ALMOST PERFECT WEATHER

Collect Langers from Faro Aeroporto at 20.00. Find her standing outside arrivals, dragging on a cigarette.

Good timing? Half an hour later, the winds are picking up, and soon after midnight a near hurricane descends on the Algarve.

By 3am, parked up on the sea front in Quarteira, the Manatee is shaking around like a fairground ride, and behind us tiles are falling off the apartment blocks, clattering onto the pavements below.

It's utterly fantastic weather, gloriously visceral, but I wake myself up at 6am, high tide, to check we're still above water.

Tomorrow, freak weather will hit England. All the busses in London, and most of the airports will shut down due to snowstorms blowing down from the arctic. Heathrow, Stanstead and Manchester all closed by piles of snow.

So tonight, for once in my life, my timing is almost perfect.