Articles by Gina Leishman

Summer has arrived with all guns blazing, exactly a month early.  Over night, it seems, we are in full summer mode – hot, hot, hot… Any exercise has to be taken before 11am or after 7pm… Swimming in the sea is still prohibited, I think because it means crowded beaches – I would just go down to the sea, swim, and come home, and if this keeps up I will try that next week (really don’t want a fine – a 600 euro swim is not enticing). Meanwhile, I walk with my sis for a half hour every morning and again in the evening, then ride my bike down to the sea and put my feet in for a minute…

The real exercise of the past few weeks has been the Major Work around the place, all essential and overdue… First the cisterna (I have sent off a sample of the drinking water to be analyzed – all fingers and toes crossed) and then the coach house. The old coach is long gone – sounds terribly grand but wasn’t, just a lovely old horse-drawn carriage that is now in the local museum after having having been lovingly restored… It (the coach house) is where all the tools and wheelbarrow and summer furniture and butanos etc etc are kept, plus the washing machine (quelle luxe!) and it’s been about 30 years since the place was emptied and painted.  We replaced three of the beams this past winter (totally rotten), and last week we emptied and cleaned and repaired and painted the inside, and got rid of a lot of old junk in the process (still plenty there!). We also discovered woodworm in three of the “new” beams in the entrance hall of the house (again, not as grand as it sounds!), so that had to get emptied while the rot was scraped out and the beams were painted with gas-oil – the only effective remedy, it seems – the place stank for days.  But everything is now back where it should be and we have a semblance of normalcy – only to discover that the old tree trunks in the front garden left from the 4 pines that died (just after mum did) are the breeding ground of some truly horrible insects, so those stumps are going to have to come out as soon as I can get Sebastian back here to help – it never ends.  God only knows how I’m going to pay for all this, but we live in hope… Sis has dealt with the discombobulation quite well, really – she’s on a new med which seems to be working, for the moment at least – she is still in constant pain, but dealing with it better…

Meanwhile I am dealing with running out of my prescription meds and supplements, and the vagaries of Spanish customs.  A dear friend kindly sent a care package (via Fed Ex, at VAST expense) of health supplements and my mail (prescriptions not ready til next week), only for it to be held up in Barcelona – I have been told I have to either hire a customs broker (??), fill out a million forms and pay a bunch of money, or it will be sent back to NY.  Nothing is simple… Except the beuaty of this quiet island, and the vegetables growing in my huerta – thank you thank you thank you…

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon (first rain in over a month) and I am attempting to make marmalade.  This is a first for me so it’s a grand experiment.  I noticed on one of my walks that one of my neighbours (who is stuck in the UK unable to come here) had a Seville orange tree groaning with fruit, and it just seemed such a waste… So I emailed him and he graciously gave me permission to pick them… I’ve used but a fraction of the oranges – if it works I will make more – unless it proves too complicated, which is quite possible…

The rain is blissful – it started yesterday afternoon, about an hour of gentle mizzle just to soften the earth, then this morning just before dawn it began in earnest, but still pretty gentle, pretty much straight down, with pauses to let it sink in and not flood – the land and gardens are supremely happy (I have not gone out to check to see if the huerto plants are still upright but I can only hope – the tomato plants already have flowers, which will not be so happy, but hopefully they will survive…)

We have a cleaned and repaired cisterna, and a new water filtration system, including an osmosis filter, a UV light and a special drinking water tap at the kitchen sink… Oh the joy of good water, and the prospect of not having to buy all those plastic bottles!  I watered the garden to a fare-thee-well on Tuesday, to drain the cisterna as far as I could (about a foot and a half of water left), and the following morning Sebastian and I spent two hours bailing out the remaining water by hand – oy! Then he cleaned it with a pressure hose, let it dry, painted it with a mixture of cal and cement, let it dry, we refilled it, bled the pipes, and voila… the miracle was that he figured out how to keep the water running in the house during the 3 days of work by running a hose from the neighbours’ house into our system – very clever, and it made such a difference – 3 days without water would have been very tricky for sis…. And we are now finally drinking our own water again, after decades off not being able to – hallelujah!

All things being equal, on Wednesday next week we empty the coach house and paint it – another 3-day job (hopefully not more) – and then all the major jobs will be done.  I have decided that on May 22nd, the day I was due to fly to CA for BIRD rehearsals and performances, I will go into the studio and spend the next 6 weeks – when I would have been working on the piece in CA – really finishing it.  Seems like a good idea.  Hopefully I can do it… I will certainly try… I am still totally enamoured of The Park, all I want to do is sculpt trees, but my shoulders and hands are starting to object very strongly and I need to listen to them. if I ever want to be a musician again…

On May 1st I started swimming – bracing but wonderful… “Hooray hooray the 1st of May, outdoor swimming starts today” is the new updated mantra…. the huerto grows apace, as do the malas hierbas – this rain is meant to be over this evening, so tomorrow I will do a massive weeding – insh’allah…

They say that as of tomorrow we will be able to start socializing in groups of up to 10 people (with the usual 2m distancing) so maybe we will have a few friends over for an outdoor lunch – wow… I think the re-opening of everything is happening too quickly, but money talks and they desperately want to reboot the economy… I would prefer that we stay locked down until the end of May, then very slowly open up to maybe letting folks in from outside by August, but then I’m not in charge… Also, as long as we’re locked down I don’t have to think about what the hell I’m going to do…

Exactly 6 months later… and such a different world…

It seems only right that I pick this up again, as the world tilts on its axis into a whole new reality… for the moment, I am blessed with being in this beautiful, peaceful place, relatively unscathed, tho’ I have been out in “the world” only twice in the past month (since I have been here, with the first 2 weeks in full quarantine…)

To recap, I share the email I sent my friends after landing….

“I am in Menorca.  I was in New York, but I realised this was going to be a long haul and I couldn’t leave my sister on her own, so through many, many cliff-hangers, I finally managed to get on the last plane allowed into the island from outside Spain…. I am now in quarantine for 14 days, so as not to endanger the very person I have come to protect! Luckily a friend has a little house that’s empty just up the road from our house – very basic, and yesterday even without water (today I have it, for now).  When I’m settled I will write longer, but for now I just wanted to let you all know where I was, and that so far I’m fine (unfortunately I have been on 6 planes, in 8 airports, in the past 2 weeks, so I’m counting the days…).  There’s a complete lockdown here (even if I weren’t quarantined), no walking or biking, going anywhere for pleasure, only trips to buy food or medicine (or tobacco – this is Spain!), no more than one person in a car, etc…. but I plan to start planting the vegetable garden next week, once the field has been cleared… I knew there was a reason I learned how to grow food!  I feel incredibly lucky to be here, to have been able to get here, both for my sister and myself.  Leaving my apartment in Westbeth was really hard, but I know it was the right thing to do… Please keep in touch and let me know how you all are… far flung we might be, but you are all important to me.”

A month later, and I am still in the “wee hoose” down the road – much as I’d like to be in my own house, it’s good to have my own space – living with sis 24/7 is challenging, and who knows for how long this will be, so I’m happy to be the recipient of such hospitality – thank you, Judy and Caroline, for your generosity… sis and I walk every morning (totally against the rules, but the rules are made in Madrid, and our back lanes here in the country are rarely policed, thank heavens), and often times in the late afternoon. I do chores around the house, then spend hours in the garden and fields, plus time in the studio – but I wake up and go to sleep alone…  the 2 weeks of quarantine were overhung with anxiety, waiting for the axe to fall, but I seem to have managed to come through unscathed, in spite of the numerous airports and airplanes… Since then, I have been out into the world only twice, and both times were deeply unsettling, ever since it was pointed out to me that as a cancer survivor with a heart condition I am a “high risk” individual… what, you mean I’m no longer 35 and and invincible?? So food is ordered and delivered, and we keep to ourselves out of choice as well as necessity… thank god for the garden and our fields…