It was my kind of place – parkland, flowers, stray cats everywhere. But I felt so ill. I puked in a bush and lay down on a bench groaning.

‘I’m never drinking again,’ I said, my head spinning like a top. I’d gone from spoilt child in the restaurant throwing food to pissed teenager on a park bench in one hour. Around Caro I had regressed.

Caro parked her chair next to me. The giant trees offered a cool shade from the scorching sun, and every so often a cat would appear and nuzzle our legs or snuggle up in the flower bed to sleep. One sat directly in front of us and licked its own arse clean.

‘I wish I could do that,’ she said.

‘Yeah, me too. I’d never need another man again.’

There were a few beds in bloom, quite odd for January. Caro said Spain had a warm winter which explained it. ‘The flowers don’t know what month it is – all they know is warmth so they come out.’ A welcome smattering of almond blossom sprinkled down on us as a breeze blew through the grove.

Caro read from the leaflet as we walked round. She didn’t need her chair the whole time and she’d get out when she felt like it to stretch her legs. Except when there was an ice cream kiosk in sight and then she was straight back in it so we could jump the queue.

‘There’s an orchid house too. Cacti and succulents, we’ve done them. Greenhouses, done. Ponds. Palms. Ooh a physic garden! This way, come on.’

We came to a small area near the back wall marked ‘Plantes Medicinales’. Raised beds packed with shrubs. Caro knew what they all were from studying the little signs. I knew nothing because it was all in Spanish.

‘So what have we got here?’ she said, bending over. She plucked a sprig of lavender and held it against her face, inhaling it deeply. ‘Mmm, no better smell.’ She handed it to me. I smelled it too. If I hadn’t felt so sick and headachey from all the alcohol I’d consumed that morning, I’d have agreed.

‘Spearmint, Echinacea, yarrow, sage. Evening primrose. Oh, I adore primroses. They’re my favourites. We used to go picking them as children. You’re not allowed to these days.’

‘I used to take that for my bitch fits. PMS.’

‘Evening primrose? Did it work?’

‘No, not exactly.’

‘Arnica. Peppermint, lemon balm, marigold, rosemary, St John’s Wort. That’s mmm, that’s witch hazel.’

‘Can you bathe your vadge in these?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Caro rolled herself towards the next section – ‘Plantas Peligrosas. Have a guess what that means.’

‘Plants they use to make Pellegrino?’

‘Dangerous Plants,’ she said with a twinkle. ‘Henbane, Manzanilla – apple of death. Strychnine, Brugmansia – Devil’s Breath – Belladonna and Hemlock too. That’s how Socrates died, hemlock.’

‘Oh right.’