Bougainvillea barricade

To further the late President's vision of greening the desert, and also to create a thick and thorny barrier against the peeping Pashtun currently stalking Cell Block G, a complicated irrigation system of pipes and plastic pots has been installed onto the verandah. Its purpose is to nurture a thicket of bougainvillea, the garishly lovely bright pink flower that spills over the white villa walls of Jumeirah.

The peeping Pashtun is more of an irritation than a problem: but it is never pleasant to think of a seedy stranger lurking behind a pillar, shuffling his feet in the sand while he spies on people in their private space.

Stalkers apart, the shadowy gardens around Guantanamo have been eerily quiet these past few weeks, since officials announced they would "eradicate" the problem of feral felines. There has been no sign of Moon-Cat for many days. She, alas, would have had little instinct to flee from strangers.

But perhaps one of her many kittens, feral-born and feral in nature, survives somewhere in a thicket, waiting to one day repopulate the area.