Bad weather always looks worse through a window, says Tom Lehrer. True even in southern Spain. So I put on heavy boots to make sure I won't be blown away, and take off on a storm-powered stroll around Los Piedaos. The weather readout says that today's easterly winds are running at 25 kilometres per hour in Granada - that doesn't sound as dramatic as it looks. To the south, inky clouds edged with scarlet move across the black face of the Sierra Lujar.

Down at the pool, the wooden stand of our big green sunbrella (Homebase Leeds 1995; Winchester, Chesapeake Bay, Barrio Hondillo, Calle Huelva, Los Piedaos, RIP) has snapped in two. The furled umbrella, broken-backed, is half submerged in the kids' paddling area.  I haul it to shore and leave it against the wall, nothing else I can do for it now.

Mr N. our lone guest of the week in El Azahar, is out, but Kathmandu, the most gingerly of our cats, is huddled on the high wall of the casita.  I clamber up on a ledge and ask permission to tuck him under my arm.  He comes quietly as I appear to be the lesser of two evils this evening.  On the way back I'm picking up fallen branches of cypress and chunks of succulent sempervivum blowing across the path like tumbleweed.  The courtyard Fred swept clean yesterday is bright with green-gold leaves from the two protecting elms that guard our doorway.  Maybe the wicker dog basket caught in the top branches last autumn will drift down too.