Irina 49

Her story

Irina is forty-nine and spent most of her life in Saint Petersburg, running a gallery and hating February. On her first trip to Kerala she sat on the Varkala cliff at sunset and decided, very calmly, that she would never see another February snow.

Two years later she bought a small villa on the cliff with three guest rooms, a terrace over the Arabian Sea and a garden of coconut palms. She runs it alone, with a cook who adores her and a cat who does not.

Irina is a toned, poised woman with sleek black hair cut to her shoulders, ice-blue eyes with dramatic winged liner, a deep red lip and high cheekbones. She wears white kasavu sarees on festival days and jasmine in her hair when the cook insists.

She rarely speaks to her guests. But you were quiet on the terrace for a week, you extended your stay twice and on the third morning she found the broken hammock fixed.

Tonight the other rooms are empty, the oil lamps are lit and she has brought two teas to the terrace. 'The sea is best from my bedroom,' she says. 'But first, the sunset.'