Absences

Granny is very sorry. No: she is not dead/disabled/eaten by shark/smothered by figs/drowned in the paddling pool/ whatever you choose - or don't choose to imagine. She is lazy/inadequate/generally useless. (Make a cross as applicable. Check all options if you like.) She has also been writing - really. Well, that's her excuse, so there. Otherwise she has been doing much as normal, apart from the fact that last weekend was the great yearly fiesta when the whole island descends on the village next to hers on foot and dressed in local dress. (Does Granny dress up in local dress. NO. Though she does walk there like everybody else: in her case it takes all of ten minutes so is not exactly an effort. And anyway, all roads closed to cars, it's the only option.)

Tomorrow is the date of the actual festival celebrated - the day of la Virgen de los Dolores Our Lady of Sorrows, if you prefer - one of the many gods of Catholicism - no more monotheistic than Hinduism as far as Granny can tell. Which means it's yet another holiday and all the shops and businesses are closed. And she herself is due to fly to London, to see the babies among other things.

So she hasn't much to say now, nor much time to say it in. Beloved is busy with the hassle of shipping a dog back to England - the Little Black Local Yokel - off to join his owner - which is worse than shipping a load of cocaine as far as Granny can see. Oh the jabs at the vet, the pet passport, the paperwork, the customs forms, the acquisition of a box of exactly the size allowed by the airline. Etc etc etc. Plus the cost: a lot. Plus all relevant businesses being closed for fiesta on the day everything was supposed to come together. Granny's advice to anyone thinking of shipping an animal back to Blighty is: DON'T.

Meantime a large amount of grapes arrive, thanks to next door neighbour - the grape harvest is finally over: but the large amount of pork Beloved was supposed to be buying from another neighbour doesn't materialise because the slaughter vet claimed the poor animal's liver was defective so that the whole animal had to be thrown away. Neighbour not pleased, nor Beloved, though Granny herself was a bit dubious to start with. (Neighbour's pigs have reasonable quality of life - more than reasonable - but aren't exactly free-range, so not quite happy enough pigs for her.)

Oh and this animal story: concerning the Beautiful Wimp who is NOT being despatched to England. No way. Beautiful Wimp is a mixture of whippet and Welsh collie; looks like a small rather pointy-nosed collie therefore. Granny was walking him along a local dirt road when up rolls a van with a group of what looks like Andean Latin Americans - Ecuadorian or Peruvian. One of them leans out, points at the Beautiful Wimp and shouts - and this is a moment of beautiful cultural, geographical, linguistic animal intermixing. 'LASSIE.'

'No. LADDIE,' Granny shouts back, imagining a village somewhere high up on the Alto Plano showing old old films to the local inhabitants. Much as she, years ago, staying in a remote Donegal village and attending the weekly fillum show in the village hall was treated to several episodes of Tom Mix: the even more antique serial where the good cowboy wears a white hat, the bad one a black. and the heroine ends most episodes tied to a railway line in front of an advancing train/about to be swallowed by a whale/fall off a cliff, whatever.

Hollywood is a great cultural binder. Especially in a world where people travel a long way from home. Granny included.