Victoria Twead

At the bottom of our mountain, an elderly farmer sits on an upturned crate beside his ancient car at the side of the road. The wind is cold, and the old man wears woollen gloves and a scarf, his shoulders

“Another day in paradise,” I thought as I climbed the staircase to our roof terrace. February is usually the coldest, wettest month of the year, but this February had been glorious. I set down the heavy laundry basket, heaped with

Receiving post has always been a tad problematic since we moved to our village in the mountains of Spain. In the old days, mail used to arrive by mule, but we’ve definitely progressed since then. Haven’t we? After moving in,

I like the colour red. I thought about the significance of that colour as I gave my latest book, ‘Two Old Fools on a Camel’, which describes our year in the Bahrain, a final check before publishing. We’ve enjoyed eight

With relief, I finished the last chapter of ‘Two Old Fools on a Camel’ just before the Gin Twins arrived for their annual Spanish visit. Now I could really enjoy their company without worrying about writing deadlines. As usual, they

Long before we moved to our mountain village in 2004, Joe’s been forgetful. Before now, he’s put the phone in his sock drawer, and locked the keys in the boot of the car many a time. He’s left the chickens’

On the other side of our valley in the Alpujarra mountains, there is a holiday house owned by a young British family. About two years ago they emigrated to Australia, leaving it to friends and relatives to enjoy. To the

Isn’t technology wonderful? When we first moved to our tiny Spanish village in 2004, we were lucky to have one of the only two telephone landlines in the valley. We even had access to the Internet, albeit an unreliable, grindingly-slow

It all began last month when I got up in the middle of the night and came to the kitchen for a glass of water. I switched on the light and, to my horror, saw black shapes scuttling into the

Hurrah! All the decorating is finished, inside and out. We’ve splashed white paint into every nook and cranny and everything looks fresh and clean. Joe’s bad back is better, although he still complains about his scraped knees (from kneeling on