Displacement activity; or Kidney Stones etc.

Wonderful thing Google - even if it is letting its Chinese site be censored. Granny looking up something quite different (no, she is not saying what, and no, she was not in search of porn for grannies) came across a journal which boasted an article on. Kidney stones: evidence for Divine Design. She will not give you the reference. If you want it look it up! She's sure you'll find it as edifying as she did. Even it she did not appreciate the alliteration/assonance of the title. (Having just been nominated as Minister for Literature by Caroline, she feels she's entitled to use these literary terms.)

Meantime, she is supposed to be shopping. But remembering her purse was left in the truck which Mr R, her Beloved, took off on a visit to Mrs R for a game of dominoes put paid to that. She could also be doing her Spanish homework - she has just started on an intensive course in order to improve her till now pidgin Spanish. Since this involves from now till late March 4 hours, 3 times a week, shut up in a room with two German women and a Norwegian of roughly her own vintage, plus any one of several Professors (all teachers here are called professors) it is likely that, if speaking less pidgin by the end of it, she will be speaking Spanish with a German accent. Laughingly, her group is called the 'advanced group.' This doesn't say much for the general standard. What is also evident from the list of names of all those coming along to/involved in the project by local authorities on this island to teach expats Spanish is how few of the names are English. Typical of British expats here - the majority - who don't look outside their own community. Shaming really. But no, at this moment, Granny is not doing her Spanish homework. You can see.

On Sunday Granny and Beloved - they are more social these days thanks to Lin - are going to a charity dinner. It's for a very good cause, sending supplies to a hospital in the Cameroons. What they were not warned about - Beloved, at least, as a Scot, should have recognised the date - is that this is a Burns night dinner. Granny has spent her life avoiding such things. She does not object entirely to Scottish dancing but she does NOT like haggis. Nor is she fond of the sound of bagpipes. Beloved who likes both is equally dubious - about the quality of Canarian haggis as about the quality of Canarian pipers. There is also the problem of what he/they wear. As said before formal for him means a new t-shirt (smart informal = a clean one.) Beloved does not own a shirt, let alone a tie, let alone a suit. A jacket will have to do. Granny can fudge something up. But no, she does not possess an evening dress either. All bodes ill. She will report.

Meanwhile: the sun is out. A cat sleeps alongside Granny's laptop. Out in the fields she can see work going on. English farming these days being large-scale and mechanised, it is somehow re-assuring to see people still carrying implements, digging, ploughing, sowing (broadcast sometimes, really) harvesting (potatoes at the moment) all by hand. Sometimes the whole place looks like a Canarian version of the mediaeval Book of Hours, illustrating daily liturgical passages throughout the year with pictures of peasants hard at work in strip farms. (She doesn't deny that the work might be more attractive to look at than to do. In their place, she too would probably opt for the tractor.)

Less reassuring is the sight of Mr Handsome down by the wall starting to erect yet another building related to the donkey. Turns out first monstrosity was only the feed store (WHAT feed?) This is the beginning of the real thing. THE STABLE. Beloved daughter sends Granny cheering pieces from donkey websites. ('A busy donkey is a happy donkey.') Her friend, Dick, in California suggests this: 'the proper name for your donkey would be 'donkey Hotie' you being in Spain and all.'

Hm, yes. Beloved as Don Quixote, perhaps? Handsome as Sancho Panza? Neither would get it really not being literary men, unlike Granny. (See above.) Best thing she can do, one way and another, the only thing she can do it seems, is laugh.

PS. Thanks to you lot, marmalade of last post turned out DISASTER. Seville orange toffee, more like. She was so busy writing this post - and reading all of yours - she didn't take it off the heat in time. GET IT? She is blaming all of you. Sort of. Seville Orange toffee does have its charms though, even if it can't be given to paying guests for breakfast. Except as local speciality perhaps? What do you think?