Join the weather lottery. Wind in the night. Wind and sun now. Nieves the cleaner says weather patterns have changed totally this year- we know. Halcyon days no longer predictable. Noone daring to plant yet because they don't know what's to come, the cleaner says. Global warming we all say.

They've been out pruning the vines - some of the women wearing those ridiculous but effective bonnets to screen sun like latterday Voertrekers. Neat cones of clippings sit in fields, but are not yet set alight. Soon cones of smoke will rise all over. Canarian autumn. With the sun and rain and wind, the land looks beautiful enough to eat; never for one instant stays the same. You either like it or you don't but you cannot say it's like anywhere else in the world: it isn't.

Feline Houdini has not worked out his escape route: yet. We shall see. Beloved and Granny will be alone this evening, all guests elsewhere. Good. Granny off in search of a ticket to England, yet again. She may be reduced to standby. Bloody school holidays. Grannyp