That´s Mike on the right.  He´s so real. His enthusiasm and expertise are balanced by an otherworldly patience, as I am still learning to walk in Blogworld. He explains things v-e-r-y slowly and kindly, tempering the wind to this shorn lamb.

Girls, the diamond is no longer our best friend. We all need a Blogguru like Mike to empower us to natter to the whole world. But hands off! Mike is my PERSONAL guru, although he has announced plans to clone himself next year and change his name to Dolly.

I´m publishing and being damned now. You´ll see how much guruing I need!

And whaddya know? It´s still like Montego Bay out there, I´m still barefoot and bare-armed, the dogs are still panting on the dark red tiled rooftop. And even though our clocks fell back last night, our windows are wide open to catch the (warm) evening breeze. Meanwhile, I´m eyeing up my wellies, dreaming of inky skies and my stern wool sweaters waiting patiently on the dark shelves of the spare closet.

A lazy Sunday, though I did package up the Baeza/Ubeda article to post tomorrow. Never enough done though, just domestic stuff that is only noticeable by its absence, and will all have to be done again in a week´s time if not tomorrow. The dog´s antibiotic tablet, watering the wilting fuschia, picking up, picking flowers, washing bedlinen. And from the living room, the newsreader announces that the world is going to end anyway, but not before the whole southern hemisphere uproots and comes to destroy our energy-wasting, women´s-flesh-baring, non-churgoing arses in a paroxysm of righteous vengeance. So I´d better grab the ham sandwich Fred just made me and an hour or so of other people´s troubles on the box.

Also the receptionist had been to Spain´s front of house charm school, i.e. she took care not to move any unnecessary muscles in her face as she produced our over-weighty bill. Hacienda La Lacuna, alright.

Baeza and Ubeda are two handsome Andalucian towns chock full of impressive Renaissance palaces and churches. Hope they look just as handsome in the rainy season, which set in (I swear) as the ink was drying on the magazine contract promising the article next week.

I took the train from Granada to Linares-Baeza, and Fred met me at the station. I´d anticipated a journey enlivened by chickens, gypsy picnics and flamenco. I´d planned to write about poor but proud peasant folk in tightfitting black Sunday best (and that was just the guys). What I got was a spotless, brand new carriage and never more than two travellers for company. At Ubeda, the stop before mine, there was a moment of sheer excitement as two elderly women came in. Nope. Not a hair out of place, and disappointingly sane.

However, once reunited with Fred I sipped my pre-lunch fino before going for a post-train-journey pee. In the gleaming, EU-subsidy-tiled ladies loo, I was greeted by a turd, perched ON the loo seat. Though no use to enliven my article, that perked me right up.

More about Baeza and Ubeda in my next post. And no crap, I promise.