Have I been sent mad by goats?

I am on a retreat in the Portuguese mountains outside Faro, a heavenly place called Moinhos Velhos. I have not eaten food in three days. I have practised hours of yoga and meditation. I have swum many cool, slow lengths of a blue-tiled pool and sweated in a wood-fired sauna and walked for miles through a red dirt valley under whispering conifer pines. 

Yesterday I wanted to kill people. Not just the people on the retreat (who are all very calm and friendly and kind, which of course is why I wanted to kill them) but all the living creatures in the world – excluding a small herd of goats and a few obedient wood nymphs to milk them. I wanted exile.

The goats got me thinking about chèvre. Chèvre on baguette with tomato. Linguini with chèvre, lemon, garlic and basil.