Stewart, Chris – The Bell Bookshop

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia – Special Anniversary Edition (wit

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Meet Chris Stewart, the eternal optimist. A man who flies to Spain, sees a peasant farm on the wrong side of the river and, with scarcely a second thought, hands over a cash deposit. And then finds he has acquired not just the farm, but the farmer, too, who has no intention of leaving. Not to mention the lack of running water, electricity or even a bridge.It would be enough to send most people straight back home. But Chris and his wife Ana are made of stronger stuff – and besides, they have sunk all their savings into their farm, El Valero, and buying a flock of sheep. So there is no turning back. Life gets tough, but it also gets good.Driving Over Lemons is that rare thing – a funny, insightful book that charms you from the first sun-lit page to the last. And one that makes running an Andalucian mountain farm seem like a half-decent career move. It has been a major bestseller both in Britain and Spain.

Last Days Of The Bus Club

Emma — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It’s two decades since Chris Stewart moved to his farm on the wrong side of a river in the mountains of southern Spain and his daughter Chlöe is preparing to fly the nest for university. In this latest, typically hilarious dispatch from El Valero we find Chris, now a local literary celebrity, using his fame to help his old sheep-shearing partner find work on a raucous road trip; cooking a TV lunch for visiting British chef, Rick Stein; discovering the pitfalls of Spanish public speaking; and recalling his own first foray into the adult world of work.Yet it’s at El Valero, his beloved sheep farm, that Chris remains in his element as he, his wife Ana and their assorted dogs, cats and sheep weather a near calamitous flood and emerge as newly certified organic farmers. His cash crop? The lemons and oranges he once so blithely drove over, of course.

Three Ways To Capsize A Boat

Emma — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re wondering what Chris Stewart did before he and Ana moved to El Valero, their Spanish farm, here’s one of the answers. He took to the sea, landing a job as skipper for the summer, sailing a Cornish Crabber around the Greek islands. It was his dream job – and there was just one tiny problem. He hadn’t ever sailed before and had not the foggiest how to start.In a series of madcap and hilarious adventures we follow Chris from a shaky start in Chichester harbour to his epic Odyssey to Spetses (a bucket would have been handy), and then on to the journey of a lifetime – battening down the hatches on a trip across the North Atlantic. It’s a journey crackling with Chris’s zest for life, irresistible humour, and unerring lack of foresight. Dry land never looked more welcoming.

Almond Blossom Appreciation Society

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Good Life goes on at El Valero. Find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on local teenage mores; bluffs his way in art history to millionaire Bostonians; is rescued off a snowy peak by the Guardia Civil; and joins an Almond Blossom Appreciation Society.You’ll cringe with Chris as he tries his hand at office work in an immigrants’ advice centre in Granada, spurred into action by the arrival of four destitute young Moroccans at El Valero. And you’ll never see olive oil in quite the same way again…In this sequel to ‘Lemons’ and ‘Parrot’, Chris Stewart’s optimism and zest for life is as infectious as ever.

A Parrot In The Pepper Tree

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Chris Stewart’s Driving Over Lemons told the story of his move to a remote mountain farm in Las Alpujarras – an oddball region of Spain, south of Granada. Funny, insightful and real, the book became an international bestseller.A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, the sequel to Lemons, follows the lives of Chris, Ana and their daughter, ChloÃ«, as they get to grips with a misanthropic parrot who joins their home, Spanish school life, neighbours in love, their amazement at Chris appearing on the bestseller lists . . and their shock at discovering that their beloved valley is once more under threat of a dam.A Parrot in the Pepper Tree also looks back on Chris Stewart’s former life – the hard times shearing in midwinter Sweden (and driving across the frozen sea to reach island farms); his first taste of Spain, learning flamenco guitar as a 20-year old; and his illustrious music career, drumming for his school band Genesis (sacked at 17, he never quite became Phil Collins), and then for a circus.

Driving Over Lemons

Emma — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Chris, eternal optimist and itinerant sheep shearer, moves with his wife Ana to a mountain farm in Las Alpujarras, an oddball region in the south of Spain. Misadventures gleefully unfold as Chris discovers that the owner has no intention of leaving and meets their neighbours, an engaging mix of peasant farmers and shepherds, New Age travellers and ex-pats. Their daughter ChloÃ« is born, linking them irrevocably to their new life. The hero of the piece, however, is the farm itself – a patch of mountain studded with olive, almond and lemon groves, sited on the wrong side of a river, with no access road, water supply or electricity.Could life offer much better than that?