Phew! Made it...blogger seems to have had a problem. Granny has tried to get into this all day and failed till now. Is she addicted to this - or what?

So: great news to be imparted to those of like minds is that a monarch butterfly turned up yesterday evening. Lovely. They weren't here at all till the nineties, tho' in the Canaries some time before. Really they are an American species - migrating in millions from north to south. Much bigger than local types, boldly marked. Granny has seen two or three a year, no more.

Wind up; to the west now. So forecasts of rain tomorrow may be right. Yesterday cloudless - not so today. Beloved cooking all day on and off. Realise he and Granny are different species. Granny cooks because she has always had to, but of all such tasks it's the one she enjoys most. (Mostly because she's greedy, and likes the results...) Beloved does it because he loves it. Has been constructing taramasalata. (Granny is making a pumpkin risotto for dinner.) Today too has been grounded by waiting for arrival (non-arrival it turns out) of the shipment of yet more of his goods from the UK. Don't ask where they'll all be put; tho' the bookcases might be useful... Fast as Granny tries to get rid of stuff, Beloved acquires more. This lot was due to be delivered either yesterday or today but of course wasn't. Same thing happened with the last shipment, come to think of it. (Is not unknown event back home in UK...so don't carp.)

Yesterday Beloved claimed that granny's poor dog was being neglected. Code for fact he was or felt it anyway. A gem of insight he did not appreciate when offered to him by granny.

No news of the wretched and wonderful woman Margaret Hassan, kidnapped in Iraq. Her fate has been haunting Granny all week; as most people I daresay. Next week George Bush will or will not be re-elected. Not an entirely nice world, no matter how beautiful here. Granny's old dad said when asked what he thought of the Iraq war; 'I've seen too many wars.' I guess that's how you feel, getting older. Granny's getting that way too. Her lot's first blooding after all was by the Holocaust. (And in her case too, by pictures of men being hung in the failed Hungarian revolution. A long time ago; and yet yesterday as well.) Seems like nothing changes. Except to get worse. Not least because we all know about all of it now. Even her grandchildren pick up some of it. Enough, granny. Grannypx