Olive oil and plum pudding (From This Is Local London)

Olive oil and plum pudding

9:51am Thursday 15th December 2005 in

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Former RGS economics teacher Tim Claye and his wife Ann sold their home in Clarendon Road, High Wycombe, this summer to start a new life in central Portugal.

For the last five months, they have been working at full stretch to make a profitable living from the nursery garden and olive groves on the five acres of land attached to the 19th century villa they have bought in a town called Elvas, two hours east of Lisbon. The only other immediate priority has been to prepare the top floor of their new home for bed and breakfast guests.

Although they'd run a gardening service in Wycombe for two years before moving to Portugal, on their own admission they didn't have a clue about taking over a nursery. The previous owners were an elderly English couple who had run the business for 40 years but the plants were showing signs of losing the plot by the time the Clayes took over.

With the nursery came a polytunnel, a tractor, a fortnightly stall at the nearby market and two non-English speaking staff.

The monthly emails from Tim and Ann read like an ex-pats' version of The Good Life or a horror story depending on how you view middle- aged adventurers who chuck in a settled lifestyle to chase a dream.

Back in August they arrived to find the house had been taken over by feral cats and three stray dogs.

In their first weeks, between bouts of homesickness when Ann kept asking "what on earth are we doing here" and Tim tried to make headway with learning the language and getting his head round Portuguese paperwork, they were heartened by the friendly welcome from the locals.

Their willing employees the versatile Chico, as handy at tractor driving and cement mixing as he is at selling plants on the stall, and Chico's wife, the delightful Deolinda kept them supplied with fantastic beefsteak tomatoes, fresh eggs and onions. "Meanwhile," Tim reported at the end of August, "Melon Man' slight, 84-year-old Antones, who's impervious to our ignorance of his deep barking Portuguese, pours in our direction an unsustainable quantity of melons of assorted shape and variety from the patch of our land he uses towards the bottom of the valley."

By September the Clayes were harvesting fresh walnuts and the pomegrantes were ripening.

"At breakfast on their top floor balcony we see the tinkling-belled sheep, dogs and whistling shepherd move right to left across the hillside, and at sunset back again.

"Two days ago this Shakespearian character moved to the front of the stage, announcing that his flock (majorly sheep but some goats) would clear our olive grove of weeds.

"He discusses (you may interpret this as a one way conversation) his plans either to hire himself to pick our olives or indeed buy them at so much per kilo, and how, as a boy, he picked 20 tonnes of olives from the hillside opposite.

"The following morning 100-plus sheep enter our property and do indeed clear our land of weeds. Teaching economics to the Lower Sixth at the RGS or sums to Year 11 at John Hampden Grammar School it ain't, not that I don't have a lingering affection for both experiences.

"Many customers at the nursery are Spanish the Spanish border is five miles away so I try to recall some strands of the tongue to mix in with fragmentary Portuguese. French at times is surprisingly useful: even English on occasion.

"Meanwhile we work, at times, maniacally, in the nursery trying to wrest control from the weeds while getting an understanding of how to manage the operations. That's mornings, pms are mainly on the house: painting, fixing, coping with floods and ancient pipes succumb to the pressure of the new bomba (pump) from the well.

"O electricista (Joaquim the electrician) shakes his head and yanks metres of semi-defunct wires from rooms leaving snail trails from expired wiring on the walls. And yet we make progress: a new bathroom, a restored office to work from, everyday brings its surprises."

In October comes welcome rain.

"Today is special," writes Tim Claye. "There has been 1.5mm of valuable rain... the water in the well is ten feet at present and one watches."

It is quite cool in the early morning when Tim and Ann are at the top of ladders in the olive grove, having pushed their way up through the branches and leaves to milk plump green olives.

"The great thing of course is to pluck only Grade l olives but it is a poor drought-induced year and our percentage of Grade A edible plumpies is falling as the week goes on just as the price from a fabrica' the olive factory with its Leeds-trained engineer rises.

"More Portuguese words (none rude yet) and more Latin plant names and procedures enter our vocabulary. More children come out, inspect and approve our presence here. We are getting more choosey over the local wine, cheese and sausages.

"At last we are beginning to feel that autumn is near a time in England that we'll miss.

In November the Clayes' van caught fire in Spain. The trip across the border was necessitated first because the cat had re-broken its leg and had to be rushed to the vet in Spain. "And the chap in charge of the old folks home opposite (the nursery) called yesterday for 40 trees lygusto'. We didn't have either enough or the right size. So to Spain for a nursery.

"But at a coffee stop on the motorway, there's a strong horrible possibly poisonous smell from the engine. Procure huge-wheeled firefighting apparatus from disinterested staff. Open bonnet smouldering engine. Return to bored staff, just then a car belonging to Guardia Civil rocks up. Remembering distantly that Tierra del Fuego means Island of Fire in distant Pagonia, Fuego' I say and two elegant Spanish Guardias in jodhpurs and black jack boots condescend to investigate.

"Much fun is had by all in various languages while the fire is extinguished by the motorway station firefighting apparatus: the Guardia Civil's powerfully jetted foam and finally water from the free air and water stand. By this time it is staircasing rain. For this, in this parched part of the world, we are properly grateful. The farm rain records go back 34 years and this October we had only half the October average while two millimetres fell in September and just blobs in August and July.

"All the remaining olives have turned plump but plum-towards-black in colour. The blacks are unacceptable to the factory so everything will have to hang on until December when the lot gets stripped and turned into finest quality Azeite or extra virigin olive oil as Mr Tesco might say.

"Meanwhile we have finally got the B&B open for business together with a new website (www.quintavaledemarmelos.co.uk).

"At times half of Elvas, certainly most of the builder's rellies, have been here engaged on this or that task. We've even succeeded in getting Sky TV yesterday so can watch much-missed Wasps now (we were season ticket holders). Wanderers seem to be doing really well, meanwhile Elvas are bottom of their league.

"And finally something to remind us of wonderful South Bucks a smashing red kite flew low over the Quinta this morning. How lovely."

This week, Tim and Ann have been buying in extra stock to keep up with Christmas orders. An email from the couple on Monday noted: "Poinsettias not yet ready for the market (stall) and requests, interestingly for Christmas trees. So we look for them tomorrow.

"Walnuts (nogeiras) have just been planted from the tree by the swimming pool and bizarrely we had our first request for a (walnut tree) yesterday, sadly while nut still in shell.

"Have also been thinking of growing young fruit trees for the empty land beyond the olive grove. Sure enough today a request: What fruit trees have you got in the nursery? Well we have been considering more pomegranate, orange, lemon and lime but are now adding almond, plum, peach and apricot to them.

"The appeal of plums is that Elvas produces Christmas sugar plums, world famous and sold in Fortnums, no less, and Deolinda, our plantswoman, knows the producers (as if she wouldn't).

"We go with her to House 17a just below the old Saracen castle and knock on the door. It opens upon a stunning view over the Spanish plain to the fortress of Badajoz. Below this terrace in the open air are a number of gas boilers for the syrup.

"But the really extraordinary place is the room beyond racked out with terracotta pans of stewed plums. Beyond, all manner of summer fruits are drying in the autumn sun. Within three women pack, by hand, plums in syrup, one at a time into pots, weighing on the scales, pouring minute quantities of extra syrup as required.

"We buy some packets of sugared plums as Christmas presents. Each one is hand-wrapped; a sheet is taken, scissored to size, folded, tied down.

"An old lady, 38 years into task, hand picks sugared plums as she makes up a wooden box, accepting and rejecting.... she fails to complete a single box during our time there. No wonder the cost is so high, the laboriousness is Dickensien.

"Flags have been raised English, Portuguese, EU and Spanish and new signs fixed at the entrance to our Quinta, hopefully making people aware of our presence as a garden nursery and bed and breakfast.

"The part-time policeman helping out in all construction/destruction (jobs at the farmhouse) tells us he will have 25 piglets for Christmas so a live one is ordered for the untenanted pig sties (perhaps two to be company for each other) and another for Christmas's roast suckling pig, a local delicacy.

"Mother sheep and lamb have arrived to keep the grass down. We shall resist the urge to look up into the cold starry night clad in tea towels looking for a star in the east.

"Happy festive fayre to all our friends in Bucks."