PRECIOUS water is exported from the dry lands of Spain in millions of cubic kilometres each year. We receive it in Ireland in, for example, tomatoes, which are probably 70% water.

WHEN the first flakes scudded past the window at lunch time, I thought they were almond blossom petals drifting on the wind.

IT ISN’T all sunshine here, although there’s a lot of it; happily, it can also rain. We’ve seen no downpours or deluges, in spite of the locals’ ardent prayers but, yesterday, we woke to find the day darker than any in the five weeks we’ve been here and outside it was very cold.

WHILE waiting to move into our long-term rented house in the Alpujarras mountains, south of Granada, we left Spain and went to Africa, arriving at midnight in Tangiers with no arrangements made.

WE DROVE across the bare Meseta, the tableland at the centre of Spain, on a Sunday morning, the sky big and blue overhead and snow-capped mountains on the horizon, rising above a band of blue mist.

WE WOKE early, hearing voices in the olive grove, and looked out to see men and women moving about in the dappled sunlight, laying a carpet of green plastic netting around a tree.

TRY SNEAKING up on a pigeon. It seems to have eyes in the back of its head. In fact, it has a visual range of 340º, leaving little or no blind spot especially when the bird is boppin’ along, head dipping and rising like one of those toy dogs in the back windows of cars.

A CHRISTMAS card I opened showed a white owl on a post in a snowy field.

AN ENGLISH language (EFL) teacher I know emailed me from China last week. He lives and works in one of the many hundreds of Chinese cities with a population of more than one million . His dim glimpses of China on the ground — or rather, on a bicycle — may interest readers.

I SAW, in the Guardian newspaper, that a German woman, settled in England, had been arrested for picking wild mushrooms.