EVERY SECOND COUNTS

What a grim year 2024 has turned out to be. And I don’t just mean the man child back in the White House, the ex­trem­ists he has sur­rounded him­self with, the huge power they wield and their ush­er­ing in of an age of un­truths.

I am talk­ing about mat­ters far closer to home. Here are the head­lines.

After 24 years farm­ing and run­ning a casa rural for guests from around the world we are re­tir­ing and head­ing into town; to a flat, some­how de­cant­ing or dis­card­ing a life­time of pos­ses­sions to fun­da­men­tally change course. We must learn to mea­sure our strides. It is so sad that the cur­rent chap­ter, this ad­ven­ture on the edge of a Pri­o­rat wilder­ness, must end. But we have no choice. Sud­denly age and the hor­ri­ble con­se­quences have on our knees.

I have been in hos­pi­tal three times this au­tumn with an auto im­mu­nity issue. It is not helped by stress and re­lent­less toil and my for­get­ting my age (66).

I will fig­ure and, fin­gers crossed, fight back against mor­tal­ity this time. The signs are good.

But….

Mag­gie has been di­ag­nosed with Alzheimer’s. Liv­ing the day and at a man­age­able pace has sud­denly be­come an im­per­a­tive. I find my­self as a carer, though these are early days and I need to be fir­ing on all cylin­ders first. Through all of this the huge pos­i­tives have been the un­con­di­tional love, sup­port and kind­ness of our chil­dren and fam­ily and, un­der­lined, vital friends here in the heart of Cat­alo­nia. Mag­gie has been so brave too, fac­ing up to such stark re­al­i­ties. Be­yond the shock of di­ag­no­sis los­ing her beau­ti­ful farm hurts be­yond mea­sure.

But we will not leave the area and have never waivered from the sim­ple re­al­ity that the Pri­o­rat is and al­ways will be home.

There are so many rea­sons to be grate­ful, not least our good for­tune in find­ing this be­guil­ing place in the first place, the ex­pe­ri­ence and chal­lenge, the trust, the good­ness. We leave the farm in early 2025, set­ting about clear­ing it of clob­ber gleaned over the years, then we will put it on the mar­ket hop­ing to wave good­bye to our debts. We are de­ter­mined to savour every sec­ond we are blessed with, but that ac­cep­tance is not going to come overnight.

We will be back and forth to the Au­di­tori in Barcelona and oth­ers (we love them all, two Au­di­tori con­certs al­ready booked). Mag­gie was the first woman house man­ager at the Wig­more Hall recital venue in Lon­don and music is in her veins. Mine too through­out our 30 years to­gether. We will savour walks on the wild side and learn to just be. We will ex­plore Iberia some more and we will share time with those we love. These are as­pi­ra­tions, of course. But we are pos­i­tive peo­ple and we have each other and a great many things oth­ers do not, in­clud­ing life­times of mem­o­ries. May they give us strength.

Yes, live the day.