HOT HOT HOTTEST. Also windiest. 33C up here already and wind 25mph - earlier it was 30. A real calima, dust everywhere; no sea, no island, hills hazy; light red/yellow. Tomatoes burning not ripening. Figs cooking ditto. Grannyp in shoe-string top and shorts (who cares in this heat if it's lamb rather than mutton.) House banging wailing, shaking. Interested to see if model paper airplane which has been dangling from phone wires on far edge of local town will have survived. Yesterday it was up to 40C here in the hills -  103F? - too much. We go down to swimming pool on coast where there is some fresher seawind and dowse ourselves, cool briefly; relief. Sit outside late - stifling even then but better. Even inside of house - stone-walled so normally cool - is sultry. Slept downstairs with fan, on bed big enough to divide in two and have separate sheets so we sleep better. Dreams heavy just the same.

Last week I dreamed of Blair family; Beloved when questioned turns out never to have heard that people have dreams of being with Queen, Prime Minister, etc. They do.  They do.  He rarely remembers his dreams; perhaps that's it. Blair dream probably resulted from article about his children exposed to media now for seven years. Wonder how they'll see it as adults; their childhood home in Downing Street inaccessible. Can relate a tiny bit to this because my dad's job in the House of Commons meant we could go in and out we liked, merely saying 'Mr F...' to the policeman on the door. I went to debates too. Now if I wanted to get in - so I'm told by present Clerk of the House who came to dad's funeral- that I'd have to apply to my MP, or stand in a queue with everyone else - and it's all more difficult since purple flour incident. Thanks. Expulsion from Eden? Not quite. But. Minor indignation just the same.

Book is developing complicated plot. I had to get up last night to write new ideas down. Something to do maybe with writing in such little bits; much more the way I did when the children were little. Maybe better; who knows.

Wild life scarce in this weather; apart from shrike - or shrikes - they are always single now - one in a  castor oil bush a dusk last night, cawing like a crow. Kestrels not around. Lizards a-plenty. Cat baffled by fact our enthusiasm for his catching mice does not apply to catching lizards; still less salamanders - geckoes - which are not only lucky guests to be cherished, but much rarer. (They turn the colour of their surrounding. We saw white one once on bathroom tiles. ) We rescued a tailless gecko last night and put it back in the garden.

More figs later. Yesterday it was fig compote with ginger. Today I will pick and start on another lot of jam. Ginger fig, with lemon??

To work. Tra la. How much I want to get to it; how much I DON'T!! Grannyp