Jonathan:

Denise is about to board her flight back from Lanzarote to Glasgow (she’ll spend the night at a hotel, and return home to Uist Sunday morning).

This might be a surprise to you, but it wasn’t just Denise and Becky that went to Lanzarote.

I was there as well – by proxy!

Denise’s photos and reports were automatically appearing on our systems here at An Gàrradh Mòr in South Uist. And I could follow her peregrinations by monitoring the GPS on her phone. I’ve really felt that I’ve been to these places! That’s partly down to the possibilities of technology, but more to the fact that Denise and I are so close in interest and outlook – we share almost everything.

Denise and Becky steered well clear of the south-coast beaches and resorts favoured by most sun-loving Brits, where the lingua franca is English. Their experience was of the other Lanzarote, where Spanish language was essential – the real present-day Canarian Lanzarote.

If there’s one experience of my ‘holiday’ in Lanzarote that has left a lasting impression, it is the visit to the Museo Agrícola El Patio.  Or more specifically two items at the museum, one being words, the other being an image. Here they are. First the words.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And this photo of a reproduction of a photo of a real person, taken at what date I don’t know.  There is such grace in the photo, such beauty. It captures a Canarian woman drawing water from a well. The image is an evocation of all the ideals of peasant life.  It has universal resonance.

Canarian woman drawing water from a well.

These words and pictures have come home with me to Uist, where they have already re-kindled my profound passion for self-reliant living on the land, under the sun.  May all that want it find happiness in such lives!