By MARGARET BROWN features@algarveresident.com
Margaret Brown is one of the Algarve Resident’s longest standing contributors and has lived in the Algarve for more than 20 years.
During these present sunny spring days, it is difficult to recall all the months of rain and misery of last winter, in much the way that a new mother forgets the pain of giving birth.
With climates in disarray, there is a question as to whether high flying ash from Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull will have any long term effect on Europe’s climate.
Being a relatively small emission, this remains to be seen, but the explosion and melting icecap could awaken neighbouring and much greater Katla.
It seems they operate in tandem as occurred back in 1821 and might do so again within the months ahead, an eruption being long overdue.
Unable to fly home because of restrictions, some visitors have made the best of their extended stay.
One Saturday in April, we watched holidaymakers from northern parts swimming off Lagos beach and others sunbathing.
They must have had a terrible winter up there to be able to enjoy the chill Atlantic waters so early in the year.
A small squadron of gannets was passing high overhead as we walked to the end of Ponta da Piedade to see the wild flowers that morning.
Things were just beginning to look up in the Brown household following a few difficult months but Good Friday proved it to be otherwise.
The day started well enough with a solemn celebration of Christ’s crucifixion in Luz Church accompanied by some glorious chorals by the choir.
Later that afternoon, the Boss was walking with our old bitch along a quiet country lane when she was attacked.
The aggressor was a nasty butch mongrel from a tumbledown farmstead nearby and in the ensuing set-to the Boss was knocked to the ground.
Because he had Millie on a short lead he was trodden on by the fighting pair, suffering cuts to the head and forearm and a badly torn ear.
He appeared at my office door covered in blood: “I have had a spot of bother”, and we were at A&E Lagos within an hour. From there by ambulance to Barlavento where a surgeon took one-and-a-half hours to stitch the ear back together before a kind friend drove us home.
Afraid that we might suffer reprisals from the owner of the animal if we reported the incident to our local Polícia, one of our dogs having been poisoned in the past, we let the matter rest.
The Boss paid Barlavento and I footed the bill for Millie’s treatment, the bitch having suffered a nasty puncture wound in her side.
Dogs will be dogs and bad owners should be made accountable but in this climate of fear, justice is not possible.
On to happier matters, there is a pair of cuckoos singing every morning from sunrise accompanied by a couple of golden oriole. It is a joyful sound 700 yards away but for a friend in whose trees they roost, it is an early alarm call he could do without.
Several azure magpies turn up whenever the tooting begins, perhaps hoping to raid one of the nests in which this parasitic bird has laid an egg.
With plenty of ground water and temperatures like summer, the local countryside is bursting out all over. Vegetation and wild flowers up to waist height make it hard to distinguish what animal or bird is rustling about in the shadows, although I saw a feral sow rooting alongside a stream one day.
Too handsome and well fed to be pure wild boar, maybe it was she who dug up two young trees and some flowering plants in my garden and ploughed up an area of bush alongside the boundary wall.
Other beneficiaries of the present abundance appear to be the horses and mules on gypsy camps dotted about the district, their owners to be seen scything cart loads of grass from roadside verges and derelict farm land, the animals between the shafts nicely rounded this year.
In view of the loads these beasts are expected to pull, they need plenty to eat especially when a large family and all their possessions are on the move.
Leaving Lagos a couple of days ago, we joined a line of cars creeping at walking pace behind a tall van. As we eased forward, a Polícia de Trânsito fuzzmobile shot past to the front of the queue and pulled up, whereupon a gypsy cart that had been concealed by the lorry swung out into the offside lane.
Perched across the rickety vehicle was a contraption of solid iron overhanging both front and back boards. On top of the mule and lying along the shafts were several men attempting to weigh down the front of the outfit and keep it on the road.
The mule was buckling at the knees under the enormous load which was threatening to tilt both cart and beast up in the air.
We could not stop to see how the police sorted things out, but the gypsies would be unable to dismount until something like a small crane was fetched to lift the machine away.
With Labour Day, and families coming over from Britain for half-term, Lagos town has cheered up a little helped by some real sunshine.
As we sat drinking coffee watching dolphin trips leaving the Marina, a steady flow of buggies, toddlers and rather careworn looking adults strolled by without stopping.
