Driving over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain

No sooner had Chris Stewart set eyes on El Valero than he handed over a check. Now all he had to do was explain to Ana, his wife that they were the proud owners of an isolated sheepfarm in the Alpujarra Mountains in Southern Spain. That was the easy part.

Lush with olive, lemon, and almond groves, the farm lacks a few essentials--running water, electricity, anaccess road. And then there's the problem of rapacious Pedro Romero, the previous owner who refuses to leave. A perpetual optimist, whose skill as a sheepshearer provides an ideal entree intohis new community, Stewart also possesses an unflappable spirit that, we soon learn, nothing can diminish. Wholly enchanted by the rugged terrain of the hillside and the people they meet along theway--among them farmers, including the ever-resourceful Domingo, other expatriates and artists--Chris and Ana Stewart build an enviable life, complete with a child and dogs, in a country far fromhome.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Driving Over Lemons" is the contagiously entertaining account of one couple's beginning a new life as they turn a rundown peasant farm in southern Spain into a home.

When Chris Stewart first sees El Valero, he's willing to overlook its lack of electricity, running water, or access road. Assured that he's bought "a paradise for pennies," he phones his wife, Ana, still in England, whose enthusiasm is a little more tempered. Together they embark on an undertaking that includes rebuilding the house, feeding and housing a former owner reluctant to leave, the threat of drought (and flood), a cultural misunderstanding, and the creation of a whole new, fulfilling, enviable life

\Chris Stewart lives in Spain with his wife, Ana, and daughter, Chlo