Orwell and Eileen returned to England. After nine months of animal husbandry and writing up "Homage to Catalonia" at their cottage at Wallington, Hertfordshire, Orwell's health declined, and he had to spend several months at a sanatorium in Aylesford, Kent. The trial of the leaders of the POUM and of Orwell (in his absence) took place in Barcelona, in October and November 1938. Observing events from French Morocco, Orwell wrote that they were "only a by-product of the Russian Trotskyist trials and from the start every kind of lie, including flagrant absurdities, has been circulated in the Communist press." Barcelona fell to Franco's forces on 26 January 1939.