North wind still blows. Doesn't bring cold let alone snow. Merely murkiness up here. Though it looks to be sunny over to the east. Down there on the coast yesterday too, sky was bright blue, everyone, locals and tourists, in holiday gear, palms tossing about like mad, but still....Beloved's daughter, K, and I were shopping, nominally for the attic woman, but ended buying shirts earrings for ourselves too. Mine partly to replace stuff lost on trip across Spain. When will I ever succeed in staying in places and not leaving half my gear behind? Not forgetfulness of old age. Just forgetfulness.

Write this while downloading real player so I can get London Radio 3 on this computer too - old one on way to menders; its keys all stick. Music will soothe murkiness - I hope - at least in my head. Alas it won't reach the sky.

Have hardly been on land - but today have to go to collect first batch of figs. Jam? Compote? Let's see. 3 weeks slavery begins. All is brown and burnt now. Burnt by wind as much as sun. But figs ripen and turn black.

Beloved off with truck collecting gear. Beloved's (and beloved) daughter still asleep. Yesterday we had to get going earlier than she and I liked for AGM of our so-called association here - planning courses, etc. Beloved spent all day before stuffing this and that - all fiddly stuff - snall squid, bits of pepper etc, for lunch while I made the most intense, wonderful chocolate icecream, courtesy of the Independent newspaper. I ate too much while making it of course. Handsome and Handsome's wife had come for meal and meeting - Handsome ate a lot of it - made up slightly I think for my spurning his - to me- uncalled for agitation with (slightly) broken ramp to our parking place. Prefer he got on with housing chickens... eventually. ..

Oh the bliss of the empty kitchen. No sight of a cockroach this morning. Cat not quite so vociferous for food so must have been fed.

Another bomb in Tel Aviv. Big Brother takes up too much of TV. Evicted Muslim housemate who talked of nothing but her sexual exploits spurned by her family. I only get this by report. (Sometimes from K.) Beloved unwilling to entertain such things- though he does admit to enjoying wife swap - not much else available here after all. I fight him over opera etc. Not too upset by missing mostly tedious BB, so why bother?

In betweenwhiles I read an account of how my old friend Mira fled from Poland aged fourteen before the Germans got her. Take in with wry feelings her sideways observations on England and the English where she ended up. All the more interesting from exile here.

Windows to north - one just above me here - covered in layer of salt - trade wind deposit - hardly any point cleaning it any more than scraping mental equally unsightly deposits off self. Merely have to do it all over again tomorrow.

No word from offender painter, whom I miss badly. Long dreams last night, on the other hand, basically confirming Beloved is the Beloved, despite all the ghosts. Of course. Grannypxx