A vine was growing from a trough in the dining-room and in a few months was to arc across the beamed entrance to the kitchen. Terracotta bowls were used as washbasins in the bathroom and kitchen. The bathroom was a fantastic creation of blue and white tiling, a muddled dream of the Moorish and the Oriental. Sitting on the patio the previous summer, drinking tea in the fluttering shade of an orange tree, we had talked about crops and animals. Later we made plans for the crops but ruled out the animals.
Animals limit travel.
But we wanted the crops. Olives would pay well, and health food shops in London would be delighted with an offer of the other fruit, organically grown, assuming the regulations allowed us to send them our produce. We offered to look after Sally's cat. But, in the shilly-shallying days between summer and December, the dog went to expensive quarantine in England. She added instructions about chasing off a big cat from a neighbouring cortijo that came marauding whenever Cosmo was fed.