We spent the autumn equinox in the Alpujarros in southern Spain. Instead of the Preselis we gazed up, up at the Sierra Nevada, tranquil in the sunshine. One day walking in the foothills we were pursued by thunder and lightning. Under an indigo blue sky it sounded as if the mountain gods were rumbling their impatience backwards and forwards. Some rain came after we'd reached a village. Huge lazy drops providing great excitement amongst the girls who had umbrellas. They laughed and hurried along in groups. In Britain a fall of snow would have had the same effect.

The next morning the mountains looked as if they'd had sugar sieved over them. The equinox was marked with furious gales from the west carrying downpours of rain. In the middle of the night it sounded like the western coast of Wales with threshing palm leaves splattering around like demented rain. The landscape, however, is a dry one - faded fawns and dust, with vivid delights like mulberries full of ripe berries and walnut trees dropping nuts at our feet. Remove its outer jacket, open its shell - the joy of ripe walnuts. There are springs and careful irrigation. Once a week the farmhouse where we stayed had its turn and the land chuckled and popped with water.

Coming home is always a surprise. This time it was rain and wind again. Rivers roaring, trees still full of leaf trying to lump away from the wind, acorns hurtling down, hawthorns smouldering, streams dammed and overflowing. The Preselis all washed and the sun has shafted a path to bring out the faded colours of autumn into a fiery glow before it clouds again and it's all dried grass and bracken. The robins have sorted themselves out. A successful breeding season filled the garden, but now the young have moved on, regular territories have been resumed. Starlings have ganged up for winter. Young herons reconnoitre all open water. One caught a fat carp which kept him perplexed for 14 minutes.