Canary Row

(This being a Canary Island, it´s probably my once in a lifetime opportunity to use this title, so I hope Steinbeck doesn´t mind).

This is an interim post to explain my absence from the blog waves and, it´s hoped, sustain RW-hungry readers until we can get internet access. As you may have heard, contact with the world is limited here: ships take a week to reach England, and although there are ring-necked doves (with the most boring mating call known to ornithology - how they expect to tempt a female from spinsterhood I don´t know. Still, it must work or there wouldn´t be so many of the ring-necked buggers) there are no homing pigeons. But then, since this would be their home, they would not want to take messages to the mainland anyway.

No, the only net access within 40 miles is Stalag 17 up the road, where one is limited to 15 minutes at a time - of which the first 4 are taken up loading the blog and the remaining 11( at my typing speed) in entering the title. I cheat - the DG is typing this. There is no Wifi and the Obergruppenfuhrer does not permit pre-recorded text: uploading pictures is similarly verboten, and when your 15 minutes is up, everything is erased.

No more excuses - clearly the system is designed to discourage blogging and e-mailing - which for a vacation island is probably right. So apologies to both e-mailers and bloggers for this hiatus - I only hope the wait will turn out to have been worth it for you.