The full moon glittered silver on the water as we gazed out to sea from the Santiago shore. Waves crashed in on the shingle, tumbling white foam and surging towards us. The Atlantic pulled back, sucking the water fast down shore, drawing back the rolling shingle, sending it racing downwards to the sea. Way above the horizon and out beyond the rough red cliffs we thought we could still make out snow on the peak of Mount Teide, across the sea on Tenerife. The wind that at sunset had torn at the date palms was gone and the scent of orange blossom floated in the warm night air.

Happy I certainly am here on La Gomera, one of the smallest and greenest of the Canary islands. William, Marc, David and I have hired a traditional Gomeran house 1000m up from the sea called Cañada del Hoyito.

It really is a lovely place. Dona Efigenia, who let it to us, decribed it with good reason as 'muy preciosa' : wood and stone, high ceilings and simple furniture with terraces growing orange trees and sweet almonds in blossom. In the evening the scents are lovely and the stars dot the gaps between the densely growing circle of old palm trees just before the house. Tree frogs make up a chorus with the rattle of goats bells, the goats' bleating cries and the sound of distant dogs.

Efigenia herself is something of a phenomenon, specialising in parting tourists from their cash for peasant food at upmarket prices, where the poor punters pay through the nose for three hours of something one guide book euphemistically calls 'restaurant theatre'.

Yesterday was our first and we walked a great arc around this village, down steeply terraced green valleys [barrancos] heavy with the scent of white broom. After the rainiest winter for years Gomera is truly in bloom. We climbed up to the Garajonay national park which is divided between different parishes and is at the heart of the island. It's sub-tropical forest where mist billows suddenly into sunlit glades and the myrtle trees hang heavy with thick lichen fronds.

I swam afterwards at Valle Gran Rey after leaving my things next to a dark-eyed and ringletted Spaniard and his elfin girlfriend. Great breakers were running in on the main beach (we watched as the sun went down). From a restaurant in the port I saw a handsome curly haired man in nautical uniform put his arm around a friend's neck in an easy sensual gesture the intimacy of which seemed at odds with his excited talk.

Today has been a far longer walk from Chipude where we watched effigies of St Veronica and the Virgin being prepared for their tour of the village on Good Friday. We scrambled up La Fortaleza, a sheer wall of jagged rock and the second highest peak on La Gomera. On the flat top asphodel bloomed, elegant stems of flower among the scrub. A mysterious great spiral of low stones led to a circular cairn and beyond other delicately balanced rock piles made me think of Brancusi.

Climbing the last barranco to the highest village on the island we saw a woman on the opposite side of the valley. She carried a tall stick and with whistles and coaxing cries was herding goats home. Later this cocoa brown Miriam Margoyles offered directions and filled our bottle with crystal clear, goaty tasting water.

We missed the very peak of Garajonay, over 1400m, and walked back to a meal of cuttlefish and spicy sausages in the village café. Tomorrow should include a walk to a waterfall and more swimming.

When did that question ever wait for an answer? I always liked 'how do you do?' as a greeting as the only proper answer was perfect symmetry: 'how do you do?' That exchange seems almost to have faded away, dating me to the age of the steam trains I can still dimly visualise pulling out of Paddington in 1967.

A friend used always to answer 'how are you?' with a terse 'yes!'. I think he figured that the question was equivalent to the kind of 'hand-shaking' signals modems exchange when they first connect. The answer 'yes!' was hardy ever noticed. The question was merely a necessity to be endured and a preliminary to any conversation of substance. If I remember correctly, once two modems have established a link in this way, they next 'negotiate' to establish a rate of information flow that suits them both.

Perhaps 'how are you?' performs the same function. There must be a hundred ways of saying 'fine, thanks' or even 'yes', all of them giving different subliminal messages about an individual's mood and receptivity.

The temptation to answer 'how are you?' with a detailed description of medical symptoms is probably best avoided, although it's sometimes worth it for the look of complete horror on your unfortunate victim's face. Best avoided also is the urge to respond with existential mutterings of the metaphysical variety, although I have found these can be very effective when dealing with persistent telephone sales people.

Anyway, how are you these days?

Seen at Cambridge Arts Theatre, 12.3.05.

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again'. Du Maurier's novel makes an enjoyably gripping play in this new adaptation by Frank McGuinness. It begins with the second Mrs Maxim de Winter alone on a beach of white stones, with a projection beyond of breakers running in to shore. Through the projection a dim yellow light picks out the features of Mrs Danvers climbing a great stair. She is fetishistically, erotically obsessed with her lady Rebecca, the first Mrs de Winter. There is an over emphais on sexual deviation in the play: a young footman likes make-up and ginger beer, and the estate manager was almost gay (played by family friend Martyn Stanbridge).

Nigel Havers was excellent as de Winter, and Danvers was brilliantly played with steely focus by Maureen Beattie. There were rather too many laughs in the first half and perhaps the menace grew more slowly than du Maurier might have wished in the second.

A great delight to see such a lavish, well-cast show running with precision. In the final scene the beach becomes blazing coals as Manderley is destroyed by fire. It made a juicily satisfying ending to the evening's entertainment.The houses are record-breakingly good, the cast have incredibly been given a pay rise, and everyone goes home happy.

A youth, sepulchre-white and bare-chested, was borne in on the shoulders of his equally floppy haired pals.

Two male soloists spent the performance on a scaffolding tower, one had a glitter ball for company, the other the pale (and still shirtless) boy. The tenor needn't have worried as he had his time later, when the youth popped up on his tower (looking for someone to light his candle). When the soprano had to sing Rex tremendae maiestatis the single follow spot (which had been pursuing her all evening) obliged by tremulously expanding and contracting all over her. Too many excitements, really - very camp. In his madder moments Britten might have approved but I rather doubt it. More's the pity as all this pantomime distracted from the fine music, which was well played.

Zoë Feak
Widow of my primary school headteacher Tom, and at the heart of the village. He made a huge impact on me as a child, not just because he said I had 'no sense of rythmn' or because, aged ten or so, I got to 'idiosyncratic' in his reading test. She was always cheerful, relaxed, and open-minded. Rode a black 'sit up and beg' bike, sang in the church choir, joined local societies and was much loved. Both were perfectly happy when I had the teenage cheek to demand they sell to me some framed ephemera on which they had just outbid me in a village auction.
Zoë died from a chest infection in February 2005. I was told she was alone at home.

Armine Edmonds
Mary Stansfield
John van Went, who was the kindest of men
Mike Beasley, suddenly, while still in his 60s
Gary Howland, in a tragic accident, just outside his house
Simon Kremer, of cancer, while still in his forties

 
Mrs Catherine Murray

Died aged 97 in November. I first knew her as a child. On our way to primary school, my sister and I used to take a short cut through Sidney Paddick's yard where Mrs Murray worked in the little office to the
left, just inside the gate. She used to wave and give us the sweetest of smiles: a daily blessing from a gentle, kind lady. Our walk to school then took us on through Mr Paddick's garden where we used to chat to Mr Murray, who worked there as a gardener. I remember him as always cheerful, a little man with laughing blue eyes.