Everything has been frenetic till today. Yesterday I took Beloved to visit the attic woman in hospital much against his will - she was after all coming out today. It was different hospital which we failed to find, he refused to look further. So all we did was shop. And look at things like microwaves. Boring. No time to swim. But I did make another fig compote. What excitement.

Today much more normal. In morning Handsome gets on with the shed, his head appearing over the wall from time to time; Beloved works on his book, leaving kitchen to me where I sort washing, dare look at the last chapters of the book to see where I go next and fiddle around on computer. Beloved gets us his bread, local cheese, Fuerteventura tomatoes which we eat in relative but companionable silence on the back terrace serenaded by building sounds from Handsome. After lunch continue to read the Israeli book, more and more enthralling and more and identified with; after that we swim and run the dogs on the salt marsh. Sea right out - small birds, couple of flying ones I can't identify, an egret and a heron - old man heron, granny thinks; egrets don't have the gravitas. Dogs happy with run, except that Beloved's runs away as usual. Also we are plagued by invisible and bity flies; I think I must be developing a rash or something, but Beloved is suffering the same thing. Now I'm about to cook - my turn; radicchio and prawn risotto; the stock is cooking now. All this is normal life here - the excitements are in the head; mine a long way away at the moment, in 1940's Jerusalem where they too, like me, read avidly. (Beloved grunts when I tell him this.)

Cloudy up here now, but humid and sticky despite wind. Flies are back. I've felt heavy headed all day. Grannyp