On this cold winter afternoon

 

Last night was the coldest night in France this winter. It snowed on the Côte d’Azur and in Corsica. Here the temperature went down to -7, but that was accompanied by bright sunshine both yesterday and today which has made it quite bearable. Right now we’re at zero with sun. I moved what needed moving into the greenhouse and covered what couldn’t be moved. All the herbs have been saved.

We watched the Jeremiah Tower documentary. It opens at Mexican ruins as he says, “I have to stay away from human beings because somehow I am not one.

Everything that is real to me is what is hallucination to others.

The hardest thing about life is having to face the terrible reality that every day is not to be like one’s dreams and hopes of what some future day might be.”

I think the images are from Mérida which is amusing as I was fixated on living there for quite a while. Wonderful houses. Mike’s mother talked us out of it. As far as living in civilisation goes she thought Spain was already on the line, so Mexico was out of the question.

The best of the documentary is the human side (despite his denial of humanity) because Jeremiah reminds people like me that there are more of us out there. Particularly when he talks of realising as a child he had to take care of himself, because otherwise no one else would – or as he put it, “The worst thing that ever happened to me was that I wasn’t an orphan.” I can relate to that sentiment.