Cider-making weekend

This weekend was the big press when, assisted by Margaret, also Davina and Laura from work, we aimed to get all the apples (almost 250kg of them) sorted, washed, scritted and pressed.

And that’s exactly what we did! The weather was beautiful (warm and sunny) and it was a real pleasure working hard in the open air for a couple of days. Much different from our usual working environment - air-conditioned office.

The process was fairly straightforward and we worked on the patio and patio table by the house. There was one person washing the apples and sorting out any bad ones; one person doing a second rinse and putting them into the scritter; one person cranking the scritter and one person on the press.

Pressing Chris Coakley’s grapes last weekend had been a really useful dummy run for the press and my first job this weekend was to screw the press down to a pallet, so we could get some decent purchase on the handle without it moving around. I’d also got enough blocks of 2x2 wood to pack the pressure plate of the press so we could push it down deep enough to get maximum juice.

We all co-operated really well as a team and with my iPod on shuffle, we also had some music while we worked.

I wanted to process the apples by type, so I could see what the various characteristics - acidity, sugar content, etc - was of each one. We had cooking apples from the Crosslands, cookers and eaters from the windmill and cookers from Chris. We started with the Crosslands’ as we had almost 100kg of those.

It all worked well, although the apples which had been through the scritter were not really bashed up enough. We tried a double scrit, but that didn’t help and the first pressing left quite big pieces of apple in the basket, which would have contained useful juice. For the next batch, we mashed the bucket of scritted apples with a fence post and that resulted in a much better juice yield, but it was time-consuming and quite hard work.

Apple scritting with Laura Jones on the handle

Later in the day, I worked out a different process. Most advice is to halve your apples and quarter the larger ones before they go into the scritter and that what we were doing. However, many quarters were going through broken in half or only slightly more. My scritter is a little different in design to some others I’ve seen. They seem to have toothed rollers, set quite close together and so they would need fairly small pieces to drop down between the rollers to be crushed. My scritter has hard plastic rollers set with sharp spikes and it is obviously a different idea. The rollers are wider set, so apple quarters just get pulled through. However, if you drop in whole apples, they can stick above the rollers and so are ripped and grated as the rollers turn. This change resulted in a bucket of shredded apple which was much more useful. We still did a quick mash, by which time the apple was good and mushy and a fair bit of juice ran out while the press was being packed. The pressed apple pulp when it came out of the press was quite dry, although there were still some pieces of apple which might have contained squeezable juice.

This change in operation speeded up the process and increased our juice yield by a good 10 per cent.

Margaret apple bashing - almost ready for the press

The press was a basket press which Tom and Sam had bought me for my birthday. We managed to extract about 120 litres of juice from 250kg of apples, so it was close to 50 per cent efficient. I’d have liked to have got a little better than that and we could perhaps have topped 50 had we started the different scritting technique earlier - you live and learn.

The main issues with the press for this quantity of apples was just how many times it had to operate. It’s not really designed for this quantity. Getting sufficient pressure on the apple pulp required really hard work turning the screw and it would have been useful to be able to have got more pressure on the pulp for a final squeeze.

Pressing the apples with Davina Page. I am providing ballast.

As it was, it did a very good job and it’s really satisfying winding down the screw and seeing the juice flowing out. The press did about a gallon to a gallon and a half each press, so four presses filled a barrel and we did five barrels. The compost heap now has quite a pile of shredded, pressed apple pulp. You’d expect it to be quite wet and slimy, but all the juice has been pressed out, so its almost like wood chippings. Not sure how quickly it will break down.

I had intended to test each apple variety and grade them for sweetness, sourness, acidity, tannin ... Trouble is that they all tasted very sharp. There was a hint of sweetness, but sour (so bittersweet) and someone could taste lemon (but we had been to a wine-tasting session on Thursday night, so perhaps our palettes were over-sensitive?). We tested the juice from each batch and, considering the apples were quite sour (bittersweet) the juice was really very sweet and tasty. You could have drunk a glass very happily. The last pressing were the windmill eaters and the juice there was like nectar.

I also tested for acidity (all around 3.2, which should be fine) and for sugar content which was around 103 grams per litre, which would give a potential alcohol level of 6 per cent. I wanted to aim for 8 per cent alcohol, so I added sugar to bring the level up to 140 grams per litre. I’m just going to have to hope the tannin level is all right. The windmill eaters came in at 7 per cent.

We needed to go to Burghley Home Brew in Newborough to buy extra fermenting vessels and I got robust plastic barrels, which should be good for maturing the cider as well as for the initial fermentation. Davina and Laura were checking out the kits offering five gallons of Merlot in two weeks - I think we might soon have some keen wine-makers on our hands.

So the apples are pressed, the juice saved in barrels; it has been sulphited, pectolase added to remove fruit haze and yeast nutrient added. I added yeast starter cultures to two barrels yesterday and will do the other three tonight.

Now, it’s a matter of letting nature do the rest. Well, I will have to rack it a few times, mature it, bottle it - and then drink it.

Quite exciting, I’m glad I had a go. If it works out, then we can do quite a bit more next year. I think I’ll throw a barbecue for all the apple donors on St Swithin’s Day (July 16) next year. That should encourage more donors in 2014. Chris has already offered pears, so perry might be another string to my bow.

Henry Erskine Crumb, who runs Listora was telling me about a chap in Wiltshire who collects apples from homes, presses the juice and sells it back to them. It sounds as if he pasteurises and filters the juice, puts it into a fancy bottle, adds a label saying where it came from and charges £3 a bottle. Henry says their apples last them all year.

Chopping apples - Laura was later made redundant

Letter from Quito 2

Had another nice long e-mail from Tom, updating us on his experiences in Ecuador. Thorney seems very mundane compared to waterfalls, fiestas and volcanoes.

Seems that Tom has had his first dose of Montezuma’s revenge (I was wondering why I hadn’t heard anything from him for a week). E. coli probably from water rather than eggs (that would be salmonella) - you need to know your tummy bugs if you go travelling.

He sounds fine now, which is good, and the scenery in Ecuador sounds amazing. I’d love to see Cotapaxi, although with 85 known eruptions, it’s pretty active and has destroyed the nearby town of Latacunga twice already. Mind you, an eruption would be good for business, provided Tom could file his video.

Here’s his latest letter:

It's been a busy week, the highlight of which was a weekend visit to Lucy's aunt Liliana. She lives in a remote farmhouse in a valley south of Quito called El Tingo. She picked us up from her daughter (and Lucy's cousin) Pamela's house. Pamela is an elfin-looking dance teacher with her own school in Quito – I think I might have signed up for Paso Doble lessons. She has a four-year-old daughter called Nadia with blonde hair and blue eyes, which is a rare sight in Ecuador. Her father was a Russian dancer called Artem. She also has a one-eyed old cat called Timothy who set off my allergies a treat.

The journey in Liliana's 4x4 to El Tingo was pretty hairy. Lucy's aunt – and in fact nobody else in the car – seemed too fussed but it was white-knuckle ride down the mountain. When we arrived at El Tingo there were two major problems – firstly the bridge into town had collapsed (Lucy and I would cross it on foot the next morning) and secondly the entire town was celebrating the Festival of the Virgin. The population of El Tingo were partying in the streets with fireworks and firewater. The crowds weren't a problem because Lucy's aunt just drove through them, but when we hit a band playing it was game over. We had to make (for me at least) a very embarrassing u-turn through the masses and drive back.

The back roads around El Tingo are very steep and unpaved. You would need a 4x4 to get around. We bumped and bounced down the lanes at impressive speed and I was really amazed at how well the old Mazda was soaking up the abuse.

We arrived at Liliana's house and there was a huge party under way. Liliana doesn't speak English so I'd not be informed of the order of service for the night, but it turned out her husband (Jose Ignatio) was having a reunion party with all of his seven brothers and their extended families. It was the first comprehensive gathering in 12 years. A barbecue was roaring and I was served chocolos (which is savoury white sweet corn), potatoes and guacamole. All of the brothers are very successful – one for example is a judge in Quito. The judge was also a skilful musician and after Lucy had lit an ill-advised fire on her aunt's lawn (which smoked the house out later in the evening) the judge whipped out his guitar and began singing. He was soon taking requests and the most popular rabble rouser proved to be a hit called: “Cielito Lindo, Mi Amor.”  It's very catchy and worth a listen.

Jose Ignatio is an actor – I would see him three days later at the premiere of his new play in Quito. It was directed by a seven-foot German, who towered over the actors during the ovation. I didn't understand it very well (being all in Spanish) but it seemed to be about a group of patients suffering with various OCDs and trying to come to terms with a normal life. Jose Ignatio's house was chock full of various curiosities, from creepy marionettes, old Hasselblads and an enviable collection of ponchos. When it dropped cool later he fetched his ponchos for us to wear. I got an orange striped one and I think it rather became me. I hadn't realised how thick they are, it's like wearing a carpet and they are so warm and enveloping – better than a chiminea for sitting out (although, of course, both would be ideal).

There were lots of people staying over in the house. Lucy and I had to sleep at the foot of the host's bed with Pamela and her young daughter beside us. We were sleeping in the roof space and the puppets were hanging from the rafters – it was quite uncanny.

The next morning I was woken by a loud trumpet. I didn't know it at the time but this was the village chief riding from house to house waking up the Turk horsemen for the day's festival. The Turk horsemen are the pride of El Tingo and would play a starring role in the festivities. They dress in bright clothing, wearing masks and (supposedly) in women's clothes. Why they are Turks and what their significance is, nobody knew. Jose Ignatio says if you ask a local they will just shrug and say they don't know. El Tingo is an Indian village, in fact, the whole area is home to a large indigenous population. I was with mestisos (mixed) who might seem exotic enough to me but to the local Indians are just considered rich white people. Lucy is mestiso, for example.

Of course, Lucy heard the commotion and wanted to head into the village to see the spectacle unfolding. I might have preferred a leisurely coffee in the morning sun but gathered my camera gear together and marched to the sound of the cannons (or fireworks in this instance). Negotiating the grumpy dogs (who wake instantly and charge at you like berserkers before routing at the last possible second) we arrived at the collapsed bridge and had to make our way across the canyon. It slowed us down and by the time we arrived into town the last Turk rider was cantering away. We asked some locals where they were headed to and were told the big party today was in La Merced, just down the road. Lucy convinced her aunt to take us in the car to see the party.

On the way to La Merced we began to see more and more of the local villages making their way to the fiesta. They all dress up and drink and dance. One party stopped our car dead in the middle of the road and force fed us trago (firewater) from their skins. It burns the lips, the mouth, the throat and the stomach – even my teeth went numb. Lucy's aunt was driving and even she wasn't spared – they won't let you go until you've made a show of at least a few shots. Liliana was wise to their tricks and kept her shots hidden in her cheek like a hamster and spat it out as we drove away.

Turk horsemen

In La Merced the party had been going on all week and there were casualties everywhere. Piss-heads to us are known as borrachos and are viewed with sympathetic love. Old men were passed out on pavements, in bus stops, some were walking wounded. It's called the Festival of the Virgin and there's a strong religious element but it's essentially pagan. It coincides with the point that the sun is highest in the sky – at midday there is absolutely no shadow whatsoever. Jose Ignatio has a sun-dial in his garden and on this day it has to be turned 180 degrees to keep its face in the sun. The fiesta has a Straw Bear feel to it – albeit when the Straw Bear was more chaotic and amateur (read: better). The groups blacken their faces and perform impromptu dances with their accompanying bands. Afterwards they all march off en masse to a destination nobody is certain, then before you know it another group arrives and the cycle is complete. There is lots of trago being drunk and the fun is to pour it down spectators necks. I had my camera with the telephoto lens, this added to the fact I looked the most foreign person in town, meant I was singled out for shot after shot of trago. I soon began to feel a bit dizzy under the midday sun.

There was an open air mass taking place next to the church and after this the procession took place. Icons of the Virgin were borne through town on the shoulders of the dancers. I hadn't realised how many personas the Virgin Mary has. They all have different names (like Guadaloupe) and they all represent something special. They're all Jesus' mum, of course, but they have different names and figurative imagery so it's quite confusing for a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) bystander.

It was a clear day and we got stunning views of the snowy volcano Cotapaxi. I've never seen a mountain like it. It stands all on its own and is perfectly triangular. Against the blue sky it looks like nothing else I've ever seen. It's just under 6,000 metres tall (19,700ft in old money) and is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Google it for some stunning images.

The best part of the festival was driving home. We were overtaken by the Turk horse riders [See Video] who were galloping full pelt down the main road. It was quite a sight with the mountains as a backdrop and the noise of the hooves on the tarmac, it must have felt great to have been riding the horse dressed like that. I took a video but I don't think it really captured the event. Lucy and I both arrived back in Quito exhausted, but not before Liliana took us all for a gelato.

Lucy and I also went to the Indian town of Otavalo. It's north of Quito on the banks of an enormous lake. Otavalo is famous for its handmade textiles – most notably its ponchos. I was looking to buy a genuine poncho and this was the place to get one – the main square is even called Plaza de Poncho and, it's an open air market with about 100 different poncho sellers. We had to take a bus to Otavalo which was a fun experience. Busses in Ecuador stop wherever you like and drop you off where you like, there's no such thing as bus stops. It's good in a way, but it does add to the journey time. I could never understand why people would stand 50 metres apart down the road. The bus pulls up, they jump on, 50 metres later and it stops again for the next passengers. I asked why they couldn't just all stand together and board at the same time ... but they can't. Also there are lots of drinks/snacks sellers who the busses stop to let on, they walk down the bus while it crawls along at 5mph, and they jump off the moving vehicle. Most the vendors were selling a type of savoury biscuit famous in the local area.

Otavalo was sleepy and dusty. It has a stunning location surrounded by three sacred mountains. It's funny being in an Indian town, it makes you feel very alien. The Indians all wear their local dress, which in the case of the women was this stunning white lace shirt with colourful flowers delicately embroidered into it. They are all made locally and cost a lot of money to buy in the shops (about $100). The Indian women also all wear exactly the same shoes which are knots of string (or reed) bound together like a sandal. The ponchos turned out to be very expensive. When I think about it with hindsight it's little wonder, the wool is so thickly stitched and it's all done by hand. The local Poncho of Otavalo is plain navy blue and looks great. It's made with wool and not alpaca – there's a lot of discussion about which is best.

This is the place to buy a poncho

In the afternoon we headed to a waterfall north of town. It's been overtaken by Argentinian hippies who have established a thriving community there. It's very beautiful. Lucy knew about it because she'd danced at the New Year's Eve festival there. At midnight you have to take all you clothes off and bathe under the plunge pool to wash away the last year to make way for the new. We sat nearby (fully clothed) and read in the sun. That evening we stayed at a cheap hotel in Otavalo called Hotel Indio. I taught Lucy how to play pool and we went for dinner at a local restaurant that served pisco sours (a grappa, lemon, egg cocktail from Peru). The area is famous for its trout, fished locally, and I had a simple trucha a la plancha (grilled).

Cascada de Peguche - best seen at midnight on New Year's Eve

The next morning I wanted to walk in the hills. The hotel receptionist was horrified when we asked for directions. She wondered why we didn't take a cab, or even a bus. Walking is associated with Indians and poverty, the idea you'd do it for fun struck everybody as borderline insane. The receptionist's biggest fear was the farm dogs who had gnashed one of her female American guests last year. I put a big stone in my pocket in case the occasion arose, which it didn't. The hill paths aren't well sign posted like in Europe and there isn't a rambling culture. However, the paths are well maintained and used by the Indians to get around and to drive cattle. The Indians walk very quickly in the hills, even the elderly and heavily pregnant. We had to frequently ask for directions and got some very strange looks, the old Indian women don't speak any Spanish only Kichwa. By navigating with the inactive volcano Imbabura (it's not popped for 14,000 years). It's part of what's known as the ring of fire and is an impressive sight (although no Cotapaxi). Imbabura (4,660 metres – for Sam) is sacred and is known as one of the fathers – in Indian legend all of the mountains not only have a sex, but also a personality and even marry and have children mountains. Imbabura is the daddy of the local area. My photos didn't really do it justice. It's so perfectly conical and the small farmed fields cut into its base give some idea of its scale. In the foreground of this picture you can just see the very colourful potato fields which are everywhere. The farm dogs sleep happily in between the ruts of the field and pigs and cows graze at the side, where their owners can keep an eye on them as they tend the crops by hand.

Imbabura - not gone off for 14,000 years, but never trust a stratovolcano

We walked long and far and eventually arrived at a hotel on the banks of the lake. We stopped for some more trout. We'd been walking all morning in the hills and were both exhausted. It's been so dry and sunny here that half of Ecuador is on fire, including Imbabura. Over lunch we watched the fire helicopters scooping up water from the lake to dump onto the raging fires. It looked like a drop in the ocean. We waited for a local bus back to the Pan American Highway and were lucky to just catch a bus back to Quito – this time the 'stop where you like' policy paid off in our favour. We had to hurry back into town to catch the premiere of Jose Ignatio's play – which Lucy's dad was coming to see, driving all the way with Lucy's sister Camilla from Ambato (two hours away).

I've been a bit ill this week. Once with a tummy bug, that I thought I'd shaken but perhaps hadn't quite. Either it returned or I found something else. I was very sick with a swollen tummy and pain. I couldn't hold fluids down so after four hours Lucy decided I should go to the hospital. I think she feels responsible for me out here. I was all up for just riding it out, like last time, but apparently I'd gone very pale. I had some tests done and was put on a drip. I had some e-coli and was put on an antibiotic drip and am now on a course of antibiotics and am feeling much better – having laid off all solids and having supped litres of peado juice – the brand name of the local children's diarrhoea rehydrating drink. Tomorrow I'll be back on the regular diet. I'm going to be a bit more careful what I eat in future. I blame the half-cooked scrambled eggs in the Hotel Indio, but the inquiry progresses .

The fruits of the earth

It has been a weekend of harvesting, with apple picking for the cider project being top priority.

Margaret has been lining up crops of apples and we started next door at Chris Smith’s where he has an apple tree and a pear tree. I might tap him up for some pears next year to make some perry, but this year, it was apples we were after.

His tree (a cooker) had a huge crop and there were lot of windfalls on the lawn. Margaret went for the low-hanging fruit while I used my new extending apple picker to get the apples from the top. They were ready for harvest and pulling one down often brought another tumbling.

We filled about five bags for 80kg of apples and I reckon the tree probably yielded around 130kg of fruit this year, judging by those on the floor and those still left. That was a great start and, after a cup of tea, I walked round to the windmill to find Arcadia to see if we could pick his. Margaret had seen him earlier in the week and he’d said to help ourselves.

He had two trees, an eater and a cooker, and he was very keen that we take as many as we wanted. Both trees were laden and he said he’d had all he could use. We picked the eaters first, a really red variety and quite sweet, but bitter like an English eating apple. We picked a full bag of those (20kg) and then filled the barrow with cookers. These were also falling off the tree and we took just enough to fill the barrow (55kg), there were loads left.

As well as chickens and a peacock, he also has a breed of cat which can’t be allowed outside (because it wanders off) and so needs a little house/run alongside the windmill. There were three cats in there - very curious to know what we were up to. They looked a little like Siamese. He also has a pack of dogs, which are used for breeding and one has just had a litter of eight puppies. They are all sold and Margaret went into the house to have a look at them. As well as apples, we also came away with a marrow, so all-in-all a good harvest.

Last night, we went for supper at Pauline and Chris’ and Chris had picked his grapes. He’d got two buckets full and he wondered if my apple press would handle grapes. We agreed to give it a go next day.

This morning, we went to the Crosslands’ to pick their tree. It was another cooker and had massive apples all conveniently close to the ground. I only needed the picker for a couple. We filled fours bags and they were massive apples, some growing end-to-end, so it was almost a double apple. When you picked them, they spring apart and the space between was full of earwigs. Margaret was careful to wear gloves, but was convinced she had an earwig down her bra when she felt something fall out of the tree. We managed 98kg from the Crosslands and there were still plenty left on the tree. So from three picks, we’ve managed 250kg of apples, which I hope will be enough for at least 100 litres of apple juice. The apples are all stored in the summerhouse and we’ll crush and press them in the next couple of weekends. Davina and Laura from work are coming up next weekend and may be drafted in to help with processing.

I gave the press a bit of a dry run today with Chris’ grapes. It showed a few issues with the design and functionality. We needed to cut extra blocks of wood to pack the pressure plate as the screw soon hits the same level as the basket and so won’t move any further down. It was also hard to hold the press in place when exerting real pressure on the screw to squeeze the pulp down hard. After some fiddling, we managed to get about 4.5 litres of grape juice from the two buckets, which must have been close to 50% efficiency. I think we could have got more had I been better prepared and when I took the pulp out, there were still some grapes in there uncrushed. I guess that’s why they tread them and then press them.

Later, I cut some bigger blocks of wood to pack the pressure plate and also greased the screw with Vaseline to help the handle turn more easily. Next week, I’ll screw the press to a pallet, which should give us a good solid base to be able to turn the handle without the press moving about. Full report next week, no doubt.

Finally, the last picking of the day was sloe berries. There’s a couple of bushes on the A47 just on the edge of the village and we walked up there with Holly to pick a few pounds. Margaret had scoped them out and after this lovely summer, the berries were deep purple and ripe. I walked Holly up and down the runway, while Margaret picked around 4lbs of fruit. We’ll use some for sloe gin - to add to the blackberry brandy - and I’ll take some down for Sam and Lucy this week (I’m seeing them on Thursday).

Finally, Barbara had put a bag of plums on the gate while we were having dinner. They may be eaten fresh or used for plum vodka!

Letter from Quito

It has been something of an emotionally draining week. As well as having to have Gravel, our dog, put to sleep on Monday, the day before (Sunday) we ‘d had to wave off Tom and Lucy who were going to Ecuador for a year.

Lucy had delayed her return in order to spend some time in England during the summer and also to attend Max’s wedding. Their departure was delayed a little further by the sale of Tom and Hannah’s flat in Highgate (so Tom could do some painting and tidying when the tenants moved out). As it happened, it sold very quickly, so there was no need to smarten it up and the sale should be complete (fingers crossed) in the next week or two.

Lucy must have been keen to see her family again after more than a year away from home. For Tom, there was the nervousness of flying to the other side of the world, meeting Lucy’s family as her chosen life partner (he’d met her mother once before in Brussels) and spending a year in a country where he didn’t really speak the language.

There are no direct flights to Ecuador from England, so Lucy was flying to Quito via Amsterdam and Tom via Madrid. Their flights were around 6.30am, which means being at the airport by 4.30am (which means setting off at about 2.30am).

On Saturday, Lucy (who has been enjoying cooking English dishes) wanted to make steak & kidney pie followed by sticky toffee pudding. We’d tried sticky toffee pudding at the Queen’s Arms in Pimlico and also at the Rose & Crown in Thorney after I told her that it was the most popular pudding in England. There was a lot of preparation going on so Tom and I went across to the pub late afternoon for a few farewell pints of Barn Ale. The dinner was a triumph, but three pints of ale, a big dinner and an early night meant I still felt full when I woke up at 1.30am.

The journey to Heathrow (terminal 4, followed by terminal 5) was a breeze. There was nothing on the roads and we made very good time, I drove back very steadily, filled up with diesel and was still back at home by 6.30am.

It seems a long way away, so it was nice to get a long e-mail from Tom yesterday, updating us on what it’s like in Quito. This was his message:

Just wanted to check in with a few notes.

I've put some iPhone snaps on Flickr click here:

I was upgraded on my flight from Madrid to Quito to an extra-legroom seat – this was the only good thing to happen for the next 13 hours. I was sat next to a two-year-old girl who – belying her years – was rather well behaved (all except for two notable blips – one involving vomitus, the other poo). Iberia has a different take on long haul flying compared to the other airlines I've crossed the Atlantic with. I'm not saying Iberia has got it wrong, but I do prefer the polite air hostess/unlimited booze model. I almost managed to finish Winston Churchill's autobiography, I've been hacking through this for most of 2013.

When I got into Quito Lucy's sister Emilia and her father were waiting for me. Unluckily, Lucy had nipped to the toilet so I had to make two minutes of conversation with Carlos. The trouble is “como estas?” is really only five seconds worth of conversation ... and that's if you draw out the vowels. Lucy returned and we piled into the pick-up truck he uses to visit patients in the high Andes. I say piled – it was a squeeze. There was myself and Carlos, then Lucy, then her sisters Emilia, Camilla and Arlen. The airport is about an hour from Lucy's mum's house in Quito, our destination. The road passes over a mountain and snakes precariously, occasionally crossing thousand feet canyons over narrow bridges. It made the M4 to Heathrow look rather tame.

Back at home was something of a welcome party. Nidia (Lucy's mum) had prepared a feast in our honour which included boiled corn, corn cake, toasted corn, corn breads and tuna (which was in my honour). It was quite a gathering and included about five cousins, four uncles and aunts, sisters, Lucy's 98-year-old grandmother, and Lucy's five-year-old cousin who was fast gorging himself on the feast of Lego Batman toys which he had fast eyed and artfully plucked from the suitcase. I wish I could have stayed up longer but I was exhausted and grimy. I'd woken at 1:30am BST and it was now nearly 4am BST the next day and I'd not had a wink of sleep.

Lucy's mum lives on a gated estate with a security man at main entrance so it's very secure. Two days Lucy locked the security man out when he was trying to flag down our taxi. Lucy looked sheepish as she hopped into the cab leaving the guard looking flustered and flummoxed on the wrong side. It's a three-storey house and we're on the top floor with our own bathroom, so it's nice and private. The middle-class creep is pushing the slums further back up the mountain and from my window I can see ramshackle, corrugated-iron huts clinging precariously to the steep hillside. There are street dogs mooching around – they have a habit of howling into the night. The locals deliver a sharp kick to the ribs when the dogs get too close.

Even when the air feels fresh the sun is still so hot and intense when it touches the skin. I think you could frazzle in minutes without sunscreen. I will have to be very careful. The sun rises at six and sets at six, you could set your watch by it. At midday it swallows your shadow whole and bleaches everything it touches.

On the first day we got a taxi into the centre of town – the old colonial centre (which is a UNESCO world heritage site). It's about 30 minutes in a cab, and costs between $3 and $6 depending how much of the talking I do. When we arrived there were hundreds of people gathered outside the Presidential palace. At first we wondered if there was a strike in progress but it was just President Correa waving to his adoring subjects. Then the national flag was raised and we all sang the national anthem – I was humming along foolishly like an allegedly Welsh politician during his respective anthem. To be fair, it's not a bad number; certainly no German or Italian, but you could definitely swing your arms to it which is always the measure of a stirring anthem.

Then we went to see a couple of churches. First was the Church of the Company of Christ. It was a baroque explosion of gold leaf. There was a giant painting showing all the sins that will send you to hell and graphic representations of just what awaits transgressors (mostly it's getting devoured by slightly silly looking serpents or prodded in the arse by trident wielding imps). The sins worthy of eternal damnation included the obvious assasino (murder) but rather more worringly vano (vanity), mumurador (gossip) and even pleasure. The next church was just down the road, called San Francisco. This was from a similar period (1580) and also baroque. It had a slightly sepia feel, or as though it was seen through dusty glass. I liked it the best. Then we looked around the adjoining Franciscan monastery. For an order who take a vow of poverty and asceticism they didn't have a bad life.

After this we went for lunch – where I had corn and eggs in an area called La Ronda, where the artists and prostitutes share space in narrow geranium-infested streets. It's very pretty but I suddenly felt shivery and drowsy so we returned home. I'd only had about six hours sleep the night before, so I figured I was in about 10 hours debt at least. I made up for it and slept from four in the afternoon until six the next morning. I felt much better for it.

Lucy was concerned – despite my protests – that I was still sick. I wasn't. However, I was troubled by a muscle I'd pulled in my chest when I lugged the suitcase a little over-zealously out of the car at Heathrow. It made breathing painful and lying on my side uncomfortable. The altitude too was causing me a few problems – nothing serious, but walking upstairs leaves you slightly short of breath. Due to health concerns Lucy proposed a quieter day which included a visit to the market. This was fun. They have so many strange fruits over here, some are enormous, some are spiky, but – to a man – they all have ridiculous names like granadilla, pitajilla, naranjilla, and babaco (spellings all wrong). Most of these taste a bit like sour apple and contain pulpy innards you have to slurp out like chilled monkey brains. Those you don't slurp are whacked into the blender for a refreshing glass of sour apple juice.

Lucy's sister has a dog called Canella, which is the Spanish word for cinnamon. It's a sort of mongrel and it wears a bone-print hoodie. I'm not sure it likes me very much and gives me a good bark every time we pass on the stairs. I might take it for a walk today and see if I can't break the ice. It's less concerned about food than other dogs I've known and it does a funny dance on its hind legs while shaking its front paws in the air.

That evening we were meeting Lucy's friend Tanya in an area of Quito called Madriscal – where all the bars and nightclubs are. It's lively and the atmosphere is slightly art student, without the Shoreditch pretentiousness. It costs about $1.65 for a bottle of Pilsener or Club (the two local beers). Tanya dragged along her new fiance Christian – who's from the south of Quito (which I'm led to believe is a bit like coming from Peckham or Streatham). Tanya asked Lucy to be her Dama d'Amour (which is chief bridesmaid in real money) so there was a bit of early excitement. Christian likes football, basketball, works in pharmaceuticals, has a 2Pac tattoo on his arm and wants me to go to his stag do. We went to a bar called La Estacion (the Station) where they played Blur's Park Life cover to cover followed by live acoustic jazz.

Quito is full of the different indigenous people of Ecuador. They all wear their particular outfits which is colourful and makes identification easier. I'm starting to learn which and which. My favourites are from the south – the women wear bowler hats, clumpy clogs and ratty ponchos and they all have babies strapped across their backs. There's a lot of contrast between rich and poor. Eight-year-old boys will ask if they can shine your shoes in the street, and Indian women spend all day under the sun walking the lines at traffic lights with strings of tangerines or (more bizarrely) feather dusters which they sell for a dollar a pop. Worse, they have nowhere to keep their children so they sit in the central reservation playing this game where you toss nickels at a target while they bake themselves a ruddy brown.

The most impressive thing about Quito are the mountains. They form a wall around the city and tower to nearly 5,000 metres in places. Despite the height there is no snow, instead they are rich green from the sun and rain. They are nearly always lit by the sun and the shapes and shadows thrown are very impressive. Later this week we plan to take a cable car tothe top of Mount Pichincha – which is 4,800 metres. Everywhere you look in the city you can see a mountain, it really is the highlands up here. The people from the coast think those from the highlands are like stones, that is to say conservative and without emotion. The indigenous people do have a very serious look behind their sun-wrinkled eyes, I can imagine they've had very hard lives.

I've quickly grown very fond of Coca tea. It's very refreshing. A bit like a mild green tea, but it doesn't gnaw at the stomach in the same way. It's supposed to help with the altitude apparently too.

Anyway, I've gone on enough for now. I want to make at least a desultory clean of the kitchen - Gabby the maid arrives in a minute and it's a complete state after breakfast and the mojitos I made last night.

My beautiful dog is dead

We had to have Gravel put down on Monday evening. It was the right thing to do, but it was still a very hard decision to take.

In this life, you’re lucky to be able to spend time with maybe half a dozen dogs. I came to dog ownership quite late (I was 41 when we got Jack) and I sometimes wish we’d had a dog earlier. They are wonderful creatures with so many great qualities and Gravel was one of the best.

We got him soon after Jack died. I missed having a dog so badly that I was keen to have another as soon as possible. I looked at a border collie rescue website but we couldn’t get one, I went to Wood Green but there was nothing suitable and then I saw a Springer Spaniel at a dog pound in Wisbech (Whizzy) and wanted him.

By the time Margaret had said yes (a couple of days) Whizzy had been rehomed, but I had decided we should have a Springer and I found one called Gravel on a rescue site. Gravel wasn’t getting on with another dog and his owner wanted to be rid of him. She lived in Weston-super-Mare in Somerset and it would have been a couple of weeks before I could get down there to collect him.

She wouldn’t wait that long, so I offered to meet her halfway and I first saw Gravel at Birmingham South service area on the M42. I’d driven down in Margaret’s car (a Ford Focus) and because I didn’t know what I was getting, I’d taken a cage and put Gravs in that to bring him home.

The woman I got him from had also rescued him. He was called George when she got him but she’d had a daughter called Georgina (George for short) so there was some confusion. George the dog was renamed Gravel, but the owner worked full time and I don’t think he was getting the exercise or attention that he needed and wasn’t happy. They got a second dog because they thought that two dogs would be company for each other, but of course, they were twice the trouble and I think they conspired to destroy the house and fight.

He went into my car as good as gold and sat there without a whimper all the way home. When we got him home, he ran all round the kitchen and lounge sniffing everything, drank a bowl of water and slopped it everywhere and then ran up and down the garden like a complete looney! We wondered what we had taken on.

Gravel arrived with few possessions - a hard rubber ball and a plastic rugby ball. We soon found out why. Jack used to treat his squeaky toys with much love, Gravel just tore his to pieces and ate them. It didn’t take him long to find toys that Jack had hidden around the garden and it was a battle to get to them and throw them away before Gravel added them to his diet.

It was clear that Gravel was a lovely natured dog, but looking back, he was quite nervous in his new surroundings and there was a little odd behaviour; in particular, sitting on the table. We’d go out with him sitting happily in his basket and come back to find him sitting on the kitchen table. He jumped down immediately when told, but it was a really odd thing to do and (thankfully) he soon stopped getting onto the kitchen table, although until he died, he liked nothing more than to lie on the table on the patio.

After a muddy walk across the fen, a hosing down is needed

Gravel showed no aggression towards other dogs whatsoever and (unlike Jack) he loved people. He greeted everyone with a waggy tail, he expected everyone to love him, which they generally did. His waggy tail was hilarious. Like many Springers, his tail had been docked but he wagged it with a vigour that took over his whole body. This was a dog that shook his booty! When he heard someone coming, it would twitch a couple of times, then wag and stop before it went up to full speed. It was very expressive.

Gravel was a show-type Springer, a little larger than a working Springers and a bigger dog than Jack, who was Border Collie/Labrador cross. Despite his size, he was a lapdog at heart and loved to sit on your knee or on the chair leaning against you.

Max was at Nottingham university when we got Gravel. He had come with me when we had to have Jack put down and it was a pretty traumatic experience for the both of us; so when we got a new dog, he was very keen to see it and came home with new girlfriend Inna (now his wife, of course). Gravel and Max bonded immediately - we said it was because they were both daft youths. Gravel got a mention in Max’s wedding speech, which shows what a big part of the family he was.

There are a few things about Springer Spaniels that everyone should be warned about before getting one.

1. They love to swim, especially in dirty, muddy water.
2. They don’t always come back when you want them to. They generally come back in the end (but not always).
3. They will chase, catch (if they can) and eat anything with feathers on. Rabbits are also fair game.
4. They are always hungry and will eat anything.

I don’t think Gravel had been exercised very much. When we got him his pads were pink and after our first long walk, he came back and was twitching his paws - I think his pads were humming. They soon hardened to a dusty, crusty grey. He didn’t need any swimming lessons. If he saw water, he’d be straight in and he was a really strong swimmer. If the water was clear, he’d put his head under to have a look at the bottom (I’d never seen a dog do that before).

He’s plunged into fast-flowing rivers and into deep lakes. On one walk in Rutland, he set off after some swans across this large lake and only gave up and came back after much frantic recall whistling. He must have been 150 yards into the lake (and it was freezing).

If the water was not deep enough, he was happy to plunge and paddle. Muddy dirty dykes in the fens were a speciality and he’d often choose to paddle along the bottom of the dyke, while I walked alongside. He never worried about the cold, it was heat that he disliked, and he was quite happy to run along a dyke cracking the ice with each step.

Spaniels have webbed toes like wolves, who have the adaptation to stop them sinking into snow. For Spaniels, it means they effectively have little flippers when they swim, so they can crack along at a fair pace.

Recall seems to be a problem with all Springers. It seems to me that their nose is the dominant sensory organ and once they get an interesting scent, they focus on that to the extent that all other thoughts go out of their head. Gravel never got lost, but there were times when I didn’t know where he was and when my walks lasted longer than anticipated. More often, we’d walk him on an extended lead with a horse’s lunge line to make it even longer, so he could have a good run. I worked hard at recall training in the early years, but we got him when he was three years old and I think the bad habits were too ingrained. Whistles and treats often worked, but not always. We tried dog training classes, which were good fun, but ineffective as far as recall was concerned. One day I went into the gun shop in Whittlesey to look for some new wellies and I saw a DVD on how to train your Springer Spaniel. It was £28 and I was weighing up whether it would be worthwhile when another customer saw me. He asked if I had a Springer and I said I did. He nodded sympathetically and said I should have got a labrador. “You know the old saying,” he said. “Labradors are born half-trained, Springer Spaniels die half-trained.”

Our walks were generally across fenland and, depending on nesting birds (skylarks and lapwings) I’d give him a run. We also let him off by the seaside where he would chase seagulls all day and generally also find a dead seal washed up on the beach.

The worse problem with recall was if he’d caught something. Gravel would have been top of Springer Spaniel school for springing game, but bottom when it came to retrieval. Sometimes he’d catch something, generally a pigeon, but also the odd rabbit and once (infamously) a chicken from the farm at Toneham. He’d get the unfortunate quarry and not want to give it up (or come back to you in case you took it off him). In later years, I was able to train him to stay and therefore get back to him and put him on the lead.

One of the first times I walked him, I let him off in the cow field (no cows) and he caught a dozy rabbit. He was very pleased with himself but wouldn’t come back to me. I could get to 20 feet from him as he settled down to dismember the creature, but then he upped and ran off. I tried everything - calling him back, walking away, ignoring him and finally, in frustration, chased him around the field, through the hedge and into the next field before he was caught. I think it was only because it was getting dark and he wanted his dinner that he gave up.

Another time, Margaret and I were in the park and there were a few pigeons around on the grass. Gravel set off after one and it took off immediately. We both said “stupid dog thinks it can catch a pigeon”. Gravel knew better - the pigeon flew low and settled in a conifer with Gravel in pursuit; he charged into the tree, shook the pigeon off its perch and it dropped pretty much straight into his open mouth. That was great amusement, but then followed a replay of the rabbit incident. This time we got him back when I threw his lead at him, he dropped he pigeon and ran off and I managed to get to the pigeon before he did. Once I had the pigeon, the rest was easy!

I will say nothing about the chicken incident; it is well documented and still something of a blot. Needless to say, the posh London couple that bought the farmhouse at Toneham, gave up their free-range chicken flock soon afterwards. I’m just grateful that Margaret wasn’t on that walk.

Gravel loved the seaside. Wide Norfolk beaches, he was not too fond of swimming in the sea (it didn’t taste right) but always lots of seagulls to chase near the shoreline. At Hunstanton one winter’s day, we had a six or eight-mile walk and Gravel must have run a marathon distance. We thought he’d have to tire, but he didn’t; not as long as there was a flock of seagulls to be scattered. We thought he’d be pooped and he did sit good in the car on the way home. When we got home, he went into the back garden, dived through the hedge into the field and caught a pigeon.

Apart from his really nice nature, we’ll remember Gravel as a true trencherman. He loved his food and looked forward to breakfast and dinner. He would eat anything and, although he wasn’t too fond of tomatoes, raw onion or lettuce, he’d give it a go. No left-overs are wasted when you have a Springer Spaniel in the house.

Despite his love of food, he wasn’t a committed thief and dishes left on the worksurfaces were generally pretty safe. Holly, our other Springer, will take whatever is within range but Gravel was generally happy to wait until a taste was offered. The one occasion where I remember him turning to crime was a pre-Christmas dinner at Sam and Lucy’s where Lucy had made a massive chocolate-covered Yule log. It was sitting at the centre of the table and we were enjoying a pre-meal chat when someone noticed Gravel, paws on table, licking the end of the log.

Apart from food and chasing anything with feathers, his other love was getting upstairs onto the bed. We let the dogs up each morning and if Gravel found the hall door open, he’d often sneak upstairs and be found stretched out on our bed looking very happy indeed.

Gravel was in great health up to this year. We’d noticed him putting on weight and his belly getting swollen. After a few visits, the vets diagnosed a large tumor and he had a major operation in March. The tumor had weighed around 3kg, so it was as if he’d been carrying a baby inside him. The biopsy showed it was an aggressive, malignant growth that would be likely to return, but once Gravel had recovered from the operation, he was back to his old self and full of life.

He had a wonderful summer, it was one full of happiness for all of us; he was christened Gravito by Tom’s girlfriend Lucia and was taught a number of commands in Spanish which he mastered extremely quickly.

Sadly, in the past week, we’d noticed his belly was swelling again. There wouldn’t be another life-prolonging operation. He was still happy, but not moving as comfortably as he should and when Margaret took him for a walk on Monday and he was looking to turn around and come home, we knew that the game was up. The dog who could run a marathon and still catch a pigeon was now unable to make it to the park.

The vet confirmed what we already knew. The cancer had entered his liver and there was nothing to be done. He was still wagging his tail until the last. He jumped into the car expecting to go home and the vet administered the lethal dose of anaesthetic in there. He was dead in less than 30 seconds. I’m pleased he didn’t suffer, but devastated to be without him.

We brought him home, wrapped him in a blanket and curled him up in his basket, limp and lifeless but looking for all the world as if he was asleep. On Tuesday morning Margaret and I dug his grave in the garden in a spot where he would spend hours looking into my sister (auntie’s) garden for cats or pigeons to bark at. We buried him in his basket, still curled up with two squeaky toys and a half-eaten bone as his grave goods. Before we put him in the grave, I lifted the blanket for one last stroke of his beautiful soft head, then covered him up and said a last goodbye.

Adios Gravito. You were a beautiful dog; it was a privilege to have spent six years with you. I wish it could have been more.

Gravel loved to be on the patio table!

That final happy summer ... with Lucia Rojas