update

This blog has two functions - one is to send news to Granny's family and friends - the other to communicate more generally - giving her the chance to try out new writing - pieces about the past - etc. Very often these functions coincide. Sometimes, though, she is aware that a more general audience might find practical updates boring; sorry about that. They can always switch over to more inviting bloggers... please do!

Let's itemise it.

1.Flying visit of the BBD - Beloved's Beloved Daughter- here to catch up with them and her mother, the Attic Woman.
2. Much alcohol consumed in celebration. Hence G's hangover - see last post.
3. Visit planned to good Saturday market in the north of the island; the only place to buy organic vegetables, cheese etc. It was decided to take Attic Woman there for an outing.
4. All well and good; except that Beloved, loading the wheelchair into the truck, puts down his and BBD's bag - containing his residence card - both their driving licences - camera - mobile - credit cards etc etc and forgets to pick them up. When it is realised that bags are missing he rushes back to collect them; naturally the bags have gone. Granny reports loss in her best Spanish to friendly lurking Local Policeman who takes her phone number etc, but says all has to be reported to the Guardia Civil, because if the bags are found, they can't be returned unless the requisite piece of paper is produced. When they do report to the local Guardia - as requested - the representative - sitting at his desk and taking phonecalls throughout - professes bafflement - it's nothing to do with him, he says, there has to be a crime reported, a 'denuncia'. Stalemate. Beloved is going to the central Guardia Civil today plus Handsome, whose Spanish is rather better than Granny's. At least he understands the Lanzarote accent. They will express suspicion that bags have been stolen. This may help.
5. Beloved's bad back - which had recovered by this time - promptly relapses because of the above stress; problem is added to exponentially by instant worry about bad back. Added to still more by bombshell yesterday from a morose Mr Handsome.
6. His proposed 'amicable separation' from Mrs Handsome is turning out far from amicable. As a result he is considering leaving the island altogether. This is by no means certain, but more than possible - he admits he 'knows where he'll go when/if he does.' Granny suspects he is thinking of setting up house with partner in last year's shenanigan. She can't be sure, he's not saying. Not a good idea anyway. Granny and Beloved throw round all the cliches; 'out of the frying pan into the fire', 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater' - 'look before you leap.' etc etc. (Very useful cliches these; much less dangerous - less liable to be misinterpreted and so on -than newly coined ones. In such circumstances, literary skill/veracity is not a requirement. Quite the reverse.)
7. All ways round, if Handsome does decide to leave G and B will have problems running this place.... who will feed the chooks, for instance, when they are away? Who will fix roof etc, lug things Beloved can't (see above.) (Handsome has demonstrated his extreme usefulness this very morning showing Granny how to get in and out of her hammock without doing herself a mischief. Actually this is one thing she could have worked out for herself. Never mind.
7. Beloved is going to have do some marital arbitration. The thought of this is not doing his back any good either. Better him than Granny, it was decided - Handsome's tendency to MCPigness (pigs maligned yet again, sorry, pigs) is liable to get her hot under the collar at wrong moment. Beloved does neutral better.
8. Granny is 'hot under the collar' all too literally. Sore arm has revealed itself as recurrence of many years past neck problems. She currently sits with a bag of frozen broad beans on affected part and is stuffing herself with Ibufren. Neck problem no worse anyway and if she can continue this way she should persuade it to go away altogether. Meantime the air of the farm resounds with groans - stifled by Beloved - not at all stifled by Granny - if they happen to make the wrong kinds of movements...
9. Cloudy weekend - poor BBD, misses the first English heatwave, then gets onto the plane here just as cloud and gloom is succeeded by sun and warmth.

Granny is aware that all the above problems are just life and nothing like the real miseries in the world generally. She is also made aware - all over again - how nothing ever stays the same; how the world, socially as otherwise is continually changing; people coming, people going, relationships shifting minute to minute. Births marriages deaths tack things down briefly, along with reversing them. HANG ONTO THE MOMENT. What else can you do? Ever.

It all changes in Blogland, no less.One blogger ceases to write, another goes away on holiday, a third succumbs to depression, a fourth separates from her partner. No good expecting even virtual things to stay the same. Your virtual, after all, is someone else's actual.

The chooks meantime - in case you were wondering - continue to grow and flourish. Chicken relationships too keep shifting. Cora of the white tail is definitely turning herself into top chook. All of them stalk around like kings raising their feet high -when they are not running round like old women, low-slung, bottoms wagging. The sparrows continue to hop about their feet and steal their food. Granny is happy that over the years she and Beloved seem to have created an ever-growing flock of sparrows. (Not to mention a passion flower-plant roosting shrike.)

A pair of ring-doves join the chook food larceny, if rather more discreetly. In betweenwhiles they fly up on to the new agave spikes on the other side of the wall and sit cooing quietly. Such a lovely calming sound when far enough away, as opposed to on your roof when you're trying to work or sleep. Grab it, Granny. (She's trying.)