There is something deeply nostalgic about the last day of the grape harvest. It symbolises the coming of autumn as poignantly as the emptying of the beaches or the departure of the swallows. In a year such as this, however, it inevitably gives rise to other, more perplexing thoughts: the searing heat we endured over July and August, the parched soil, and the ever present danger of wild fires burning up the land, here in Spain as well as elsewhere across the continent and the planet.

I was in reflective mood when I joined my friends in the fields below the village. It is many years since I worked on the grape harvest. For one thing, it seems such an obvious homage to the God Dionysus, whom I respect but no longer serve. For another, I spent so many days working on the vendange and other fruit picking jobs during my misspent youth, here in Spain as well as in France and Greece, that it doesn’t hold the romantic appeal it might for some. But yesterday was an exception, and I made my way along the rows of vines, secateurs a-snipping, with no motive other than joining in this annual ritual, an integral part of village life hereabouts, where the grape is the bedrock of the economy.

There had been a very welcome downpour the night before. Lying in bed and hearing the heavy patter of rain on the terrace outside was strangely reassuring, even comforting. It was music to so many listening ears, as well as a relief to the wilting plants in our small garden. 

But the long awaited rain was only a partial solution. Along the vines, many of the bunches resembled sun-dried raisins more than plump grapes, evidence of the long drought, and elsewhere the harvests promise similar results. Olives most especially, with prices rising accordingly, by as much as 40 per cent. 

All of this is part of a much wider pattern, and as traditional livelihoods are affected here, in southern Europe, how much more so must they be in Africa, to which the swallows will shortly be returning, and where entire swathes of the population are heading north, to find relief from drought and famine, hoping to find a life in fortress Europe. 

And how, we must ask ourselves, do we treat such migrants? The election of a neo-fascist government in Italy, the rise of hard-right parties everywhere — back in the ‘UK’ this simply means the Tories, whose shift to the right has neutralised competitors — means that a clear policy of exclusion is taking shape. With it will be decided the fate of millions.

Thinking about the future poses many imponderables. I’m not sure how I got here, picking grapes.