Radio 3. CD Review. The pleasure of Saturday morning via the Internet. They're comparing recordings of the Berg Violin Concerto. Alas, thereafter, Beloved and Granny have to go in search of plants and tiles, so she will miss all the rest.

So strange to look out on the warrens of little fields like a giant, above ground, stone puffin burrow; prickly pears, cacti, aloe vera; two lone palm trees not tossing about too much this morning - no cloud to speak of, the wind has shifted to the North East, is cooler, but as yet quite light. And then the white low houses, and the stark hills, more dramatic than they are high; and the as yet invisible sea. An illusion of distance, within that always ultimately claustrophobic space, an island. The shape of the landscape and the fields are of course, indigenous. Strange to think how much else is imported - palms and houses from Africa, probably, prickly pears - maybe aloe vera too - from South America; these inhabitants - us - from England. (Most of our neighbours, though, I suspect reach back to the Guanches; they have all the stocky stoicism and unto-themselvesness of the long-ago colonised.)

Last night, from about five to seven, there was a powercut over all of our part of the island. Men huddled in darkened bars. We went for a drink - what else, no water, phone, music, stove etc etc - and ended up going out to dinner in a newly discovered restaurant, which turned out as usual here disappointing. Beloved did not sleep well after this. If Granny moved close to him in bed she was accused of pushing him out; if further away, of hogging all the bedclothes.. She nearly gave up and retired to read current book (Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, read before but so long ago it feels entirely new to her.) But fell asleep finally. Walked round the land early, serenaded by squealing pigs from over the wall, and followed by her hungry cat. (No wonder witches' cats were always called their familiars. Cats are like that, unlike their lone reputations.)

To tiles etc. Grannyp