Tears

No no not tears of grief this time. The relentless produce of the garden continues ever more relentless: right now it's aubergines in over-abundance and Granny has been chopping them up all morning for chutney along with onions - very strong onions - and fresh chillies - also breeding excessively - hence the tears pouring down her face.

She is also tired: very. She caught up with the brilliant Pedro Almodovar at last yesterday on his trawl around the island for his new film. She will write about the cinematic choreography he achieved on her favourite - the most beautiful - beach, when she's less exhausted: for now she'll just say the experience was so wonderful she was still humming and hopping mentally and physically when she went to bed. The humming and hopping was promptly exacerbated by Beloved asking probing philosophical questions as he is wont to do in bed sometimes (she's happier when he confines his over-large brain to his beeping chess machine at that time of night, but if you live with a retired and somewhat eccentric professor such mental probing has to be expected, now and then.) The questions this time related to Beloved's new subject of choice - and a probable book: sleep - something he used to study in sheep among other animals. 'Does time seem to go faster or slower when you are awake or when you are asleep?' he wanted to know - he is aware that Granny dreams copiously, most nights. Granny has to think rather more about that one. Awake she is in a different dimension from when she is dreaming it seems to her, and you cannot measure the experience of one dimension against another. She's not sure he quite got what she tried to say - or if she got what he was. If any of you out there - lurkers or commentators - have any ideas of your own on the subject, let her know. He might be grateful, even if she isn't.

Anyway the net result was she barely dreamed at all last night: she barely slept and ended up reading through the small hours rather than, more wearisomely, writing books - or blog posts - in her head, which she does when she is insomniac, thereby driving sleep yet further away. Early in the morning when she was dropping off at last, the air was rent by howls - goat howls - kid howls - bleat-type howls - because Billy the Kid had got himself stuck behind the shelter in the goat enclosure. Little billy goats quite as prone to be over-adventurous as little boys, the ongoing din, his protests ever louder as Beloved attempted to free him, woke her right up again.

You can see she is still on her island. Big Brother's funeral is delayed another two weeks. She's going to have to rush over for that and then rush back: the Alastair Sawday inspector is due - most likely - to arrive a day or two later to inspect Granny and Beloved's hospitality efforts. Another but different cause of tears, possibly - more that are not caused by grief exactly - they might even be caused by joy. But before then she'll re-encounter no doubt the real kind of tears when confronted by Big Brother's lead-lined - because of travel - coffin.