It's just after 6:30 am.
I'm tucked up in bed upstairs in David's house, with Dagmar's iBook on my lap.

The sun is streaming through the french window, which is wide open onto the small balcony. It has been wide open ever since I arrived about 24 hours ago, although we were out for most of yesterday - David leaves it open, and even left the front door wide open all day when we were out.

The atmosphere here is quite extraordinary, even though I am used to a quiet isolated house to live in. The silence is complete. The stream is too low, or too far away, to hear. There is no breeze, so the leaves are totally still and silent. The only sounds are the noises in my own head. There seems to be absolutely nothing moving anywhere near. At night the only light is from the stars, there are no lights visible from any houses or street lights or anything. A bird has just flown into the room, looked around, and left. The dawn mist is gradually clearing from the heat of the sun.

Megan and Andrew advised me to bring warm clothes for the snow. Indeed it did snow a few weeks ago, but that was a freak occurence. It is very warm, dry, and sunny. T-shirts and open-toed sandals weather. The sunlight is clear and the quality of the light is brighter and warmer than what I am used to. The air is crisp and clean and fresh. It's all very beautiful, and of course that's partly because I'm on holiday, but there is more reason to it than that.

The last 60 hours or so have been delightfully extraordinary. I think the only way to try to capture them is to write a summary diary, so here goes.