25mph gales overnight have decimated the almonds, some of the more exposed trees have lost all of their crop. Wind howling round the van woke me up round half six, though the rain had stopped. Very tempting to roll over and put my head under the pillow, but booted myself into gear. Temperature has plummetted from 20degC to about 3.5. Managed to finish strimming the main terraces up to the stone hut, about half the terraces in all, so we’re looking a little less unkempt.

Then the rain started again, and the strimmer packed up, so I grabbed a rake and set off down the Cascades to have a shot at levelling off the terraces grubbed up by the wild boar.

As you can see, they’ve tunnelled straight for the roots. The irony is that the tree most affected is the one carrying the most almonds, by virtue of its more sheltered position.

I hope it survives.

Anyway, I raked the terrace flat. You can see how extensive the damage is:

Rain was really hammering down by now, making further work impractical, so I called it a day.