where?
My house is in San Miguel de Allende. Now my American friends would say - of course. My English friends would ask - which coast is that on? But San Miguel de Allende is hundreds of miles from the sea in any direction (and actually, of course, thousands of miles and maybe a whole continent north to the Arctic Ocean).
I am right in the middle of Mexico. San Miguel is an old colonial town on a plateau in the middle of the Sierra Madre mountains. There is an extinct volcano - Palo Huerfano in the mountain range Los Picachos - to the south of us which is why I have given the blog its name. But I have just read Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry for the first time: which is really why I have given the blog its name.
Malcolm Lowry died in 1957 but by coincidence he would have been ninety-nine this week, (on the day I started reading his book) and it is also the anniversary, the third anniversary, of the ‘closing’ on the house. I arrived in Mexico three years ago this weekend to ‘complete’ the purchase which was finalised on 08/08/05. So that is why I decided I would HAVE to start this blog today.
And if I manage to write any more on this blog you will realise that dates and time and numbers and coincidences are important to me - perhaps they are to everyone.
2nd August 2008