Hendons in Portugal

These days I am training a friend’s Portuguese Mastiff puppy, HERCULES, who is smart, stubborn, has sharp teeth and loves me to the point that he moans and moos when I show up at his house.  I am teaching him to heel, sit, lie down, stay and come and he is teaching me Portuguese, which I’ve otherwise resisted, and he plops right down at,“Senta!” and lies down sprawled out at, “Deite.”  Then there’s Fica, Anda and Aqui…the vocabulary is building.  I’ll work them into my existing vocabulary of Good Morning, Have a Good Weekend, Everything OK?, Coffee With Steamed Milk, Please, and lastly, Kisses and Hugs.  This just brings me back to the realisation that the Portuguese are generous and patient…often too patient as in the case of their woeful acceptance of their laughably inept bureaucracies.  But still, we are very fortunate to live here; the good vastly outweighs the difficult.  

That feeling of good fortune always comes to the surface when I drive through the perfect little valley we’ve come to call Hoopoe Valley.   Hoopoe Valley is half a kilometre wide and perhaps three kilometres long.  The Valley is situated between two small riverside mountains.  It starts immediately over the saddle-pass as we head down the mountain into Viana and it is divided into quite small plots defined by stone walls that speak to the centuries of subdivision of farms among succeeding generations. 

Now, the plots are scarcely large enough to provide even a sustenance living, but if you own a few and rent a few more, you can apparently make do…at any rate, you will be seen on a rusty tractor with your sturdy wife hanging on to a fender.  It is history unfolded, defined by stone walls, acceptance of life as it is and respect for life as it was. 

Best of all, these little plots, each one dedicated to something different from its neighbour are a haven for birdlife.

Hoopoe Valley is where we most often find the magnificent Hoopoe Birds, the big colourful Woody Wood Pecker Prototypes I so love to see.  They have unsavoury habits, such as coating their houses and nests with foul smelling fecal matter and teaching their chicks to squirt sickening, well-aimed streams of baby shit at any intrusion, but Gawdamitey they are handsome…extravagant even.  Having said this, in the warm months of 2024 I did not see a single Hoopoe and in ’23 I only saw one.  This is alarming, but the bird gurus on the internet say the Hoopoe populations are safe and stable…I’ll keep looking.  

This valley is also home to several pair of the shy Pileated Woodpeckers.  They are also handsome as all get out and show flashes of bright red and white as they fly in their flap-flap-dip, flap-flap-dip style out of harm’s way and into the safety of more distant vines and foliage. To pay respects to One Flew Over, the Bull Goose Loony of the valley is a huge raptor of some sort.  On some days I say to myself, “That is a Short Toed Eagle!  He’s huge!” and at other sightings say, “It has to be a Goshawk.”  Whatever its species, this bird is the Undisputed Champ and Supreme Authority of Hoopoe Valley.  Bob McGrump we’ve come to call the one who sits almost invisibly with great disapproval on the top of a wooden power pole in the middle of a hay field.  He sits there unmoving if you drive by, even slowly, but if the car stops, to get a better view with my binoculars, for instance, McGrump drops off the pole into the air and flaps away half a span and alights on the wire, shoots me the little middle claw and makes silent threats.  I move along.

Not many days ago as I drove down into the valley on the way home, in bright light under a huge cumulous sky, McGrump brought me back to a magical time in my life.  He flapped off his regular pole and headed down-valley to an invisible (to me) thermal that tipped his near wing up sharply.  He banked tightly into the thermal and absolutely shot upwards in a heavenly spiral that I once knew well.  In mere seconds he’d gained two or three hundred meters without flapping once.  He’s getting up there to hunt, I thought to myself, but in that instant he peeled out of the spiral and blasted in a straight line back up the ridge to the saddle and then came lazily back to the thermal and did it again…three times!  McGrump was having fun, was in his glory, was overflying his kingdom!

The clarity of what he saw was in my mind and memory as he swept past peak and valley, field, ridge and river over and over, and joyfully without question.  The big difference in our experience was that McGrump looked out over his beak as the magic wheeled past again and again and I looked out over the panel and nose of my glider; McGrump wears his own airplane…never takes it off.  Even so, in my hubris I deemed us Brothers in The Thermal….silly I know, but you shouda been there.   During my days as an avid glider pilot, mostly in Eastern Washington, I often thermaled with hawks and every time admired their ability to fly so slowly and gain altitude so much faster than I could.  We also watched the hawks to find new thermals.  So even if they become McGrumpsters in repose, flying raptors are simply elegance defined.   

Back on Earth, there have been devastating forest fires and choking smoke covering a great deal of Portugal.  On the worst days, one simply could not go outside and the sun was a ruddy disk in a dreadful brown sky. 

 

That was all replaced with the remnants of Hurricane Kirk which wandered by in the Atlantic and the last two weeks of constant rain has tilted us back to normal.  The big Atlantic storm showed us its heel in the form of a “Severe Coastal Event”.  Off the seawall in Viana do Castelo the big seas were breaking ashore as high as 12 meters.  That’s a forty foot wave to this little fella from Texas!  I managed to get a few usable pics of this maelstrom.  Enjoy. 

 

 

Next is a long anticipated motor trip around the entire Iberian Peninsula.  Stay tuned.      

 

We have quite settled into Northern Portugal’s Spring where we’re making important decisions about our future, including, for me, which hearing aids to purchase, and for Linda, which eye should be first for the multi-focal-ocular-lens replacement; it was the left.  On trips, she can now read signs before they come over the horizon.  Other Springtime concerns are, where the best Mexican food is to be found (Porto) and how long it takes to drive to Gadis grocery store in Tui, Spain if you just go and come home (two hours) or if you stop in A Guarda for lobster (four to five hours).  Of our several trips there, only two have been the two-hour version. 

Closer to home, I recently caught my stork family in the middle of their courtship ritual. Her Grace was sitting attentively in the nest, dutifully watching Sir PranceAbout arch his neck backwards over his body until he resembled a baritone saxophone.  I’m certain it was Himself, for only we men are willing to be so ridiculous just for a little play time.  She is now sitting on eggs, but sweeter still, last week in the cold rain, Her Grace was sitting in the nest and PranceAbout was standing over her with his wings akimbo . . . saxophone-to-umbrella.  Chivalry rings out.

Still closer to home, our jungle is finished and it is stunning if I do say so.  Nine or ten enormous Strelitzia grace the stone courtyard in immense pots that are set on roller bases so that one can reconfigure one’s jungle at a whim.  The gorgeous Japanese Maples, also in huge rolling garden boxes, can line up by the gate to greet a visitor or snug into the corner to provide shade for the bird feeder.  

Señor Carlos, an incredibly talented craftsman, is our newest hero . . . he can do anything.  So far, by himself, he’s dug out the grass and replaced it with beautiful stone set in concrete over a sand base, cleaned and repaired our roof, rejuvenated the shop roof to fix those pesky leaks, completely remodeled both upstairs bathrooms, built some steps, replaced a kitchen faucet and there must be more, I forget . . ..  He is a small, wiry man, 58ish and as strong and agile as they come.  When he was building the courtyard, one could find him mixing concrete in a little portable mixer and then pushing a wheelbarrow of “product” to the far reaches of our garden where he’d already levelled the sand bed to exacting tolerances.  He poured the concrete onto the sand and, with long boards, smoothed and contoured it slightly to ensure run-off in the right direction; and then back to the mixer for another batch.  He did this all by himself and the first batch was over 100 feet from the mixer.  He’s almost unbelievable…so fast it seemed like magic.  We are lucky to know Señor Carlos.

And then Yuri, our magnificent and equally talented friend from Ukraine, is a constant force-for-good.  Among many other projects, he and I have built a tall arbor and bolted it to the courtyard stones and the front wall.  We covered it with the ubiquitous green wire mesh seen at every house and covered that with bamboo matting. The Passion Fruit vine in the big garden box (not on wheels) is growing up one wall of the arbor and seems to make about two inches a day . . . almost frightening growth.  I feel uneasy standing with my back to the vine.  But in two seasons I’m told it will cover the entire arbor and we’ll have perpetual shade for the big delicious dinners that will surely be enjoyed there.  

So yes, we are still very much enjoying life in Portugal.

Took care of admin biz today..(I forget what it was, but it was very important), did more laundry, greeted Rosa who demanded that I come look at the big Bird of Paradise that is about to produce three glorious birds heads. She said, Strelitzia!  I said they are all four Strelitzia, Rosa, just different varieties. She yelled, Nao!  Nao! and pointed to the towering Strelitzia…she yelled Palmiera! Palmiera!

Strelitzia!, I cried and staggered back pointing to the big jungle guys. 

Palmiera!
Strelitzia!
Palmiera!
Strelitzia!

Then she instantly won the argument by breaking into very very loud machine-gun Portuguese. She looked pleased that I had shut up and glad she had won. 

Next, I started the smoker in prep for slow smoking a charming little lamb shoulder roast.  It is freighted with good savory spices and, now done, it smells heavenly. 

As it rested, I went to visit Sweet Killer Bitch, our affectionate name for the ancient, crippled cattle dog mix whose only goal in life is to murder poor old Trixie.  

We now call her Sweet KB and we’ve grown quite fond of each other. Trixie stays in the car sweating and shivering while I slip through the gate and smooch on SKB. Her family is out of town and I happily volunteered to go say Hey to SKB while they are away.

We’ve established our routine. I drive up to their gate and SKB comes Limp-Charge-Yelling out to disembowel the intruders.  Once she sees (or smells) it is me she sits a couple of steps up their front stairs behind me and licks the back of my head and ears, making me lose confidence in my hygiene regimen. 
Meanwhile, there are two immense domestic grey geese across the lane  who are screaming at the top of their lungs…threatening mayhem.  I know E.B. White would have pulled a delicious Life Observation out of the geese situation, but the best I could do, being a big boy and all, was to smash my cane against their fence and call them Muthaf$&kas. They backed right off. 

Now it’s time for dinner. 
Tchau Tchau Tchau

The passing seasons continue to witness the maddening frustration of dealing with Portugal’s Neck-Bone Bureaucracies in their many forms and after only three years of relentless effort I now have my moto license plates and my boat is registered (In Great Britain).  Of course I’m still not allowed to get in the boat as its operator, having not found any Portuguese reliable enough to give the required and expensive rowboat operation lessons.  But I’m determined; stay tuned.

The process of building TAPAS was palliative, even delightful and it too stretched over three years and one month.  My steady little worker, Pippa, and my friends, Nuno, JP and Yuri, as well as my son Sheffield helped enormously in her construction and my wife got a little epoxy on her as well.  Without this cheerful crew, TAPAS would still be a glued up mess . . . Thank you, Gang!   

 

We launched her at the Viana Sailing Club in the straps of a big dockside crane a couple of weeks ago and the sailing club immediately became a source of joy.  TAPAS will live on her trailer on the hard at the club, amidst the bubbling fun of the little sailors.  There is a big OPTIMIST CLASS regatta taking place there right now with hoards of fearless young sailors no taller than a dining table bashing out into the roaring ocean in eight foot boats with glee and abandon.  Back ashore they chase each other and throw water balloons.  They will remember these days all their lives . . .  it is the stuff of life and I love seeing it.  

Our village this morning is finally remanded to the church bells, roosters, collared doves and normal village serenity.  For the last few days, the unending Portuguese Scouts Drumming Corps (Berlin 1938) and the low-fi high-vol chunka-chunka canned music from the community speakers at the bandstand a block away have made Barroselas an unending party that only the most desperate would ever attend voluntarily.  The worst part of these dopey deals are the fireworks that go off in two minute frenzies up until about 2:30 AM. The enigmatic Portuguese do love their flash-bombs  …my poor dog, Trixie, not so much.

We are susceptible to another sort of festa however.  Yesterday we drove the 50 minutes to A Guarda, Spain to their FESTA do LANGOSTA.  True, they also had loopy costumed folk dancing, but at least to live music.  The main event is a Barnum & Bailey-sized tent right on the breakwater that is filled with fragrant vendor booths and long tables where hundreds of people enjoy delicious lobster dishes.  Lobster pie, lobster paella, lobster soup, grilled lobster, baked lobster, lobster omelet, lobster tacos and non-lobster delights such as grilled octopus and scallops, fried squid, ceviche and beer!   The day was gorgeous in all regards.

Except for the old woman.  And the cats. The tent was packed and Trixie had just settled next to my feet when a sour looking old woman came by in a daze and stepped on Trixie’s tail.  Trix bit her on the ankle, quick as a snake!  Go Trix! The woman glared at me and I glared at her and we both examined her ankle which did not even have a mark on it and then we glared some more and she left in a cloud of high pique.  And then after lunch we waited in the shade of a pastry vendor’s umbrella for Linda to generously retrieve our car.   After standing there for a moment, we moved to deeper shade closer to the vendor’s table and instantly a double handful of tiny furious kittens exploded from underneath his table and came spitting out with every hair standing straight up and backs arched!  They disappeared, but Mamma stayed underneath the table on high alert about a foot from Trixie’s nose!  She was a smallish cat herself, but she made constant, much larger werewolf songs and Trix was content to hold a face-off instead of a dustup. 

As we drove along the rocky ocean shore and across the big Minho River into the scented Portuguese mountains, there was the realization that we had survived the bureaucracies at least for now, and that life was good.  Perhaps very good. 

At any moment I expect the camera dollies to come around the corner and someone to yell, Action!…surely I’ve slipped into a movie. I’m sitting in a café on the Douro River watching walkers arm-in-arm dodging the cyclists as they stream down the bikeway toward Matosinhos, 20 strong.  The Plane trees are shading the whole avenue. The sea breeze is fragrant, welcomed. Fishermen are tinkering with their boats and nets down on the hard. Up in the street the young Turks roar by on their Ducatis not daring to smile, but making stunning noises. Once in a while the wooden number 18 CARMO trolly clatters to a stop a couple of feet from my table and a few people get on or off.

On the deck of the café next to the one where I sit a man is playing the accordion very well. A walking group of seven “book club” looking women just strode by with great purpose, all of them talking at once…sounded like about 50 people. A girl of four looked up from her coloring book and waved at me; I waved back and a moment later she gave me one of her paintings.

When she left with her dad, she looked over the deck railing and called out, “Tchau Tchau Tchau!” I was thrilled. There was a man sitting at the rail table with his coffee and a friend chanced by, stood two feet from him and they both shouted at each other joyfully in the way of the Portuguese, waving their arms, having a swell time.

People are walking their dogs, having coffee with their dogs, showing strangers pictures of their dogs. The French Bulldogs come swaggering by looking to find a beef with somebody, anybody, and the Jack Russells pause at a few select table legs to piss importantly, leaving their numbers. A smiling young woman parked her German Shepherd at my table, draped the leash over my arm and said, “You would like to be with him for a moment, yes?…He likes you,” and she walked inside the cafe. He curled up on my feet.

In the cab going back to the garage where a trailer hitch is being installed, the taxi driver noticed a guy walking by the taxi with earphones on, bobbing his head in full groove; I mean Jukin! “Star Rock!” said the taxi driver. These are my finest moments in Porto.

éé

 

 

We are vaccinated, the Hoopoes are back from Africa, yesterday I sunburned my bald head while watching a sailing regatta and every vineyard in the valley is bursting with promise…all signs of renewed life, of Spring.  The Spring of the season, Spring of our riverfront village now hosting travelers and once again living in its cafes, Spring of the Stork couple and their impossibly leggy chicks who live calmly on a power pole at the local gas station! And the Spring of the dawning of life again as the pandemic recedes; all here, all heartily welcomed.

I am so hopeful the pandemic-dark-times will not return, for I believe, based on my own Equilibrium Meter, we could not take much more.  I believe another huge wave would collapse some economies and would lean toward disaster for all economies, but most importantly would lead to such desperation that major hunks of social structure might well just fall into oblivion, might break our hearts, might lead to a true apocalypse.  And them apocalypses have sharp edges and lasting effects…ask the dinosaurs.  

The dark times have opened many hearts, however.  Our little charitable association ANTIGA WAVE, assembled last July with several friends to help the needy of Viana do Castelo has gained traction and is attracting more and larger contributions.  We’ll have fed nearly 3000 people in our first year.  I am proud of my family and our expat friends who are playing such important roles; I am delighted with our neighbours and Portuguese friends who march arm in arm with us and who have never wavered.  I am in awe of Centro Social e Paroqueal De Nossa Senhora De Fatima which provides housing, orphanages, food, even psychological support and counselling to those most in need.  It is peopled with stalwarts of good cheer, great talent and endless vigor. 

This little  blog-note comes to you with my fervent wish that your world too is enjoying a renewed sense of life and hope, that you will breathe deeply and see a future with new birds, fat cattle and good prospects.  Our congratulations to each of you for pulling through this far.  We know it has not been easy.  Keep pulling.