Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  For the rest of the visit both John and I were “señores”. As we were talking, Pepe was very animated in his enthusiasm for the house, and he was obviously very proud of his little country finca. Not wanting to insult the family, I gestured that I liked the house very much, and Pepe smiled the biggest, toothiest grin you can imagine.

  The ice broken, John led the way, “Alan, remember it’s all about potential,” he said.

  I followed John through the first door, and was shadowed by the six adults and three children. There was a tiny living room, centred around a fireplace on one wall, and on the other side of the room, a huge, old fashioned, shiny wooden sideboard with a portable TV right in the middle, in pride of place. There were two sets of plastic patio furniture arranged around the TV viewing area. The house didn’t feel clean and it was very dark. I hadn’t at that time cottoned on to the fact that the old country houses were built with small windows and thick walls to keep out the heat in the summer. Of course we, in the UK are used to having lots of light.

  I smiled to John through gritted teeth, and said, “Hmmm, okay.” There were three bedrooms, a very rustic-style kitchen, in the traditional Andalucían style with curtains instead of cupboard doors, and a very basic bathroom, all furnished in the same basic manner. We were even shown a room that had in the past been used for storing pig innards in the days where the family would gather and slaughter the pig they had been raising and then use it to make as many pork products as possible.

  John explained that this was their weekend house, and where they would do their work. The animals would be kept here, and they would use the land to grow food and earn some income. The final room, under the bedrooms at the back of the house, was a large stable in which around 100 smelly goats lived. Yes, in the house! John explained that in the old days, before electricity, the heat from the animals was used to heat the upstairs rooms. Even though electricity had been connected since, they still lived in this traditional manner.

  Outside there were chickens running around, peacocks showing off, various breeds of birds, all in different handmade aviaries attached to trees. There were a few loose sheep and dogs everywhere you looked. The pool turned out to be the water deposit, into which their well water flowed. Water came into the house at certain times and needed to be contained, but then had to be manually carried in to the house when required as they hadn’t updated the plumbing system since the electricity had been installed. I was all for a bit of a fixer-upper but this was too much for me and I needed to get out for some air. Lorna and I were not ready for a project of this size.

  Once we said our protracted goodbyes to the whole family, the next port of call was going to be to the alpaca breeders.

  John knew about the alpaca plan, in fact he was friends with the only alpaca breeders in Andalucia at the time, Peter and Penny, whom I had made contact with. He had even found them the land on which to build their house. John drove me to their farm, and I found a magnificent house in the final stages of being built, situated on a hilltop, overlooking a valley, with about four Alpaca paddocks at the bottom. It was stunning!

  I was introduced to Peter first, who greeted us at the parking area next to the house. An older gentleman, he shook hands with me firmly and welcomed me with a warm smile.

  “Come in and have a drink,” he said. Peter reminded me of a headmaster, brimming with knowledge and experience, and of course very well-spoken.

  I met Penny, his larger-than-life wife, and she threw her arms around me as if we had known each other for years. “How wonderful to meet you, luvvie!”

  I spent a bit of time at the house with the two P’s, Peter and Penny and the animals and spoke about our ‘idea’. I explained that we had done some research, and liked the idea of breeding alpacas for a living, and also we had thought we might like to move to Spain. We didn’t know if this would be possible, but we’d heard about them from the Internet, and were excited to find out more.

  This farm seemed the ideal place to buy our alpacas from, and they were obviously very welcoming, to everyone! Whilst I was at their house, there was a constant trickle of people in and out, all English, and all helping themselves constantly to food and drink from the fridge. This feeling of ‘community’ made me think that the area might not be right for our project: we would be happy to have a few English families around us, but we did not want to be coerced into joining in with community activities, simply because of a common language. I don’t think we would have mixed with many of these people at home, so we should not feel forced to by circumstances. We wanted to be able to keep ourselves to ourselves if we chose to.

  I was, however, excited. “Next time Lorna and I visit for a house viewing trip, we will come and make another visit to see you,” I promised, as I was leaving.

  “You must stay over for a night when you come, we can have a barbecue!”

  “That would be lovely,” I replied. I left them with a feeling that this could really be a possibility.

  The third and final day of my whirlwind visit to Andalucía dawned, and so far, none of the properties I had seen was close to fulfilling our needs.

  4 The Olive Mill

  I was due to be meeting Sarah, an agent I had contacted by email, who dealt exclusively with rural property in Andalucía.

  There was one particular property in her portfolio that had grabbed our attention, and I was due to see it today. It was a large, renovated Olive Mill, situated in the north of the province of Cordoba amongst the olive groves in the countryside, close to a town called Montoro. Sarah phoned me that morning to say she had hurt her back at another appointment and was unable to meet me. She had, however, arranged for her associate to accompany me, and to collect me from the train station.

  Antonio was waiting for me when I got off the train in Cordoba. He was very jumpy and somewhat hyperactive with a Mediterranean complexion and dyed black hair that gave way to grey roots. There were large, dark rings around his eyes. I think the image was meant to be one of an international playboy, although it came across, in the harsh light of day, as more mid-life crisis!

  “Alan, hi! Get in, this is my friend’s van. My car is in the garage. Don’t worry the brakes are bad, but it’s fine. C’mon!”

  “Okay, nice to meet you.”

  We tore out of the city and onto the motorway. For the entire 45-minute journey, Antonio never stopped talking, a well-rehearsed sales spiel of beautiful Spanish women, cheap food and drink and wonderful countryside (all of which are completely true, by the way). Eventually, we turned off the motorway onto a tarmac road. After 12 kilometres of country road, we turned on to a dusty track and seemed to start travelling even faster. Antonio was showing off, as obviously the track was used by only a few cars, but for three kilometres we were taking blind corners without looking, and the van slid through the dust. I was thankful to arrive at the Olive Mill in one piece!

  As I exited the car, all I could see was a bit of a building site. The current owners, Neil and Caroline, were in the midst of renovating the courtyards, so there were pallets of bricks and piles of sand and cement everywhere you looked. There was also a menagerie of animals, horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, plus a huge pot-bellied pig.

  Antonio stood back and stated, rather arrogantly, “The house sells itself, so why don’t you get me a drink, Caroline,” and he picked her up in his arms and carried her off, while she screamed like a little girl. So it was Neil who was left to show me around.

  I liked Neil right away. He was a bit of a wide boy, wearing three-quarter length trousers, a white vest and a solid gold chain around his neck. He was a real down-to-earth joker, originally from Yorkshire, and had the sense of humour to go with it. He had a twitch in one of his eyes and he also squeaked. That is to say, that when he spoke, an involuntary squeaking sound came out of his mouth as well. I am not to this day sure how or why it happened, but as we were walking around, the squeaking became more and more obvious. To add to this, some top teeth were missing to lea
ve only the middle one showing, he had a bit of a ‘cowboy’ limp, and the combination made it all seem slightly surreal.

  “Come on then Alan, eek, let me show you around, eek eek.”

  I was given the tour. We went in through a small courtyard, created to make a feature of the huge, original olive-crushing stones. The conical stones were balanced on a large, circular, granite plinth, and would have been used in the days before machinery to produce the oil from the olives. This gave a fantastic first impression and was much more in keeping with the kind of place Lorna and I had been discussing.

  We took the stairs up to an apartment, and went through the old wooden door to a large room with a high vaulted ceiling, and a huge log-burning fireplace. There were even hooks left in the roof beams, from which the old farmers would have hung their homemade chorizo and sausages. The ‘kitchenette’ was small, but everything was there, and there were three huge bedrooms.

  Everything needed decorating, but there was plenty of character. The owners had done a great job of putting in plenty of ‘antiquey’, rustic style furniture and ornaments to give it a well-dressed feeling and enhance the look.

  Below the apartment was the storage room for the batteries, in which the power that was produced by the solar panels on the roof was stored. This fascinated me, and they seemed to have plenty of appliances, fridges, and even televisions in lots of rooms (We since found out that many of these had just been for dressing as well, as there are only a few TV aerial points in the house).

  Next, we went through a large, rustic wooden gate, out to an enormous cobbled terrace where the olives would have been stored prior to pressing. This was where a motley selection of rescued stray dogs lived, and at the end of the terrace was a fabulous pair of wrought iron gates. There were numerous ancient wooden gates, which led off to the land in different areas, and also to an old stable that would have been used to house the mules and donkeys that powered the old mill stones.

  Back through the large gate we went, into a room that had been used as a garage until Neil had arrived. He had fixed the roof and put some double doors on, and was in the process of fitting out the room to make a large central kitchen space, which could be the focal point of all the buildings. From the back of this room, there was a large ruined area, with two high walls that would have been used as housing for the olive workers originally. It was overgrown with weeds, and seemed to be a bit of a dumping place for old appliances and plastic oil containers. But… this had potential.

  Beyond the ruined area there was a large, flat space which seemed perfectly situated for a pool. There was a huge eucalyptus tree that would provide ample shade in the hot months of summer. Adjacent to the ‘pool area’ was an old pig-sty which would make a lovely pool room, with shower and toilet. There was so much potential in this beautiful old place, it was difficult to take it all in. I met Mary-Belle, the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, and I fell in love with her, she was beautiful. Sort of! Lorna and I are very much animal lovers, and part of the attraction of a rural life was to be able to have more animals around. I could just see us having a pig like Mary-Belle!

  I completely fell in love with the Olive Mill: the ambience and the tranquility of the surroundings had me hooked, and because they already had horses there, I thought there would be adequate space for a small herd of alpacas. Although I loved it, I tried not to give too much away as I didn’t want to seem over-keen. After about an hour at the Mill, Antonio took me back to the railway station in Cordoba, at breakneck speed, garbling on about some rich Russians he was making a deal with, or something similar.

  I texted Lorna saying simply, ‘It’s amazing’, and headed back to the hotel. I knew I needed Lorna to see it. I flew back home the following morning, knowing that if she loved the house as much as I did, it could be our new home; our new life!

  On my return I said to Lorna, “Oh my God, the place is amazing! It’s a bit of a drive from the airport, but I think it might be worth it. This could be the one!”

  “Really? Oh wow!” she said. “Well, in that case, I’d better see it!”

  5 Lorna’s Decision

  We arranged for the second viewing to be as soon as Lorna finished work for the summer holidays, as we realised that if we were going to go ahead with our plan, we would need the summer holidays to finalise lots of things, like decorating and marketing the house in England. We organised a hire car, planning to drive abroad for the first time in our lives, and also booked to stay in the hotel in Montoro so we could see a bit of the town during our visit.

  We flew out in the last week of July (probably the hottest time of the year, as we know now) and arranged to see the Olive Mill the following morning. Having never driven abroad before, I was nervous about both driving on the right side, and sitting on the left. After sitting in the car for a few minutes to get my bearings, we headed out on to the road and immediately there was traffic entering a roundabout from about six different exits. I was petrified. Once we were out of the airport vicinity, driving in Spain proved a breeze, a much more pleasant experience than in the UK.

  I am sure any couple that has taken to foreign roads for the first time will have experienced my next three hours… “You’re too close to the edge!” or “You nearly hit that car!” or even “You’re driving in the middle of the motorway!”

  Much to Lorna’s relief we arrived in Montoro in one piece and what we found was exactly what we had expected, a little town, with whitewashed houses. There were old women cleaning their front steps, tractors driving up and down the roads, and even teenage boys chatting on a street corner sitting on the back of a horse.

  When we arrived at the only hotel in town, we were pleasantly surprised to find it was relatively modern and the staff spoke a little English too. We quickly found our room and noticed the view from the balcony was absolutely stunning. Montoro is situated on the banks of the Rio Guadalquivir. The river wound across the scene underneath the balcony. On the left hand side, houses seemed to cling to the hillside, in a precarious higgledy-piggledy manner. There was an old Roman bridge and church towers in the distance. This felt like the location we had been looking for. A true Spanish town! We sat for hours that evening on the balcony, watching the swallows and bats dancing in the sky catching insects as the sun set over the town, creating beautiful reds, pinks and oranges in the sky. Perfect!

  “Do you think we could really live here?” Lorna asked quietly.

  “Why not?” I replied, and we sat, hand in hand, watching the sun disappear.

  The following morning, we arranged to meet Antonio, and I explained to Lorna how he was a bit of a playboy wannabe, and not to take too much notice of him, and just concentrate on the Olive Mill. We met in a pre-arranged car park, and he insisted we climb into his newly acquired, racing green, boy’s toy, open top Jeep Wrangler. Bear in mind, in July the daytime temperature is well over 40 degrees, and the wind can feel like a hairdryer in your throat. This was going to be uncomfortable! I had not mentioned to Lorna about my previous driving experience with Antonio, hoping it was just macho showing-off and that he would tone it down in the presence of Lorna. Wishful thinking! By the time we had been through the blind corners, plus the hairdryer air, when we arrived at the Olive Mill, Lorna was angry, and feeling quite travel sick too!

  I looked at Lorna and quickly realised that things were not going to go well. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Not really, no. Let’s just get on with it.” She was green around the gills and Antonio was oblivious to the discomfort he had caused.

  Antonio was playing a harmonica badly and serenading Caroline. Caroline was lapping it up and giggling like a schoolgirl, but we weren’t being taken in by his patter. We did the tour. However, I was not feeling the enthusiasm I was hoping for from Lorna. Obviously Neil and Caroline picked up on this too, and they invited us back for lunch the following day – without Antonio. We agreed.

  Back at the hotel Lorna was in the shower, and I called out to her. “You didn’t like
it, did you?” I asked.

  “It’s not that I don’t like it, I do, but I just didn’t get that feeling, you know. I wanted to love it, I really did. I can see that it could be a good investment, and it would change our life, but I wanted it to be perfect.” She was despondent. She knew how much I loved the house, and she wanted to love it just as much. But she was happy to give it another go the following day, but was not by any means convinced.

  The following morning we set off on our journey back to the Olive Mill, slightly nervous of getting lost in the countryside as this would be our first visit on our own. We took the drive slowly and appreciated the different houses and views along the way.

  As we turned onto the track, Lorna said, “Please, drive slowly.”

  So we did. At one point we reached the crest of a hill, and the view stretched for miles and miles, all the way to the mountains in Jaen. Thousands of beautiful olive trees, on undulating hills for as far as the eye could see. That view still takes my breath away. With Lorna feeling much better, having arrived without a green tinge, she was back to her usual self, and with Neil and Caroline putting on a lovely, leisurely lunch, we were both able to fully appreciate the wonderful charms of the beautiful place. Lorna loved it nearly as much as I did.

  Neil was the one who started the conversation after lunch, “So then Lorna, hmm, hmm, eek, what do you think?” There was a noticeable change in the atmosphere.

  Despite our planned, not too enthusiastic approach, Lorna and I were all smiles and looked at each other and back at Neil, “We want to buy your house!” we said. We didn’t make an offer or agree to go away and talk to the agent; we just agreed to pay the price there and then.

  “The only thing is,” I said, “We need to sell our house, although that shouldn’t be a problem. Lorna has to work until Christmas, so we would want to complete the sale in the New Year. Oh, and one other thing…. How would you feel about leaving Mary-Belle behind?”