Monsanto

I am seated next to the grey flank of a Catholic Church, full of real and tacky splendour inside. I only got a glimpse there when a whole team of women were cleaning it this morning. Did I imagine that each one was polishing a little more vigorously than the next? They are storing up spiritual wages. But those wages can only be cashed the other side of death, so faith is required to do the job with a clear heart. Just up the road and round the corner there are three men laying new paving in the street. They are too old to be doing such heavy work in such heat but, as AD says, all the younger men have left this village for the exile of prosperity. Three or four older men sit on a wall just where the paving is, watching the work’s progress and discussing that and other matters with no hurry. They disappeared a while back, to have their lunch I suppose, but now they’ve returned.

Most people in Portugal are friendly, some are grumpy and sullen and some downright aggressive. I am a tourist which some can forgive you for, others not. I too would get a bit fed up of being nice to the tourists, if I was them. The sun can’t get me here. He’s trying to but the fig’s small leaves are making a dense web that he has trouble penetrating. When the breeze stirs them, they come to clicking life as if they suddenly have something to say. The sun is now angling in underneath because, if he can’t get the whole of me, he can definitely get my feet and they’re the most vulnerable part. Well, in some ways.