Ever since I’ve known him, DM has claimed to be a ‘rain god’. He says ‘where he goes, the rain follows’. Since we’re in Madrid and it’s been thunder and lightening for much of the day, while London has been hot and sunny, I am beginning to think he’s right. This photo is of him looking skywards to see when the next cloud will dump its load all over the city. It's in the doorway of the Palicio de Cristal, looking out across the ornamental lake.

We’ve only ever been to European cities twice before in almost five years of being together and on only one of the three occasions have we had decent weather and that happened in our trip to Barcelona two years ago. When we went to Paris in 2001, IN JULY, the rain came down in stair rods for three days solidly and we ended up spending two of them in our room because we’d run out of dry clothes to wear!!!

This trip has been similar in many senses – we’ve laid around in our room a lot, snoozing and relaxing – just what the Doctor ordered in fact. That’s not to say we’ve not sampled some Madrid life – we have spent today dodging showers in Retiro Park, enjoying their ‘Crystal Palace’, modelled on ours though ours is long since burned down! We’ve also enjoyed sitting on a bench feeding tame blue tits and sparrows, while the bigger, but less confident magpies have sat in the background screeching and waiting to ambush the little birds as they flew off with their spoil. We’ve watched duck-feeding and enjoyed lots of fresh air.

We’ve been in THE best station I have ever encountered (photos to follow) and are now ‘gladragged up’ again, ready to sample the delights of the Madrid Metro and one of the city’s handful of vegetarian restaurants.

My feet are killing me and the weather is crap but it’s really good to get some private time with David.

Last year Archie was watching birds....which he may well be doing as I type this but as he's 700 miles away it's difficult to say! The year before proved one of my most controvertial pictures!