Water - and secrets

Granny and Beloved have no water again: nor does anyone in the street - this zone's been cut off for no known reason - without anyone being informed in advance - which happens here. There's been a lot of rain lately, they like everyone else had well-filled tank and assumed the supply was good - but last night it all ran out. A problem when you have animals: currently the animals like the humans are getting bottled water. Lucky them. Currently the loos are smelly... and the humans not at their cleanest. WARNING. KEEP AWAY. What with all the to-ing and fro-ing Granny's nice peaceful morning with Beloved out has been thoroughly disrupted - oh the trials of her life...

She went out early this morning, before the rumpus got going. The wild marigolds were all closed up - they don't open till the sun is much higher - but with the dew on the grass it smelled like England on a dampish morning - and sounded like England - a warbler was singing somewhere. This is slight exaggeration, probably just expat yearning for home; but still it was much nearer it all than usual on this dry but currently greenish island.

The dry island is currently awash with far from dry meetings, loud with loud speaker vans, festooned with election posters for people for whom Granny and Beloved as non-citizens are not allowed to vote. It's the Spanish general election next Thursday - the loudspeaker vans bellow at voters and non-voters alike. Posters for PSOE, the Spanish socialist party, currently in power, and likely to be the biggest party still after the election, feature Zapatero the prime minister in an open-necked shirt: not only a big name, Senor Z is probably the most popular politician around; no doubt that's why there's no row of candidates in suits and ties, smiling stiffly, as in all the other parties' posters. The nationalist party begs voters to 'talk Canarian' (though not dressed as such itself) but looks likely to lose some of the seats they now have. Just as well, one of the candidates for the Senate is the mayor of Granny and Beloved's local municipio - and what would the citizens all do without him? Alright probably - this mayor may be less corrupt than most - largely, Granny suspects, for lack of opportunity in this non-tourist district - but that doesn't mean he isn't lining his pockets in some way like all the rest. (The last mayor ran the local ironmongers; his brother made breeze blocks. Guess who got the contracts locally..)

Granny has been tagged by Ruth of Meanwhile Here in France meaning she has to come up with seven weird things about herself. She'll reflect on the matter and return to it in her next post. Some lucky people will be tagged in their turn; so start trembling NOW in your crocs/trainers/flipflops/Birkenstocks/LK Bennetts/Jimmy Choos....whatever you fancy. Or rather, perhaps, don't...