Chilly

Granny is in the UK - Bristol at this moment, to be precise. She is cold - autumn seems to have hit early this year. She bought a big, warm, soft sweater at a woollen mill in Gloucestershire when she was driving back to London with Beloved in late August. She put it on as soon as she arrived and apart from when in bed hasn't taken it off since..

The only remnants of the island in her - or rather on her - are the remains of fleabites on her legs - the cat recolonised... and sandfly bites on her forehead, the result of a nice last visit to the saltflats before she left. Itch. Itch. There are better ways of remembering home, but there you go.

She didn't miss the fiesta; only the fireworks. A comment 0n her last post said that the pilgrimage was very quiet this year, thanks to the bishop, but it was still amazing. Unless you actually go up there, it's hard to get the scale of it, even in a lowkey year. She arrived a little after 5pm and stayed till somewhat after seven. All this time she was looking up the road down which the pilgrim were walking. It was jam-packed as far as she could see the whole time; no sign of a let-up even by the time the procession, coming from the other direction, started presenting its offerings to the goddess - I mean the sorrowful virgin - around half six; it went on doing so till after ten (she and Beloved were watching on telly by this point.) The offerings this year were accompanied by a herd of goats, some live chickens (if this was a Kali temple somewhere, the presiding priest would have wielded a knife on these rather than blessing them benignly) a disaffected and very large iguana in a cage on wheels, a fully-furnished altar, a cheese-making factory (both also on wheels) endless barbecues, cookers on trailers or tractors, producing food throughout, donkeys, camels, beautiful horses, shetland ponies pulling cartsfull of babies, large model ships, churches, etc etc etc. Oh and parties of folk musicians and dancers from all over the Canaries. Granny and Beloved walking home past it all received - it seemed to them- almost as many offerings as the Virgin; cheese, fish-stew, bread cooked with cinnamon, dried fish, wine from a wine-skin - which they managed, just about, not to pour all over themselves. The supper Beloved had prepared for when they got home was rather wasted on them.

Even the Shepherd's Bush market seems tame by comparison...

Granny has come back for a particular event; related to her posh past, and, thereby, to Charlotte Sometimes. She will tell you all about THAT next time. Meantime, eldest granddaughter is due home from school; she's off.