Today it's very chilly. We have an appointment with the accountant this afternoon, so we've abandoned the vines for a day. It's cold and we have to pay our taxes so it seems the perfect excuse to reward ourselves with a holiday. I've just booked us into a lovely riad in Marrakesh for a week in April - a recommendation from some great guests who stayed here this summer.

We'll squeeze it in before our first guests of the season arrive at the beginning of May. Oooh, what a treat.

For those of you who've stayed at Le Couvent, you'll know that Ali and I have a separate apartment and that we shut the main part of the house for the winter. Today, however, our lovely cleaner Patricia is hoovering away upstairs, so I've lit the big fire in the kitchen. The air outside is full of woodsmoke and the hens are burbling away by the kitchen door. It makes a change to be here at the big table.

Ali is beside me framing lots of original old photos we bought from the archive of the now defunct San Francisco Examiner. They really are extraordinary testaments of their time and you'll see them on the staircase walls when you next come to stay.