Is grannyp a writer still? Lately, the only thing that enables her to answer 'yes' is keeping on doing it. Writing that is. Yet another kick in the teeth yesterday - the stories that in a sudden rage of creation last November made her feel like a real writer again got an email rejection from one of the few possible outlets for short stories these days. Ah well, short stories never her talent anyway, she comforts herself. Deleting the email is the first obvious course, considering how to improve said stories the second. Except she has a book in mind and that's more to the point. Entirely.

In all other respects yesterday a nice day - less muggy, clear, light brilliant, clouds scudding across living landscape, sea turquoise. An almost jolly meeting with attic woman, and interesting encounters with her two fellow residents. Beloved and granny, to their bemusement, are now providers of a care home for 3; attic woman - the obstreperous daughter of a very stick in the mud Midlands accountant; a wispyand demented Texan millionairess with missing teeth; an ex-East End pub landlord with God knows what criminal connections, no short-term memory, a taste for whisky and cigars (which attic woman tries to nick) and an eye for ladies of any age. ("'Why do you cover your legs?' he asks me.). A Barbara Windsor man, evidently - none of his sons will speak to him, we'e told. How could you invent such a combination? But there it is, what's more it means that, along with the longterm letting of the house next door, also signed and sealed yesterday, Beloved is more or less solvent again. A relief.

Back to pretending to be a writer. Grannyp