Cuttyhunk, still Thursday

This is a wondrous little island with a narrow shallow entrance channel into a pond filled with now-empty moorings, and a couple of necks to further bits of island. We anchor - a mooring is $40/day, and we're feeling mean after $3/foot. The dinghy is still pumped up and towing astern; J and I rush ashore to get lobster and butter and Viennese bread (soft white fat baguette). The seafood is on the dock, the rest up the winding main street - lane, really - at the little store. It's marked with a brightly painted stone - 'Market' - and is a large wooden shed behind another shed. But they don't take credit cards, so I put the tomatoes back and wander sadly down the street. It's our last day and night, the store is just about to shut. J is coming to meet me with a bag of lobsters, and he has real money, but not much of it, so we go back and negotiate for a small stick of butter, couple of toms, bit of bread.

I'm tired and have very mixed feelings about the end of the journey, and say I shall be glad to get to the end: 'Everything's such a struggle' - meaning now I can't use a card and my money's back on the boat, which would have meant dinghying back and forwards, and the shop's just about to shut, so I'd be too late. But we've got the stuff, so the shop can shut and we can have supper.

J cooks the lobsters, tipping them from the bag into boiling water, so I can't give them names and release them on the quiet. The lid goes on and I eat bread and sesame oil till they're ready. Twenty minutes later J puts a now-scarlet alien (soo like the film) on my plate - never had a whole one before. It's shell is so hard, I can't remove the tail, so J pulls it off. I attack the claws with a hammer, and prod bits of lobster out of its carapace. The butter has been melted, the bread is fresh and tears apart. Chins and teeshirt fronts are greasy, and table manners - what are table manners? I finish the last of my Screech. I have that horrible end of holiday feeling - now I want it to go on and on. Contrary Mary.