Guinea pigs came up in passing last night, at the Carrington, where I was doing my waitressing shift (not very well – I woke up at 3am today sweating over the fact that I’d mixed up tables 1 and 8; 8 got most of the buffet food leaving table 1, a group of uncomplaining play group mothers, to starve). First the guinea pigs came up in a small, short, three way discussion between cook Tony Robinson, kitchen hand Jen and myself. We were chatting about pets (one notch up the intimacy rope from the weather) when Jen said that she had a guinea pig cemetery down the side of her house. She had a lot of dead guinea pigs but the live ones were quickly replacing them. Later I was out near the bar when I met the ubiquitous Bathurst Ecuadoran Ricardo, who taught Steve and I Spanish last year before we went to Cuba. He asked if I had a guinea pig on the menu. I said yes, we had a big one out the back, just for him

Fauna/flora: Bertie in rude good health. I am now cleaning out the fish tank. The poor fish normally live in disgusting murk with me feeling guilty every time I look at them. There is one small sickly fish who stays alive, and that’s about it. Every now and then Steve suggests euthanasia but that would be a blow to my pride.

There is a pink petunia out the front. They are starting to do their summer stuff. The supermarket rose is doing a second flush. The old rose bush does the one extravagant show each year, very briefly, before bunkering down again. There are whopping great artichokes in the vege garden, growing in amongst the grotesquely large comfrey plant. I boiled one for a long time, the other day, and sat down to eat it, a long and involved process, but very interesting. An artichoke has so many colours, layers, textures to examine as you create a great pile of sucked leaves..

Anyway, better get back to the fish tank.