Perfect day. Light southish wind, no cloud, islands just visible: 26C so far. Everyone out except for Handsome who is out back, rendering, and except for granny who has done her chores and should be writing. But feels disinclined. Printing up last section seems enough. All too soon anyway she will need to embark on tonight's dinner which in a foolish moment she took mostly on herself. Pudding done anyway - quince compote with ginger - a new discovery stewed quince; very subtle. Only problem is that quinces may look a bit like large slightly eccentric apples and may be according to the Oxford Book of Food Plants consulted by Beloved, very close in kind to pears, but are a hundred times tougher to peel and and cut and core than either.

Yesterday, even apart from the hard labour of cutting up quince, was not a good day; furious southwest wind, cloud, heavy humidity. Granny could hardly crawl all day; then woke this morning with migraine, dispelled thanks to wonders of usually maligned (by her!) pharmaceutical industry. Quiet guests got to see their bustard though - and cattle egrets on the back of goats; so they're happy. As is nice shambly gardener who went to Gran Canaria to see the Botanical Gardens and found it useful enough. Tonight all are eschewing the not great (as they seem to have discovered) culinary delights of our island, for the greater (we hope) culinary delights of Granny and Beloved. Enough. The sun maybe for a while + book. Oh why the hell not? Grannypxx