2 weeks from the grave meets 6 weeks from birth

On Sunday night, en route to their island, Beloved and Granny stay with Granny's brother down at the house alongside which her aged dad lived for fifteen not always happy years after losing his second wife, their stepmother. A family house - or it was. The final daughter has grown up, the marriage of her parents is over and the old man - thankfully for himself - is dead. House is cold and empty and full of the past. The baby is the first great-grandson from Granny's long-dead twinsister - only the second boy in a litany of girls (all of whom he adored but he is - was - of the generation that favoured males.) Granny feels thankful and sad both. The picture makes her laugh at one and the same time. The weeping is for all their pasts, for her twin sister, her old dad, her long-dead mum and for this baby, too, for whom what? when? A kind of desolate feeling always, amid the joy. Such little lives we have. And here Granny and her Beloved spend theirs miles from home. Looking out at pink and purple hills and blue and golden sky. Night fall over the islands. Beloved is cooking prawns - not G's favourite smell - though one of her favourite tastes. Baby now 6 months is with adoring parents in once insalubrious part of London (now more winebars by the week) twin sister and aged dad lie in cold earth and here B and G are ready to eat Moroccan food and light fires against the chilly evening. Strange really. Grannyp