Shooting Caterpillars in Spain

Introduction

Alex Browning and her husband James were becoming bored with their comfortable but staid life in Somerset and needed a new challenge. Buying a Volvo was proof that terminal middle-age wasn’t far away, so in a moment of temporary insanity they (and their cats) chucked it all in for a new life in a leaky, snake-infested farmhouse in southern Spain.

Alex and James are practical people who can turn their hands to (almost) anything, but their new life turned out to be a constant, almost vertical, learning experience. With virtually no spare funds, the enormity of what they had taken on was daunting, and almost every tentative step forward was followed by two steps backwards. However, with the help of friendly but eccentric neighbours and expat friends, who ranged from the odd to the disturbed and downright criminal, they somehow managed to stay afloat.

Their attempts to start a farmhouse holiday business – a world away from the beaches, burger bars, discos and souvenir shops that many holidaymakers yearn for – weren’t helped by having no telephone, weather which ranged from ferociously hot to terrifyingly stormy, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, pernicious lawyers, a house full of mentally unstable cats and alarming wildlife, constantly expiring cars, medical emergencies and personal tragedies, not to mention a looming recession that would have serious repercussions for Spain’s tourist industry.

How Alex and James survived is a heart-warming tale of triumph and disaster that will keep you engrossed, and their amusing (and occasionally heart-rending) experiences – and the escapades of their pets – will have in tears of laughter.