Spain week three, day three

Monday May 12th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Today's drive out is to the end of the valley to see the actual location of Chris Stewart's place - as featured in "Driving Over Lemons" and his two subsequent books. Again this turns out to be an ideal off-road drive for the land rover but probably pretty tough in any other vehicle. The nearest settlement, El Duque, turns out to be about two houses. At the bottom of the pathway that forms part of the GR-142 long distance walk, we do find the little bridge over the river that leads to his house, but decide to stop at this point - he probably has far too many visitors and we were getting a bit close to celebrity stalking.

The footbridge over the river that provides access to Chris Stewart's property

Chris Stewart's property from the road to El Duque - the small white smudge to the right of the hillside just to the left of centre!

Later, at Pilates, we hear a little more about him. The house is very rural, far more so that the villas that most of the English ex-pats own, despite the success of the books. Presumably, therefore, that is just how he likes it. We have certainly enjoyed the eggs that we had from his wife, Ana, via Nigel and Zoe.

Spain, week two, day seven

Friday May 9th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

For my last yoga class of the week, I basically did my plan for tomorrow's test, focusing on getting the opening body awakening to flow nicely and plenty of assisting and use of props. And we get a couple of hours sunshine for the class before it went a bit grey again.

Eve and I left for the airport mid afternoon. Eve is a bit nervous of flying and so we made sure we were there in plenty of time. We had a rough idea of where we might be able to leave the car and this worked out very well. For most of the period before the flight I read through my class notes for yoga and rehearsed a few bits of what I wanted to say.

But for the flight itself, I have started to re-read Chris Stewart's "Driving over lemons" which is, of course, located just up the valley from us. In fact this morning saw a visit from Manola, one of the local Spaniards featured in the books, to discuss the sale of manure to Nigel and Zoe. One day next week we plan to have a drive up to the end of the valley and see exactly where the books are set.

Arrived at my hotel at Gatwick about 10:30. A quick chat to Linda, one last read through my material and that was that. Hope tomorrow goes ok - I am a bit nervous now.