I have no good idea why, but the village is being decorated with lots of blue and white crepe paper, all twisted and fashioned into flowers and other becoming shapes.
These are then draped over the entrance to our little capela, or chapel, and over other places, such as the recently restored little Roman monument and it all looks rather jolly.
It appears that it is a celebration of spring, primaveira, and is another excuse for a bit of a ‘knees-up’.
The village numbers seem to swell as there are many returning family members, some who work away in other European countries.
The days are appreciably longer, plants are growing like mad; spring is certainly in the air!
Our village, as most others, has an associao, or village hall kind of place, where at some rather random times, a little cafe and bar is set up in the vestibule.
Villagers and friends drift in and out, enjoying a bica (a local espresso, incredibly strong and bitter) or perhaps something a little stronger, just to ward off the spring chill!
At festa time, it gets lots of decoration and people gather for the festivities; last time it was a masque ball!
Everyone wore a mask, or disguise and it all got a bit silly, but was great fun.
I don’t know what will be the theme this year, but it will, I’m sure, involve a lot of locally produced food and drink and there might even be a performance from the village accordion group, son de serra.
The last time they played, and there are a lot of them, some twenty or so, they were squashed onto the back of an old tractor’s trailer, still with a lot of hay and other unmentionables attached, and they hardly had room to squeeze their accordions, let alone move about.
Well, you can guess what happened, can’t you?
As the evening progressed and the younger, mostly village girls began to jump and jig on the trailer, bashing their tambourines and generally having a good time, the older, flat-capped and more serious, generally male, traditional accordionistas, were bumping elbows and bodies began to fall off the trailer.
The first was a young lady of about seventeen and did it rather gracefully, if unintentionally.
She was doing a sort of twirly thing, throwing her hair about, gypsy-fashion, when she seemed to sway off the side.
Fortunately she was being admired by a small group of local chaps and they were able to catch her as she fell and place her back on board.
I’m not even sure she noticed!
The best, though was a chap called Rui, who is one of the better accordion players and does take himself rather seriously.
He was scowling at all the antics of the young folk and pushed himself forward, centre-stage and promptly tripped over the lip around the trailer’s edge.
He fell forward into a great mound of hay and bounced up, weeble-like and looked around with a confused expression.
He was uninjured, his accordion was undamaged, but his pride took a bit of a dent, as all mocked him a bit.
He seemed fine later, though, as he sat nursing a small glass of the local firewater.
They can certainly throw a party in Portugal!
Mike Gaunt is a former headmaster at St Christopher’s School, Bahrain
mikegaunt@gmail.com