CUCURACHA TOAST

Something was moving across the path this morning, so I stopped. If I stepped on a cockroach I could subsequently walk its eggs into my apartment and, believe me, nobody wants that!
But this one wasn't scuttling - it was travelling slowly along on its back. I looked closer.


It was surrounded by dozens of satellites - a colony of ants was moving it from the car park to the garden - this cucuracha was breakfast. Or to put it another way - toast.

Quite why the ants decided to detach two legs and leave those behind remains a mystery.

A much prettier sight ten minutes later was this flower -

 I think the plant is a variety of palm because the flower looks just like the precursor to the huge bunch of dates that at the moment adorns a tree outside our local bar. 

They aren't the kind of dates you buy in the shops - only the birds eat these, as one fledgling was doing right in front of my feet yesterday. Its parents were yelling, "Danger!" but it was far too intent on pecking at its date to listen - what do parents know anyway?

This little chap, on the other hand, knows exactly where his next meal is coming from. Every morning he flies into the same cafe in Las Galletas, perches on a chair and tweets.

'Un trozo de pan, por favor!'

FINISHED! (well, kinda)

After a long month of re-writing my first ever book, I have reached the final page!
It has quite a history, this book. I first wrote it at least six years ago – a 180,000 word fantasy. Far too long, of course, but I was carried away with writing. I sent off some submissions and one agent actually asked to see the whole book. With great rejoicing I told family and friends - my kids even baked a cake - and I parcelled it up and had it hand-delivered. After a few weeks it was refused, and it was hugely embarrassing having to tell everyone after the initial euphoria. Back to the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook.

   Then I fell for a scam. I paid £350 “expenses” to another agent who said my book was fantastic and he wished he’d found something similar to read when he was young. I waited six months for him to find the promised publisher, and I had written a 190,000 word sequel before I realized he was a crook. He is still around playing the same tricks, so don’t fall for it!

   But he’d done me a favour in a way because, when I started re-reading my books after a six-month break, I could see a whole raft of things I had done wrong. I did a complete re-write and split the two books into a series of five. Each one is self-contained but there is a theme running through the series, and I sent the first book out to every agent who would consider fantasy. All I got was rejections. Again.

   Now, some years later, having read lots of advice to writers, I have written three other novels and am giving my fantasy series another major overhaul! I have already cut 10,000 words from the first book, re-named it and the whole series. It’s very different now, but last time round I approached most of the possible agents. I am afraid that even now some of them might remember my original submission and reject me without a second glance.

   The moral of my tale? Don’t submit too soon.

 I was so sure the cactus would flower today! I went out armed with my camera and brimming with confidence, but look at it! Still hiding its light under a ficus bush(~el).

The pollinators are sitting on the nearby aloe vera plant with their arms crossed, tapping their feet with impatience. 

Three days ago the bud was as long as my thumb - now it's bigger than my hand.

Imagine what the flower is going to be like!

EYESIGHT and a POEM

A couple of years after this photo was taken I was wearing glasses and have worn them ever since. I spent my teenage years bemoaning the fact that I had to spoil any outfit with my National Health glasses - my parents couldn't afford private ones. Each time I had new glasses I had to choose frames without being able to see them, and each new pair reduced me to tears when I realized once again that they hadn't transformed me into a beauty! After an unsuccessful flirtation with lenses it is only now, in my later years, that I have learned to accept them.

Eyesight is something most of us take for granted, but if, like me, you had to take early retirement due to eyestrain, you tend to be a tad paranoid. Every new floater might be Retinal Detachment and each blurred moment Macular Degeneration. Other people enthuse about laser surgery – me, I’m terrified I’d be one of the failures. How could I write or read if I couldn’t see? I couldn't admire the photo of my grandsons playing with the neighbours' dogs in an English meadow, or see the growth of a cactus flower.

This is this morning's photo - it won't be long before the flower is fully open.

The flame trees in our complex are just bursting into leaf, though they still have last year's seed pods. In a few weeks they will be aflame with orange blossom - what a shame not to be able to see that.

The reason for all this introspection is the book I am reading - Nicholas Evans' The Smoke Jumper - in which a young man is blinded by an accident, and I wondered how I would cope.

Some years ago I worked for the RNIB and wrote a poem about being blind. I shall put it on My Writing page if you want to read it.

Oh yes - and Happy Diamond Jubilee to you all, Congratulations to Her Majesty, and I wish I was in England to join in the festivities, rain and all!

POETIC PHILANTHROPIST?

I was reading in a magazine the other day about a girl who had a favourite poem tattooed on her stomach in case the forgot it.
In the photograph the poem was the right way up and the right way round. So what does she do if she forgets it?
If she tucks her chin in and heaves her bosom out of the way I suppose she might just be able to read it upside-down. Or perhaps she's an expert at mirror-reading. What happens if she puts on weight or develops wrinkles?
Maybe she's had it done solely for the benefit of others - a poetic philanthropist. If you see her walking around, presumably in her bikini, can you stop her and read it, or does she zoom past like those annoying people who wear tee-shirts with complicated messages?
One of the requisites of being a writer of fiction is the ability to think "What if?" but at times that ability can be a curse!

And for those of you who are following the growth of a cactus flower, here is today's photo. The bud is a centimetre longer than yesterday - about the length of my thumb now.
We haven't much longer to wait.

JUST A QUICKIE

No, not that kind of quickie!

This was how our cactus looked on May 13th when we first noticed it was in bud.
I planned to take a photo every day to watch its progress, but it's  been slower than usual this year so these photos are several days apart.

I don't know what happened to the bud on the left. Maybe the community handyman knocked it off. Possibly a cat is to blame, in which case I hope it spent the rest of the day getting the spikes out of its paw! The bud itself may have given up the ghost. We shall never know.





But then, lo and behold, another bud appeared on another head.
This was on a cloudy day, believe it or not - we have had more of those than usual this year, and at the end of May we expect wall to wall sunshine.


                                                                                                                    This morning we finally have some movement! I was hoping they would all come out at once, which would be spectacular, but it seems we shall get them one at a time.
Not everyone will be enthralled by the growth of a cactus flower, so if I'm boring you, may I direct you to some of my other posts that are not entirely on one subject? Thank you for bearing with me.

QUE CALOR!

We have another calima - fine dust that blows in from Africa. It reduces visiiblity, sometimes to such an extent that Mt Teide disappears, it clogs up the sinuses, makes the eyes smart, and sends the temperature soaring. On our terrace at ten this morning it was already 36F.
It's not only people that droop in that kind of heat, especially when it descends so suddenly. My morning walk took me past this beautiful jacaranda tree, the blossom from which is already dropping in the heat, creating a mauve carpet.

There was one lone man in the pool at nine o'clock, but by eleven it was full of shrieking children making the most of their fathers' one day off work. This afternoon will probably be the turn of the learners. The locals teach their children to swim before they can walk and ignore their screams. At first I was horrified, but after years of witnessing this method I have seen that it works. Before the season is over they will be diving in without armbands, but the first few weeks are heart-rending to listen to.

And in our garden a cactus is beginning to flower. Last year it managed three flowers at once, but this morning there were six buds. At the moment they are only marble-sized, but I shall take a photo every day to show how they grow. As they say - watch this space!.