When life gives you dogs, make lemonade!

Ajax (right) and his bodyguard

For many freelance translators working long hours alone, the companionship of animals is an indispensable part of working life. My two - Csővárberki Jámbor and Ajax vom Bernsteinsee - remind me that it's time to stop working, take breaks and do more important things like search for empty cigarette cartons and beer bottles in the park. Or take a day at the beach as in the photo above when little Jámbor decided to take on the Rhodesian Ridgeback which had just bitten through the steel chain collar of his mentor in a failed assassination attempt. Life is always interesting with those two.

Animals can also assist us in our daily chores. At my home in Portugal, I have trouble cleaning up all the oranges and lemons which fall in my back yard, so the dogs stay alert, and when they hear the sound of fruit dropping it is quickly retrieved and presented to me. This means a lot of breaks. At the moment the oranges are done, but quite a few lemons still fall. And my hunter-pointer-retrievers ensure that they do not simply lie and rot.

At the moment the bag of lemons on my kitchen floor probably weighs 10 kilos (22 US pounds) and I thought "oh God, what am I going to do with all of these???". But on hot Alentejo days and nights when the translation and language lessons require frequent replenishment of fluids and electrolytes, the answer is easy. When life gives you a home and dogs like these, make lemonade. Here's the recipe that has sustained me lately:

1 cup honey
3 cups boiling water
2 cups fresh lemon juice
Ice cubes (preferably lemon or orange juice cubes)
Pour boiling water over the honey in a pot or jug and stir util the solution is complete. Add the lemon juice. Cool (or store chilled in the fridge) and serve over ice. 

If work gets really hard you might need some cookies to go with the lemonade.