Offline

Just tried to write a blogger post online. Blogger won’t let me in. So here we go, to be put up later.

Island in a sulk – at least Granny’s part of it. Low cloud – some rain – wind rising. Yesterday on land covered in prickly remains of all the flowers – oh the burrs on them, many of which seem to end up on the dogs – granny found one solitary, very small tomato. She ate it. It was sweet.

Citrus meanwhile have lost all potential fruit despite protection put round them.

Main news: the Lady with the Big and Little Dog has upped and gone. Handsome from Blackburn all too much for her, it seems. Granny and Beloved came back to find her absent, but knew she’d been planning a holiday so thought nothing of that. Her chair was under the pergola, her curtains drawn. Beloved finally looked inside. Nothing. No books, no sofa, no cooking pots, no clothes. Not a word either. Let alone keys.

Granny is surprisingly upset. Bottle Blondshell has departed for Tenerife, Lady is god knows where, the only female friend left is Mrs Handsome, ever more manic these days. Who cares if BBS and the Lady were not exactly soulmates; they were FEMALE. She never thought she’d miss that. But she does. If things go on this way she will be forced to start a book group…

Blogger seems to be working again; she will put this up. With one last comment – the island. Which is as never. Normally when it dries up there is nothing but greyish-brownish earth and stones. But this year it is colours; dead grass, pale sand colour like fine fur; dead plants darker, tawny or russet. Deep red patches of succulents. Vines have more leaves than usual, are green green green, so are fig trees, their leaves usually withering by now. There are patches of dead brown maize and others of young green maize. There are onion fields, unpulled, their big heads fading – presumably kept for seed. Everywhere against this are the unplanted black fields covered in volcano stone – picon. Towards the north where Granny and Beloved went this morning there are hills lined with terraces like contour lines on a life-sized 3-dimensional map – each one as if high-lighted with the pale grass or the redder once-flowers. Even on a gloomy day like this the colours are powerful; smudged yet brilliant pastels. Not one bit like English water-colours, but subtle just the same. Even longing for the Mediterranean as Granny is just now, she can appreciate it. She does.

As she appreciates, coming via the web, on headphones, a thumping and ringing glory of African music from Radio Three. OK she’s melancholy. But what melancholy when fed by this.