In passing

There's something up with Firefox. Its version of Granny P refused to put up changes she made on the post before last, and hasn't put the last post up AT ALL. Maybe someone geekier than her can help out? Why does she use Firefox, you ask? Because Safari the MAC-preferred browser is primitive, blogwise, won't let you make links, photos do bold or italics, etc etc. And no she doesn't do Internet Explorer. It doesn't come up automatically on a MAC, its MAC version is grotty and anyway she's a MAC snob now; prefers to have as little as possible to do with Microsoft and all its works. And oh yes, she has tried to ask Mozilla Firefox the problem; it merely refers her to something called Bugzilla, which demands she do all kinds of complex things before it will help her. And quite likely won't help her even then. Other people's problems seem far more abstruse than hers. Such problems she doesn't understand to start with - as for the answers......She gives up.

Granny is writing this in a hurry. She's off with Beloved shortly. As he is still outside, discussing life with Mr Handsome she does, just, have time to tell you the latest problem on her island. The Ministry for Coasts, in Spain - Costas for short - has decreed that throughout Spanish territory all buildings not in areas designated as urban and less than 100 metres from the sea have to be pulled down; this land belongs to the state and is not to be dwelt on, except within legal documents. This edict - much too late - talk about shutting the stable door -is designed to deal with the total ruination of the Spanish coastline and the Disneyland palaces, not to say Never Never lands, built here, there, everywhere. It is not meant - it is far too blunt an instrument - to deal with nice, perfectly in character little village houses, lived in for forty years and more in many cases. Some of them are cafes providing invariable but authentic meals for tourists after their visits to the nearby natural attraction. None of them offend anyone. As not in the case of the enormous, illegal and unsightly hotel described here, local people are all on the side of the unfortunate house and cafe owners sent letters last week ordering them to remove themselves within one month - almost without compensation -before the bulldozers arrive. There are other, similar places on the island likely to suffer the same fate. One is the previously almost ruined and deserted village just down on the coast from Granny and Beloved's place, taken over during the last few years and lovingly restored by locals, including friend and cleaner Nieves and Lolo her husband, as holiday houses; they too now await their letters with trepidation. Granny suspects local riots if this regulation is enforced in any such place. As everyone points out; "before they pull down our houses they should pull down the King's first." For his great mansion, on the far side of the island, the sunnier one, is built right on the coast, on the rocks, more or less. All await with interest to see how the authorities deal with that.

They truth is, she fears, that in the end only the little people will get done by this law. The owners of the hideous palaces will bribe someone and so get exempted. Not least because their palaces would cost the state a fortune to demolish, unlike the village houses.

Granny must stop here; it's the lowest tide of the year following the equinox. She and Beloved are off to the once-ruined village, one of the best places they know for rockpooling, for finding some if not all the animals with which they like to stock their kitchen rockpool. On Sunday she has to return to the UK yet again, on behalf of the sadder members of her family. She may post again first. She will post from there if not.