Autumn in the Algarve
It's been a quiet week here in the Algarve. The temperature has dropped
through the floor. This is unconstitutional. October is usually a
summer month. Autumn usually comes in with only hours notice right at
the end of the month. I felt aggrieved last year when the temperature
suddenly lurched down on October 31st depriving me of what I considered
to be the proper last day of summer. This year it's two weeks early.
Okay, we need the rain, but last week I was writing these bulletins
wearing only swimming trunks, and one person even questioned whether I
had any clothes on at all. I suppose I do need to up the visitor
numbers a bit so perhaps I should do a few more visuals with the
heating turned up and no clothes on. On the other hand, maybe that
would frighten some of you.
Anyway, no movie this week, but some will be disappointed to learn that
I have on a shirt, a jacket, trousers, socks and shoes. What a bummer!
We've also had one and a half days of rain.
Sure, we need the water. It means I dont have to man the pumps every
thursday when we usually get water from the barragem (reservoir). The
Algarve is criss-crossed with concrete channels on stilts that pass the
water round the fields. It is very efficient, and the water is
delivered to various sumps into which you can drop a hose connected to
a pump, and pump it to where you want, or you can run your own concrete
channels from the sump across your orchard to water the orange trees,
and so on.
It also means, curiously for northerners, that we are now into spring.
That's the odd thing about the Algarve. I've said this before, but what
happens in the UK is that at the end of summer the cold comes and stops
the plants growing. Here the rains come and start the plants growing.
They've been largely dormant all summer due to the parched ground. That
also means no weeds grow. Now the rains have come the weeds will be up
in minutes and we'll all have to get out there and into attack mode.
I shall also be rotovating the vegetable patch, and my first lines of
broad beans will go in next week while the ground is still warm. It's
about the only vegetable I bother to grow as it is so much easier to
buy my veg from the local market. Let someone else do the planting and
hoeing. The only trouble is, broad beans get sold when they are big and
tough. I like mine pea sized, or as pods when they are finger sized.
They are delicious cooked for about three minutes with a few knobs of
butter and a sprinkling of black pepper.
Luckily I got in my last lunch party of the year, and six of us had a
fine time sitting in the alpendra (a sort of summer-house-cum-shed the
other side of the river). I did a vigneron salad, which is indigenous
to the Alsace region of France. The vineyard workers take their lunch
into the vineyards and it consists of a salad with cheese and ham cut
into it. I also added a whole bunch of pomegranate seeds. They are just
ripe now, and taste refreshing, and are apparently rather good for you.
For a main course I cooked pork in bite-sized pieces mixed with prawns,
and cooked in a medley of tomatoes, bananas and figs. The only addition
was some olive oil and a cup of red vermouth. It was delicious.
It was one of those splendidly ambient Mediterranean lunches that
started about quarter to two and finished somewhere near six p.m. Nice!
Ultimately, isn't this what we come here for?
john
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