Chopping logs is very satisfying. You place the beech log on the block, raise the axe above your head and swing it down with all your might. If you are skilful you will hit the log at its sweetest spot and it will split effortlessly into two equal halves ready to be stacked and dried. If you are an amateur you will merely chip off a sliver, or worse, embed the axe-head in the wood. When that happens, Bautista showed me how to raise the axe above my head with the log still attached, twist the axe around then bring the whole lot down onto the back of the axe head. The weight of the wood splits the log. Or it doesn’t. A sledge hammer and wedge is then employed in trying to release the embedded axe. Sometimes a second axe is required to release the jammed wedge. The ground is littered with slivers of wood chippings marking my slow learning process. I’ve broken three axe handles and one sledge-hammer so far but the heap of tree trunks is receding whilst the stack of next year’s firewood has grown and grown.

Whilst pausing for breath and mopping my brow after a particularly vigorous morning of log-choppery, I heard the sharp call of a red kite circling high above my head. The Hindi name for them, ‘Chil’ captures their cry perfectly. When Jo lived in High Wycombe we occasionally saw one of these beautiful birds wheeling and swooping over the beech woods whilst out walking her dog. Here, I’ve seen as many as a hundred of them riding the thermals way above the hills. The chickens under the apple trees continued to scratch at the dirt, clucking away, with the one surviving chick ‘peep, peep, peeping’ close by. I had already rescued it from the jaws of Roger once that morning when it had escaped from the orchard and the ginger tom had pounced. Suddenly, the rooster gave out a huge squawk, the hens began to screech and there was a loud flapping of wings. I looked up in time to see the kite swoop down and scoop up the chick in its talons and soar away over my head, no more than 20 feet away. As the kite rose majestically into the bright sky the little chick continued to ‘peep-peep’ until it finally disappeared from view.

Not really his day, was it?

Caserios or Basque farmhouses have been built more or less the same for the last four hundred years. Thick stone walls, three stories high with tiny windows and a balcony running around the first floor under the eaves. The ground floor is the animal shelter and the loft is the hay store. The extended family lives between the two, heat rising from the animals below but insulated by the hay above.

Although relatively modern, the house we rent from Bautista is built along the same lines. However, the windowless hay loft, or Anne Frank Suite as my sister calls it, now has a couple of old iron bedsteads instead of hay whilst the ground floor garage houses our fleet of cars, a cement mixer and several wheelbarrows, old sofas and the accumulated debris of Bautista’s bodgery over the last 20 years. It also stores my wines, stacks of wooden boxes and cartons protected from the light and from the variation in temperature that can harm the maturing process. We never locked the garage door, believing that people round here are trustworthy and honest.

Juancito has an unfeasibly large number of teeth, as do his sons and his grandsons. He walks, or rather shuffles up the drive complaining of thirst and demanding drink. If we are indoors he whacks the railings with his stick to attract our attention. Coffee or water is rejected with a chimpanzee grimace, a flash of those teeth; he wants wine. His wife has forbidden him drink for many years now, so he stumbles from house to caserio looking to quench his thirst. I usually gave him a glass of something left over which he downed in one and went on his way.

Returning from school the other day Jo was surprised to see him staggering down the drive towards the road. It was only a couple of days later we discovered the half empty bottle of vermouth in the garage. We were furious. “This is theft!”

I asked Bautista and the Pony Man what to do. “Should I put rat poison in the vermouth bottle?” “No,” said the Pony Man after considering a while, “you’ll get arrested.”

“It’s his wife’s fault,” said Bautista, “a little glass of wine at mealtimes wouldn’t do him any harm. He’s 82 after all and hasn’t got long to go.”

In the end we decided to put a padlock on the gate.

I’m told that some American visitors were puzzled to see fireworks and bonfires all over Britain on Wednesday night and presumed it was the Brits celebrating Barack Obama’s success in the US Presidential elections. Such cultural innocence is not surprising from a nation where 55 million adults voted for a Vice President who firmly believed that Africa was a country. Had they been informed that what was being celebrated was the torture and execution of a Catholic terrorist who had attempted to assassinate the Monarch, government ministers and almost the entire aristocracy of England, their puzzlement would surely have turned to dismay.

Guy Fawkes had fought as a mercenary in the Netherlands for the Catholic Philip ll of Spain against the Huguenot Henry lV of France who was also Henry lll of Navarre. He changed his name to Guido, returned to England and sought to bring about a regime change by blowing up the House of Lords. Betrayed by a co-conspirator he was captured as he was about to light the fuse. After being tortured he was then put to death by being emasculated, disembowelled and burnt alive at the stake. Until 1859 it was compulsory to celebrate the deliverance of the King and even recently children would beg for ‘A penny for the guy’ in order to buy fireworks. Nowadays, children demand money with menaces or Trick or Treat as it’s known at Halloween.

Here, in the primitive Basque Country, All Hallows is celebrated in a much gentler fashion. Whole families go to the graveyard where they weed the plots and clean the headstones of their dear departed. Bunches of flowers are left on the graves to show that their loved ones have not been forgotten. I asked Bautista last Saturday if he was going up to the cemetery to see his mother’s grave. “Nah,” he said, “I got some plastic flowers from the Chinese shop last month.”

It’s the thought that counts, I suppose.

Winter arrived with a bang. And shouting. And an engine revving. At 7 in the morning. David, Bautista’s brother, was reversing his tipper truck up the drive with a load of logs. Bautista and Smelly Miguel were offering loud advice.

Every autumn the village secretary draws lots and each household is awarded a beech tree or two, growing somewhere deep in the forests high above the village. Not only does this provide winter fuel, it thins out the undergrowth and stimulates growth. It is up to each householder to collect his allotment of fallen trees.

Whilst Jo and I were away, Bautista and Miguel had climbed the mountain and found our allocation. They had stripped the trees of their branches and dragged the trunks to the forest track. There they were sawn into logs and with David’s help, transported down the mountain. I was now the proud owner of two truck-loads of logs which needed splitting and stacking ready to be dried for next winter. For the next few weeks my mornings would commence with some vigourous exercise.

David refused payment for the hire of his lorry but accepted a couple of bottles of my finest Rioja. Bautista and Miguel agreed to join us at Epeleta in Lekumberri for grilled wild turbot and Galician beef with Albariño and Ribera del Duero followed by Armagnac and Montecristos. It may have cost as much as a tank of central heating oil but it was a lot more enjoyable.