In the middle, and my favourite chapter, is a piece of travel writing about my time in Morocco, where I went seed collecting every year for many years. This gives me an excuse to move onto the topic of immigration: moved by the arrival of four destitute and terrified Moroccan lads at the farm, I went to work for Granada Acoge, an NGO that looks after the interests of any immigrants who arrive in the province. I didn’t last long… I don’t think office work is my thing… but it gave me some insight into the plight of the poor immigrants… and equally important, the selfless care and devotion of the many ordinary Spaniards who staff the organisation. Hard to make a subject like this light hearted I know, but when it boils down to it there’s something to laugh at behind even the most dismal story.

It’s hard to write a book about living on the land in the Mediterranean without going on a bit about olive oil, so there’s a chapter on the ins and outs of olive harvesting and milling.

The book concludes with a meditative little piece inspired by the simple contentment of the lives of two of our neighbours, Juan and Encarni. In the saddest of circumstances, though, Encarni died the year after I wrote the book, leaving Juan to carry on alone in the cortijo. He was devastated, but in the inimitably stoical way of country people he gathered the shattered pieces of his life and fought on. I hope this portrait of their simplicity and goodness does them justice.

oooOOOooo