevido we met as soon as we arrived that first night and I thought Mrs Fatima was praising him when she cooed over and over "atreviiiiidu, atreviiiiidu" since atrevido means bold or daring. It is in fact his given name. Now retired at fourteen years old, he is an old, medium-sized shepherd dog whose breed has its origins in this region. Mostly black with some tawny patches on his face, his coat is currently clipped short for the summer save a small pompom of matted fur at the end of his happy tail. Whilst his body structure is totally different, his character is reminiscent of Caesar: doting, gentle and loyal. Like many dogs here, both in town and country, he takes himself for walks and spends the day sleeping in different doorways, seeking out the coolest spot. He is a supreme alerter, distinguishing familiar and unfamiliar vehicles from afar and sounding the alarm with repeated barks should any novel person, animal or means of transport approach. The other dog, Yoshi, is a beagle who still goes to work with Hannibal on the sheep farm as well as join him for trips to town and the café. A very happy hound. I asked Hannibal today, "How do you write 'Yoshi'?" Hannibal looked at me with his honest eyes, opened his palms and pulled his arms up from his thick tilted neck. He has no idea. Apparently if anyone should know it should be me. English breed, English name. Thinking better of putting forward a rebuttal and to not complicate matters I left it there and determined I would go for the Japanese spelling known to me from Super Mario Kart days.
Taking the road downhill instead, and to vary the walk for Ichiro, we sometimes cross over a fence to access a dry riverbed which only runs with water in the winter months. The geology is pleasantly curious with different rock formations and erosion patterns. There is one stretch of the dry bed that is populated with numerous low, soft, green plants, spaced out so that one of our eight legs will brush against them as we pass through. Then comes the very unexpected but indistinguishable smell of fresh minty mouthwash.
Next time: pygmy chickens and strangled-sounding cocks; things you didn't know about cured sausages at forty-three; free accounting and legal advice; and (furtive look) a preto, the term used in Portugal to describe paying in cash or other government- or tax-avoiding activities.
A quick word about cork trees first. They are everywhere here and economically important. In Portuguese they are called sobreiros. It is, apparently, illegal to cut them down, dead or alive (the trees, that is––dead people don't cut down trees), without government permission. Every seven years, the outer bark––the cork––is harvested and the final digit of the year is painted onto the trunk.
