I went back to catch the cat. I wanted to get this little piece of suburban graf because the ’slave trade’ slogan intrigued me. Why would someone write ’slave trade’ on a quiet little street tucked away behind a leafy roundabout? What about it? It exists, but I couldn’t see any evidence there and then. Of course if a cat was involved then we know that the cat-human slave trade would only work one way. Daily we would rise when they woke us at dawn with repeated swats of paw then claw, fetch their food, clean their bowls, groom their silky pelts with wire brushes and shower them with blackbird beaks and pigeon feet as tokens of our esteem.

It also made me think about the Palm Tree Challenge of yesterday. In the old days the pirates of the high seas marooned the disobedient on desert islands. Walk the plank and swim Jim. The Maroons were runaway slaves who fled to the hills, famously in Jamaica but also in Guyana and across South America. They lived in the ‘thicket’ (literal meaning of old spanish ‘cimarra‘ ) and in the mountains (‘cima‘ peak, ‘marron‘ chestnut). Rebellious, chestnut-coloured people up in the hills who could not be quelled and lived in wild isolation. The verb and the noun are the same, I heard, because if they did ever capture a maroon, they would leave them for dead with only the sea to drink. That might just be an old story. It didn’t come up in a quick Google. But I remember hearing it somewhere. And stories are older than Google.

If I was a palm tree I reckon I’d be marooned, a single tree on a tiny island. Just me, the shore, the salt water. Halfway to the horizon there would be a bigger island, with a great squawking jungle and fifty palm trees on the fringe of the beach waving across the water. I would spend days scheming an escape only to realise that I would have to chop myself down to build the raft. Or grow so tall I could fall down and become my own bridge but would rip up my roots in the process. Eventually I would realise I’d only end up getting edged out by clusters of luxury beach huts like the other palm trees on the bigger island and come to like the cross winds blowing through my fronds, bending me this way and that.

So, I lost the stencil of the cat from a wall somewhere in deepest surburbia. I wanted to post it because I was thinking about cats: how difficult it is to ever write anything about a cat without it seeming trite. Even when that week I wrote that my sister’s cat had fallen from the window and broken its back. The rhyme of cat and back didn’t seem right.

I was also thinking about suburban graffiti and how it might differ from urban graffiti. Does a dual carriageway make a difference? If you had to lay money on it, would you say this was suburban or urban grafitti. I also lost my cash card in the machine, sat on a wet patch on the tube (thankfully realised it was rainwater leaking through the roof) and missed the post office. The question then is where to go from here? Having been moribund about everything, particularly the book, reading Stephen King’s On Writing is both a fascinating distraction and wrist-slittingly depressing. King says trust your instinct, something I’ve always done, but now I can barely trust whether I know what moribund means. Of course its onomatopaeic nature gives it away, but I looked it up anyway.

Perhaps the only way to escape moribund is to become Dictionary Girl – a bit like the Dice Man. Whatever comes next in the dictionary will have to be my guiding maxim for the next 24 hours. Hmmm. I’m liking it. Let’s have a look. Moriche: a tall South American palm from which they make sago, fibre and wine. I’m tempted to qualify that it would have to be the next adjective, but surely as an existential japester that would be lazy? Or perhaps I am then allowed to look up a synonym so I can skip and don’t get stuck in alphabetical order. Yes. Although of course moriche surely does not have a synonym.

My Life as a Palm Tree. All right. I’ll see what I can do.

I liked these two and they liked me and my pale blue fluffy top so I got to take a photo.

Will it be hot enough to swim? This pool was heated only by the sun. Turn the dolphin on its belly and find out. 18 degrees was warm enough, 20 was better. Even though it has only been 10 days, it seems like a lifetime ago when I was lounging on a sun lounger, sipping a glass of Pescador, gazing out across the vineyards in the valley and out to sea. When I look out to sea it calms me down: something better lies beyond the horizon. From the beach I can almost grasp it, from a boat I can chase it. When I die I might catch it.

From my room here in London I can hear a wood pigeon, blackbirds, the parakeets and the reassuring burble of Radio 4. Talking to Smokin’ Horse out in Jaffa where the bombs on the news are the bombs on the streets I am reminded of how much luxury I have to hand. I have always wanted a swimming pool. Now I think I might be a swimming pool. Somewhere that looks like the sea for a moment but isn’t. It’s fun to splash about but the dolphins are three inches long and made of plastic.

I must keep my eye on the horizon.

When Little Miss Ozturk changed into her Converse I knew there would be only one winner. Princess Pucci put up a valiant fight but went down with the Grecian urn on the terrace. Rough play! Rough play! we shouted in delight. There is apparently video evidence that answers the ‘did she jump or did she jump?’ controversy which inevitably ensued. I would be happy to upload it should it come my way. What excitement! Of course Blag Lady knows that the whole affair was simply a case of youthful exuberance fuelled by pink champagne and destabilised by pin thin stilettos. But what better drama than a bouquet tossing incident that ends up in the minor injuries clinic somewhere on the Costa? When interviewed by local paparazzi as to whether she’d thought of entering the fray, La Blag commented somewhat archly: ‘I caught my bouquet on a rainy afternoon in the Pyrenees three years ago…’ It is a bit like being a bridesmaid: a girl can’t afford to bag too many posies.

How glorious was it? A divine day. And my favourite day of the year. Oh and Giggly A’s birthday, I nearly forgot. A time of growth and fertility. Of maypoles and morris dancers. Of new babes in the wood. Lots of new baby news has been rolling in from all over the place. Currently Madame Sasha – 6 months – who has just jetted in from California and has her own My Space page with DJ mates and everything. I would link to it, but you need to be invited to view. It is also (May 1) Dr Blog and Lady Blag’s anniversary. This is Rochester Sweeps May Day Parade. It is very cool if you like pagan fertility rites and blacked-up stick bashers with crows feathers in their hair.