I just got back from Sevilla. How happy I am to be in Jerez. There's a fresh breeze from the ocean, it's totally quiet on a Sunday afternoon at 4 pm.
We are going to have shark steaks on the barbeque for dinner. There are storks circling above the rooftop. Geoffrey is up there doing stuff in his workshop; just finished making himself a table saw out of a metal bed frame and various odd bits of metal, and a regular power saw which he set underneath it.
I am sanding my shoe lasts.

I was with Sachiko and some other friends last night at a peña where Pepe Torres danced. We went out afterwards to the main place for flamenco. Hidden in a place with the door half down, it lasts all night as long as the police don't come and force it to close down. There is no good place where they can sing and do what they want, as somebody is always bothered. It used to be the norm in Sevilla in certain neighbourhoods. Unfortunately and amazingly, the city allows music to be blasting from numerous huge speakers at an all night concert, keeping up everyone in that entire section of the city till 6 am, but a few people playing quality music, un-amplified, are shut down. Anyways, thank goodness Jerez is different. It is a community event complete with older people, here, and there is usually not a problem when it goes all night because, at least I suppose, people know that this is normal life here so they shouldn't live beside a peña if they don't want to hear it.

It makes me realise all the more how unique this place is where I live, what a treasure it is. A cultural treasure, a way of life that hardly exists anywhere else.