August 4th, 2012, Cotherstone

My, how the weeks fly by… it’s August, and I’m back in the land of green and gray and rain (and the Olympics – go Team GB!), the blue and white of Menorca but a memory. But it was a great month. Sure, we had our ups and downs – particularly the siblings – but families are complicated by nature, and we’ve got a lot of nature… The house is now in great shape, as is the garden, thanks to much hard work. Sebastian and his kids (particularly Xavi) planted a great huerto this year and our produce was really good – best tomatoes ever, so sweet – I hope he does a winter crop of potatoes and onions this year like Mateo used to do, they were the best… growing food is a Good Thing…

Many great gatherings, both at our house and at friends’, and many of the traditional forays – two of which involved mum riding shotgun in the 1960s Triumph Herald convertible – toujours gai, there seems to be a dance in the old dame yet… she was even offered a boat ride out to Isla de Colon, but she chickened out on the day – wisely, I have to say… don’t push your luck. She’s been doing really well, tho’ the number of folk wanting to wine and dine her, or hang out on the patio or under the olives with her and listen to her stories seemed limitless, which was quite tiring for her – but wonderful. She thrives in the company of friends.

The weather stayed pretty much ideal the entire month, tho’ quite a lot of wind, which mum wasn’t keen on – luckily there’s always a nice quiet corner somewhere around the finca, no matter which way it’s blowing. And the sea was perfection itself – a vintage, entirely medusa-free month, which made for idyllic, care-free swimming in the big blue. Heaven. That’s what I store as a sense memory to get me through the winter. Not enough hammock time, what with one thing and another, and not enough writing (music) time, but this month was all about family (which isn’t, these days?). The last week sis finally gave me the space to sleep alone on the balcony, which I really needed – the price was almost too high, but I am not good company if I don’t get enough time to myself. I finally took an afternoon and evening off, a couple of days before leaving, and went up to the north coast to swim and watch the sunset at Cavalleria beach and on up to the faro for the full moon, stopping in Es Mercadal on the way home for a late dinner on a back street by the canal – a mini holiday… and my last night I couldn’t resist a couple of midnight dips in the sea by full moonlight, after going into Sant Lluis for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the molino (a guided tour at 11pm!), and that after we’d been out to dinner, having spent the day getting the house ready for the friends who were due to arrive the day after we left – that was a long day, and a short night, but as I was sleeping on the balcony under the full moon I wasn’t going to be getting much sleep anyway, so wotthell archie… [Arriving back in Cotherstone the next night, to a stone cold house at 1.30 in the morning, was not fun, but mum was a trooper – we just layered up with shawls, drank a large single malt and staggered to bed.]

The guy who used to run the music shop in Mahon (he got fired at the beginning of July, after working there for 17 years, sign of the times) started a Tuesday night “music in the streets” series during the summer, which sis and I went to most weeks. It’s a really great thing – all local musicians (if not actually menorcan, then living on the island) and really good – jazz, flamenco, classical, menorcan folk, african, you name it – outside cafes, in the squares… good to see something positive being created – the shops stayed open late and the whole community got behind it, with kids and grandmas hanging out, everyone listening to music, strolling around eating ice-cream – way cool. Tato asked if diana and I would do one, but in the end there wasn’t time before I left – next year? we didn’t play much this time ‘round…

The family dynamic continues to be problematic, but whose isn’t? I think we do pretty well, considering – and that’s the vital word, consideration… and tolerance… I’ve put down a deep taproot out there over the years, created a life for myself, but change is coming down the pike and I must open myself to it, embrace it, or it will do me in – what doesn’t kill you makes you strong…

Still no resolution to my sublet crisis in New York, but we bumble along… and it turns out the Gertrude Stein workshop that I’m going back for in September (hopefully) is not in town as I thought but way upstate near Canada… never mind, at least it is happening… I have much to be thankful for.