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Postcard from Portugal - January 2010
It may be a little late to recall the highlights of 2009, but I still giggle at the sight of the Pope being rugby tackled by a lady who did the same thing last year. Perhaps it’s the beginning of a Vatican Tradition to go alongside the already established tradition of Roman Catholics bringing their cameras to midnight Mass in St Peter’s. But let’s move on to the more personal, and admittedly less dramatic events of last year.
Top of the list must be the lady who stormed into a local bar one late evening, seized the glass from a man chatting to friends, poured the contents over him, and dragged him out by his shirt front (not many of us wear ties in the Algarve). ‘Husband ?’ I asked the friend with whom I was drinking. ‘Oh no,’ he answered. ‘He is, how do you say it, her Fancy Man. He must have forgotten that it’s Thursday.’
Then there was a farmer driving his tractor along the main road in heavy rain and shielding himself with an umbrella; and the horsewoman who rode up to the village cash machine, dismounted, drew cash, and rode off again.
And the shepherd who offered to sell me a lamb. Shepherds around Sao Bras wander the roads with thirty or forty sheep pausing for half an hour or so to let them graze, and then moving on. I saw this particular shepherd on my way to the supermarket. He was having trouble with a single white lamb which refused to keep up with its elders. On my way back, he was further up the road with the flock grazing and the lamb lying stubbornly in the middle of the road. I had to stop. The shepherd held up the lamb. ‘Cinque (five) Euros’ he offered. It was a bargain, but I don’t think my cats would have taken kindly to it. I smiled, shook my head, and drove on.
And lastly, there was the 8am phone call. I could not make out who was speaking, so I asked them to phone back. I went to another phone. ‘It’s Sylvie,’ said the caller. I apologised. I know three Sylvies, which one was she? ‘I’m your neighbour.’
‘How can I hep you?’ ‘You can’t. Cyril died yesterday, just dropped dead.’
Cyril was her partner. Cyril had just bought an apartment in town. Cyril was rumoured to be moving in with another woman. Nothing much you can say in the circumstances, but the police have not been round. so there are, I suppose, no suspicious circumstances, but the Portuguese police do like to avoid paperwork.
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