In fact, the caretaker is the real estate agent who showed them the house in the first place. He retired and has become our gardener. He puts in huge vegetable gardens and sort of thinks of it as his when we're not there. He plants things I don't want. And the rewards of having taken the plunge into foreign ownership have proven enormous.
Mayes is close enough to a town to be able to walk.
I walk early in the morning, every morning. Getting up early is easy because the sun just strikes the house. I work outside in the mornings. We have this vast project of a garden. In the afternoon I try to write.