Long ago, I saw a newspaper ad for a collection of new-build homes. I have visited these kind of houses, and even lived in one for a time. It was an unpleasant experience, so, 30 years ago, on the run from Thatcher’s Britain and in need of a little more adventure, I sought out a dump of a house for myself and my family to turn into a real home. And now here I am at El Valero, in the mountainous Alpujarras region of Granada.
My wife, Ana, and I bought an abandoned farm with a stone house that just about kept out the rain and wild beasts. It was cheap because nobody wanted it. It was remote, rough and not financially viable. But we were won over by the beauty of its almond trees, the terraces of oranges and lemons, and the sunshine.
We never quite dismissed the idea that El Valero had chosen us as much as we had chosen it. We have shaped the farm, rebuilding the house with stones we hauled from the river, beams of chestnut we dragged from the forest and canes that grow in the valley below. We restored walls and terraces, planted trees, fenced the sheep in and the wild boar out; but equally our home has shaped us. We have become the stewards of this patch of mountainside.
It seems to me that one cannot avoid being enslaved by something in life — love, art, work, religion, money, status — and to dedicate one’s twilight years to the care of a piece of our planet... well, that strikes me as a pretty good deal. And a fair one, too, because this patch of land gives us a lot in return.
It nourishes us with fruit and vegetables grown in the soil: we breakfast on juice from our own oranges, olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and marmalade. We drink pure water from its spring; in winter we use logs of olive and almond trees on the fire; in summer we bathe in the rivers that join at the foot of the hill. It is said that one never loses one’s wanderlust; well, I’ve lost mine. I will move heaven and earth to avoid going to the nearest town. Wherever it is, I’d rather stay home.
Advertisement
Perhaps the most idiosyncratic thing about our home is that it is worth far less today than the miserable sum we paid for it years ago, on account of the increasing heat and drought that affect the area. That’s fine with us: we bought it as a home, not an investment. I could not bear to sell it anyway — to have strangers stumping about the place, telling me what they would change.
We plan to lay our bones here, and to this end I have dug a large hole beneath an orange tree. I am weaving a coffin out of esparto grass, which grows here. It’s a double coffin, for Ana and me, and has space for a small wine cellar and a few books. The plan is to go down there of an afternoon and spend an hour or so in the coffin together, getting ready for the idea of the big sleep, which in the not too distant future will come over us. To moulder away beneath the shade, with the rotting of my remains to nourish the tree and enrich its fruit — well, that seems a dignified way to go.
Our home is miles from England, where I was born. We live among the Spaniards, who enrich us with their culture and their ways. We are high in the mountains, just across the water from Africa. Now, of course, we have been cut loose by our erstwhile countrymen. (You know what I am referring to.) For a thousand reasons, it’s a shame, but it won’t affect us much. We’re Europeans.
Even so, you can take a man out of England, but you can’t take England out of the man, and that is certainly the case with us: there will always be a little piece in our hearts for our birth country. The longer I live away from the English, the more I appreciate our gentle humour, our subtlety and all our other indefinable qualities, but if push comes to shove, I shall have no compunction whatsoever in taking Spanish citizenship.
Chris Stewart is the author of the Driving Over Lemons trilogy. Last Days of the Bus Club (Sort of Books £8.99) continues the series