Country Diary: Nkob, Morocco

It's 28 years since I last visited this place, which is famous as the town with more kasbahs (fortified houses) than any other in the country. I was frustrated to find that neither the desert scenery nor the dark Anti-Atlas mountains looming way to the north roused more than a flicker of recognition. Occasionally I'd get a fleeting sense of congruence between the present landscape and some memory lost deep within, but I never achieved any cinematic-style rerun of the past.

Yet how could I forget it? From across the stony wadi, the town's outline presented a wonderful vision. A dense tessellation of camel-toned mud walls was pressed together above the brilliant greenery of Nkob's palmery. It always strikes me as remarkable how long human residence in a place allows the occupants to distil not only the most practical structures but also buildings that seem uniquely blended to their wider aesthetic context. Nkob is a classic example. Even the vegetable gardens - a complex of early crops, dividing mud walls and gushing channels of fresh water, roofed by swaying palm leaves - seemed designed with appearance in mind.

Fortunately I do have one photograph from my original visit, a print depicting two young boys, taking it in turns to stand in a well and douse the other with buckets of cold water. It instantly brings back the breathless 40C heat of that August afternoon, but it also dislodges one further Nkob memory: the sight of a snake, probably a cobra, zigzagging through the palm groves and the sound of birds - bulbuls and babblers - all around. On the recent cloudy morning, however, the air was deliciously cool while the only movement was the chiffchaffs sallying for gnats amid the greenery. It was deeply moving to think that in six weeks' time those same birds will be singing from the treetops in Norfolk.