Hunter day. Cat incarcerated but no hunters as yet. Turns out they do trespass illegally on our land: f0r all it's uncultivated state it counts as a private garden. (I was told last year that they were licensed, so could go anywhere. Not so.)

Dry, half sun. Wind! There's not supposed to be any in October. The world has gone mad.

A day without concrete mixers and heavy construction trucks, though. This island is in a continual state of building, for locals, expats and tourists alike. They've reached their limit in terms of visitors of old Europe who are heading further afield these days. They are going to make up, we are told, with those from new Europe, from the former Iron Curtain countries. What will happen to businesses like Jimmy's Bar, Brenda's Brasserie, etc. Janek's? Bruna's? We'll see. Meantime the trucks rumble along with lines of cars before them, the striped mixers turn and turn, the grey hulks proliferate, waiting to be painted white, many with diddy, pointed post-modernist caps on top. The developers get richer. The architect/artist who tried to keep the island unsullied must be turning in his grave - maybe will even trigger the next volcanic eruption... A fitting revenge.

Our bi-lingual neighbour from Minorca is going to rent our studio from November, plus her two dogs; one very large. Beloved agitated that I've agreed to this but without discussing rent. Over to him! Another saddish person who claims her 'life is in pieces'. There seem to be a lot of people in flight from one thing and another here. (Us too?) Mostly it is old age, which then catches up with them. See Attic Woman's housemates. And all those who the chief carer is forever trying to sort out.

Beloved is off buying knickers (for Attic Woman..) Saturday Guardian + its book supp: (for me.) He will then visit AW to take the stitches out of her dog's paws and her out to coffee; where she will probably be begging for a cigarette every five minutes. Poor sad ghost -you can imagine the voice lingering on in her house even when she is a real one......'Give me a cigarette - please....'. (Her son is supposed to be coming to see her, but doesn't make up his mind. Beloved and Granny suspect that he's got cold feet about it. But at least he knows he can come; that he's not being kept away.)

Beloved's absence all morning means no excuse not to write. I feel that usual empty, heart and stomach sinking. No more excuses. Onward Grannyp. Onward.