Where the hell was she? This had to be one of her pranks. She was trying to get back at me for coming here in the first place. It’s not as though a holiday in a warm place would cost much more, she’d said, with petrol and the outrageous prices they charge for food. But I needed my head space. Going to Sicily or the South of Spain would mean people, everywhere people – lying on beaches, looking at buildings, trying to avoid all the other people doing exactly the same things that they were doing. Here in this bonnie wee part of the country, you could breathe, feel the air and watch the sea, look at the hills turning orange, gold, bronze, red, in the sunset. But Madrid had lovely sunsets, too, she’d said. And why, for god’s sake, did hardly anyone bother travelling here at this time of year, if it was so bloody special? Surely you’d have to be mad to stay in a place like this in the middle of winter. Such was her perpetual rant against all things cold.