“ ¿A cuanto están?” I ask the younger of the two women standing behind a row of upturned crates piled with higos chumbo (prickly pears). “MaMAAA,” she asks mama, even though they’ve been selling the things all morning, “¿A cuanto están?” “Tres euros la cena,” replies mother in her gardening gloves as she expertly slices [...]

There’s a question I dread people asking me. It follows the where do you live bit and takes about nine hours for both of us to get right. ¿Machara-qué? ¿Cómo se deletrea? How do you spell that? How indeed. Macharaviaiya – pronounced Ma-cha-ra-bee-YAI-ya, and almost impossible to say without sounding drunk – is a modestly-sized [...]

The reservoirs have never been happier, but on a purely selfish level heavy rain in Spain is always a pain. In our case, a downpour in the middle of night means leaping out of bed and sprinting across a puddle-strewn, roof-leaking patio-cum-porch, tripping over a bedraggled cat or three, charging into the kitchen and rushing [...]