You're welcome, Melissa. It is a lovely part of the world here. I lived in Catalonia for 10 years or so, and am now further south, near Alicante. Very similar culture and landscape.

Being English by birth I find it a little brown and dry at times, but the great splashes of colour from bougainvillea and other intensely coloured floral plants that thrive here make up for it.

Plus being surrounded by orange, lemon, cherry, almond and olive trees.

And carobs - my favourite. If you saw any ancient trees, all gnarled and with half their trunk rotted away, but somehow twisting into new life and laden with leathery bean pods, they would have been carobs.

Incidentally, you can use your camera phone to search directly with Google, and it's pretty good at identifying plants, which is really useful if you see something you like in a park or someone's garden and want to buy one, so long as you can get a decent close-up.