Diary – 18 August 2006

Mexico City/Punta Ixtapa

This summer my family have done a life-swap. Every day we eat a large breakfast prepared by the cook, Isabel, in our residence in Mexico City, while Gaby, the maid, tidies our bedrooms. A brace of gardeners in cowboy hats, José and José-Luis, arrive shortly thereafter to fish out bougainvillea blooms from the fishpond. Another José, the driver, awaits our instructions. A beach house in Ixtapa (which means white sand in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs) is also at our disposal, with a cook and a maid. Not speaking the language, I talk to the staff in pidgin Latin and they reply in fast Spanish. It seems to work as well as any other form of communication. In return, Jaime and Patricia Riestra receive our cramped house in London. Our cleaner, Mumtaz. And our primitivo house on Exmoor. Viva la revolucion! is all I can say. According to their emails, Jaime and Patricia are happy in Notting Hill, where the only live-in staff I’ve ever seen do not wear crisp maids’ uniforms but coats of soft grey fur. They threw a wild Mexican candlelit party, with tacos and margaritas and a bardic Latin guitarist, in our house and garden, and several of our mutual friends who attended in our absence assured us it was the ‘most fun thing they had ever been to’ in our house, which was really sweet of them.

Here it is the rainy season, and the air is cool. As London deliquesced in the heat, my family whinged that I hadn’t packed enough jerseys, and hail fell in Mexico City. Despite inclement weather we drag our culture-resistant children to the Museo Anthropologia, and show them the pelota hoops, through which opposing teams of players had to cast a heavy rubber ball. My