AUTUMN

The swallows are gone and the year is changing. They have flown south to winter in Africa and in their place are bold robins. The landscape has changed too. The harvest is in, the grapes picked, the last pig transformed into bacon and pork-chops, and the figs are all eaten - mostly, it seems, by me. The days are clear, but brisk, and the nights cold.

This part of Portugal is the land of big skies and immense clouds above an ancient, detailed countryside. Here, in my farmhouse high over the valley below, it is easy to see the inexorable shifting of time. The days of poppies and cornflowers seem so far away now, and the earth has settled into hibernation. Soon the rain-storms will sweep in from the Atlantic and Portugal will belong to winter. But the swallows will return, they always do, fields will be green again, and I will be waiting for them.