CLOUD'S DOMAIN

This is Cloud, or Cloudy, surveying her domain. Once a city dog and the property of a hooker, she is now very much the country dog, tuned in to every sound and very aware of the dimensions of her territory.

This is not only a bad hair day for me, it's a bad picture day. I went up four terraces in the hot sun to see what I could see. This was the first picture I took, just because I liked the look of her Doberman shape silhouetted. The grey-green of an olive tree can be seen on the left but the terrace I'm on is one above the olive tree line. There is a thick vine on the left, which covers the path, but there is nothing up there but Mediterranean tree heather and weeds. I came back down and took dozens of other pictures but always came back to this one.

It is very dry and this is the fire season. Building a fire of any kind is forbidden. We are unofficial look-outs and Himself telephones the local warden the instant we see smoke. We have had some close calls with two-day fires burning as close as the villa just below us. A few hours of rain would be no bad thing.