Between Christmas and New Year The weather forecast was good and we headed up to the cortijo for a long weekend. Each morning the frost sparkled. The cortijo is halfway up the mountain in the middle of the photo.

Pumpkin soup for lunch on the terrace. Though the air was cool, in the sun it was quite warm.

Frosty mornings call for porridge. Note the 'horno' behind Rodney. This is where we burned piles of prunings and dead brush.

Breakfast - not quite warm enough to have outside.

Pulling thistles - a break from digging holes for our new almond trees.

The snow on the peaks is not far away.

And means getting in plenty of pine cones and twigs to resurrect the fire quickly in the mornings.

Lots of clearing to do but an ideal time of year to do it and great weather. Everything on the white sheet - and about five times more - went into the horno for disposal.

Clearing out the azeicia. The water runs almost constantly in the winter so we took the opportunity to top up the irrigation deposito.

A short drive down to the spring at Pedro Calvo to fill up on spring water for drinking.

And a short drive up to fill up on pine logs. The forest was burned out last year and there is lots of timber on the ground.