Hard work. Two nights of guests and full dinners. Smoked salmon, Canary style, rabbit with figs, Grannyp's own dark chocolate ice-cream and orange cake, first night. Granny's fennel risotto with vodka, Beloved's stuffed baby squid, Moroccan baked apples with Greek yoghourt, second. That's on top of breakfasts with Granny's own fig compote, fig jam, apricot jam, marmalade etc, mango and strawberries, local cheese and ham and home-made bread. Let everyone DROOL. (And come and stay. But not every week, please. Too much like hard work.)

Tonight only the nice large shambly man - like a an overgrown boy - who is going to do a natural history course for us next year is eating with us. (He asks, very tentatively, if we ate in the evening. We do indeed.) Tomorrow the same. So life is quieter. (Though Granny will have to continue to haul herself out of her bed much earlier than she likes to make breakfast. ) Weather not doing what it should be doing in October. (Windy: with quite a lot of cloud.) But guests seem happy enough exploring. Think it is beautiful and rare, as opposed to bizarre, bleak and ugly, like some (fortunately not many). They are not interested in the jacuzzi. They are interested in birds. Yesterday the wife thought she saw a bustard down near Playa Blanca. Husband doubted it. Granny will now finish being domestic, wielding hoover etc, etc, and maybe even do some writing. Good. But first a little walk round the land...

(Still no ticket. Beloved has one out on November 6th. But Granny who wants to go earlier than that is going to have go standby. The trials of a holiday island.) Grannyp