ACK in November, we drove down to spend a week with friends in Spain. They live in Extremadura, in a farmhouse at the end of a muddy three-mile drive—passable in dry weather (which it was), but treacherous after prolonged rain. The house is surrounded by a mixture of and the Spanish lavender , the one with long, dark-purple bracts on top of the flower spike. The drive runs through a natural woodland of oaks () and strawberry trees (). The strawberry fruits ripen sweetly, which they never do in England—would we
