between islands

Granny is off again tomorrow to spend some time in England with her friend with breast cancer. She leaves a slightly depressed Beloved behind her. There's a financial crisis on, didn't you know, the pound is going down against the euro and his income, like Granny's, is reckoned in pounds - something probably true of most expats in Europe these days. Granny too is aware her money goes less far here than it did. But she is less of a worrier than her Beloved and has had many a skint period - relatively skint - in the past; she just sets herself to spending less that's all. On the other hand: given Beloved's family problems, his need to support someone in care down on the coast his expenses are much greater, the descent of the euro more serious for him. He talks of selling the farm, in consequence, he is looking all over for somewhere else to live.

On the other hand, again, Granny's Beloved is always thinking of selling-up, moving: he never wants to stay in one place for one single minute; but it doesn't mean anything much ever happens, so Granny just lets him get on with it, leaves him prowling round the sale notices, round the different parts of the island he thinks he might like to live in to his heart's content. She's quite happy where she is for the moment. Financial problems - the euro - allowing, she intends staying here as long as possible.

'Where will you keep your goats, Beloved if we move?' she asks him very sweetly.

St Patrick's Day is over - no Granny did not go down to the coast and hang out in an Irish bar, wearing an orange wig and a bright green t-shirt - heaven forfend. Good Friday is past too - no she did not process behind the local priest, wearing black, chanting dismally. Nor, tomorrow, will she be eating Easter Eggs: she will be sitting on a plane heading for zero temperatures and even SNOW. The wind may be cold here just now. But even so. On the BBC website this morning there was a photo of an Easter Bunny made out of snow. Lunacy, she thinks.