Why The Algarve? Why Salema?
The sad, tail-wagging tale of Suzy the greyhound.
We’d been based in Berlin for a couple of years and were considering a new base in Sardinia when, as is the way, we got an Email from a massage school in Lisbon. Three road trips in our VW van to the Algarve in the South of Portugal later, a whole different way each time, and Salema was our new base. A couple of years later and we were renting a villa on the very edge of a forest, with a pretty excellent sea view. Then we bought the villa. The very first time in my life that I’d ever done such a thing.
Being among Portuguese is a very different thing than being among Germans and their efficiency. There is a thing that expats here do from time to time when one could otherwise be frustrated with Portuguese bureaucracy. Shrug your shoulders and say, ‘hey, it’s Portugal.’ Recognition that it sometimes maybe better to hang loose. Not that German bureaucracy is anything to be proud of. Our experience when seeking a business visa was outrageous and utterly unfulfilling.
The Portuguese offer excellent lessons in patience, particularly at the supermarket checkout. In Germany, if you decided to stop your car halfway down a narrow one-way street to let someone out and maybe have a quick chat with them before they head off, you’d be immediately firmly and suitably chastised by the drivers waiting behind you. Here, it’s how things are done. If you need to let someone out, you let them out. And remind them of what they need to be reminded of. Then find something else to talk about before they head off. Behind, all is quiet, and one just waits patiently, knowing that eventually they’ll move on. Soon you find yourself doing the same thing. It’s very relaxing, but don’t think that it’s generally like that driving on the roads. So many Portuguese drivers are, um, interesting. There’s this thing so many PT drivers do. Drive at 40kph on the highway, with an arm hanging out the window. Very strange.
Some reasons why we stayed.
1. An average of about eight hours of sunshine per day.
2. The modest ability to be able to live in a very comfortable house on the edge of a national park and with an extremely comfortable forest and sea view…a wonderful situation that we could not even come close to affording in Oz.
3. The people.
4. The food. Vegetables and fruit with real, actual, taste. Large corporations are finding their way here with their mass produced, under plastic, beautiful looking but otherwise tasteless vegetables. What they do with tomatoes is criminal. But there is still plenty of organic, or family grown produce around the place here. And, importantly, the variety of what’s on offer is wonderful. And sooo cheap.
5. The fish. We can get a decent feed of fresh fish for sometimes for as little as five or six Euros for the two of us. And the variety is wonderful.
6. Did I mention the eight hours of sunshine per day average?
This part of Portugal, being what it is, houses a large expat community. Lots of Brits and Germans, many French and increasing numbers of Americans, among others.
A while back, a notice in the Algarve Angloinfo website requested contact with someone who might know of a diviner who could help find a “(sentimentally) precious lost thing.” A diviner. I’d never have thought of that. I’d like to know a car key diviner.
The notice was directly under ‘Algarve Senior Bikers Summer Ride’ and I was delighted to read “Despite the temperature being 36c, the ASB had an enjoyable ride and lunch during their most recent journey. “
Directly above that was someone seeking a ‘Woodworking Workshop.’
Next notice was a lady who wrote “Hi, I am looking to renew my vows… and really like the look of doing it at lady of the rock.” Lady of the Rock is a 300-metre peninsular near Porches in the Algarve, that narrows to about 30m at the church which sits about half-way along. It narrows further to about 15m at the end where celebrants perform weddings for those forgoing the holiness of the church.
So, there you have it. A diviner, a bikers run, woodworking workshop and marriage vow renewal notices one after the other.
And therein lies the complexity and variety of life in the Algarve. And that’s mostly just expats. I don’t really know, not having lived here a lifetime, but I suspect that the same variety and complexity exists among the locals. Our Portuguese friends here are a very small case study, but they fit the bill.
We like it here.
The sad, tail-wagging tale of Suzy the greyhound.
My dad accepted a racing greyhound once as payment for a debt. I don’t know the circumstances of it all but that’s what I remember the story being. It seemed a reasonable tale at the time. She was, it was said, a winner of the greyhound Melbourne Cup, which makes it an all-round good story. I was about eight years old at the time.
I’m not wishing to cast doubt on my dad’s story. I have no doubt he was a most honest and honourable man. And, while seeming a little bit contradictory, like many working-class folk at the time, he was okay about getting stuff that ‘fell off the back of a truck.’ His father working at the docks would have been most helpful for ensuring stuff fell into the right truck to fall out of; undamaged. But if he hadn’t got the dog as a payment, it’s a little unlikely that it fell off the back of any truck. Unless he actually paid money for it, which I doubt. I don’t recall the family being the least bit flush in my younger days. The debt payment story is best.
We called her Suzy and she lived in a tin shed up the back of the yard. It was unfortunate that the shed was made of old tin sheets, some curled, rusty and difficult to nail down. Suzy was such a happy dog. She wagged her tail lots. Unfortunately, the tail wagging didn’t go well with sheets of rusty curled tin and the combination meant Suzy lost her long slender tail; about 20cm of it was all that was left. I remember her wagging her little butt-bit with torn up old cotton sheets as bandages, the loose bits of cloth waving in the tail-wagging breeze. I remember they thought the tail would be okay if they bandaged it up tightly for a while, but it wasn’t going to heal. And it certainly wasn’t going to grow back. And Suzy wasn’t going to stop happily wagging her tail away so a butt-tailed. Melbourne Cup winning greyhound was what we had.
Apparently, the absence of tail wasn’t going to stop her from racing and dad was often out walking her for exercise. It seemed he had high hopes. He and one of his friends had a good idea once. They’d train her by taking her to the paddocks out past Craigeburn, a long way from Melbourne those days, but ‘just up the road’ now. We often went rabbiting in the paddocks out Craigeburn way, either with ferrets or shotguns.
For some reason dad said I could go with him and his mate, so Suzy and I were loaded in the back seat of car and taken out for a training session. This comprised, as I soon found, of looking for rabbits and letting Suzy chase after them. That’s it. No real science involved. She’s a dog that loves to run, so let’s take her for a run. And if she got a little prize at the end, this would help ‘blood’ her for the racetrack. While somewhat accepted in those days, such behaviour would draw big headlines today and protests would rage across the land.
Suzy was really excited. Dad and his mate were really excited too. “There’s one”, and the lead was slipped off her neck and away she flew, eyes focused on the prize. I thought she was the fastest thing I’d ever seen; so much power. The rabbits would have no chance.
Not unusually the rabbit didn’t have any messages about running in a straight line. It suddenly doubled back and Suzy had to readjust her direction at speed to suit. Unfortunately, the sudden change of direction combined with the rough pot-holed nature of the paddock meant she lost traction and went down. And didn’t get up. She’d broken a leg.
Dad must have been heartbroken. I’m sure he realised the folly of the exercise and was suitably chastened, which undoubtedly added to his misery. My last memory was of a blanket around Suzy, beside me in the back seat on the way home. We never had any more greyhounds, curly retrievers being the preferred option. They were terrific with the kids and good at bringing stuff back if you shot it. Rabbits, ducks, whatever. It was what we did. We didn´t live off the land, as such, but it was an important part of our lifestyle. A labourer with seven kids to feed benefited greatly by this back-up food source. And we loved doing it.
It’s just a shame we didn’t have a happier greyhound story to join the many fine feats of the curly retrievers. Somewhere along the line, Suzy quietly disappeared from our lives. I don’t want to think any further about it.
