Increasing happiness in the Algarve

In order to continue my blog, I must reveal what I've been rather coy about, my exact whereabouts. I live in a place called Altura, which is a featureless modern beach resort near Portugal's southern border with Spain. I've known the place for almost thirty years without ever once liking it or the people here.

It was the resort in which my mother chose to build her last home, for reasons unknown to me. Her ostensible place of origin was far away, in a rural region between Mafra and Ericeira, and her sisters lived in Lisbon. She explained it by saying she wanted to remain in touch with English tourists by letting out the upstairs flat in her house to them. But why this particular place rather than any other in the Algarve?

I have no idea. Anyway, I managed to win back her large and ugly house from the man she had left it to, seven years after her death, in 2009. In the interim I had tried to have him murdered, served a prison sentence and then skipped my licence.

I recently spoke on the phone to my relation Brian Streeter in England, and he told me what he'd never made clear before, that the British police  never issued the international arrest warrant that they threatened. It seems I was too small a criminal to be worth their while. What good sense on their part!

Whether I can thus truly be described as being "on the run" is a moot question. If I tried to re-enter England, I would possibly be arrested, but they are very unlikely to seek me in Portugal. Perhaps I'm On The Walk, or even, On the Totter.

Meanwhile, and rather surprisingly, I can report that I am increasingly happy in Altura, with its million barking dogs in the otherwise ghostly streets. My house is the usual misshapen white Algarve box with red roof tiles and decorative chimney. But I keep it cool inside by never opening the shutters, and I love to sit naked at the stone table in the back garden writing my private diary, looking at the peach and rose and jacaranda and lemon trees, and sipping at a Spanish apple liqueur.

I'm also gradually becoming more part of the local community, in so far as this is possible. I have various clients for small doles of one or two Euros: an alcoholic old woman, and a somewhat younger ex-druggy who is now more an alcoholic. The latter is an amusing character whom I like more than the rapacious oldie.

I repair to the Central Sports Café morning, afternoon and evening to check my emails, revise my blog and surf the Internet. The morning also sees me at the paper-shop to peruse the international press and occasionally buy something, to justify my browsing. In the early afternoon I often sleep, but when I finally feel like milky coffee and cake, it's quite smart to take these at the Broadway establishment.

Then, if I've got the energy, it's a quick visit to the supermarket. But sometimes I don't go there, because I must take the long way around to avoid the old woman, who sits at Snack-Bar Piri-Piri, just off the main street.

Finally, it's back home, totally exhausted, to lie on my bed for a while. Then I take a delicious bath with the CD playing. Then perhaps a snifter. Or I might have one before the bath, in the bird-haunted evening garden.

Then out again for a meal at an overpriced restaurant, where I keep the price strictly under twenty Euros and get angry if they charge more. Then, energy returning, perhaps a phone call to England from the phone-box by the ocean, and I might visit a bar to go on with the novel I'm reading. Then it's back to my house for a final drink and perhaps a record and the longed-for tumble into bed.

Despite these supine ecstasies, I'm planning my third grand tour of Europe, commencing shortly. As I walked out one midsummer morning....