Getting up for breakfast of eggs, cheese and radishes in the pouring rain is not something I was looking forward to, but on the way to Select we see a bunch of May beetles (or cock-chafers as Simon finds out they are also called). We head back home afterwards and I write postcards and listen to music whilst the others have a small nap until 11:20. Then Laszlo comes and whisks us away to a nearby town famous for its salt mine and we start work just past the gaud...

I don't sleep fantastically due to the cockerel with razor blades in its throat and the dogs barking just outside my windows, but get up for breakfast nevertheless. It's the most substantial yet and consists of a huge slab of polenta interwoven with layers of cheese. I am the only one who finishes this delicious melty house brick. After we take a ride to the snail field to begin a clean-up operation of the scrub which involves pulling weeds and raking the dead...

Waking up finally refreshed from a good nine and a half hours sleep (apart from Simon, poor chap), we go to meet Laszlo at Select, which we learn was quite a prestigious Communist eatery in it's time. After breakfast of Aubergine cream (smashed aubergine, mustard, onions and mayonnaise), we drive out to some woods where we pick wild garlic and try our hands at bird photography; I get some pictures that I am really pleased with. On the way to the woods we stop a...

We awake to the horrific beeping of my £5 Argos phone's alarm at 8:30 and get dressed for breakfast; the third day in a row of feeling a bit squiffy. Breakfast is a cheese omelette that I gobble down with coffee and then we head to a natural spring, after readying ourselves for some wildlife, and sample the water. Confident that I'll love the gushing liquid that locals and an old dreadlocked dog are lapping out of the hillside, I tip away my tap water and fill...

It's my birthday but it doesn't exactly feel special as I haul my knackered body to breakfast. Kate and Stef have made me a card out of the hotel key holder, which is a lovely thought that improves the 5:00 wake-up call no end! We walk to the airport and hike through security, spurred on by strange half hologram people, and join the queue for the aeroplane. After a nap, the start of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a good chat and a banana or three we dism...