Mountain weather is unpredictable, as Joe and I found out after our first winter in Spain, seven years ago. Snow cut off our village for nearly a week, and we had no electricity or water. However, we coped. We had bottled water and two woodburning stoves that kept us warm and cooked our food. We couldn’t shower, so we doubtless hummed a bit, but no visitors could have reached our door anyway.

As I sit typing, I can see steely clouds gathering, cloaking the mountaintops. Will it snow? Probably not, but we’re prepared, just in case. We have water, food and logs in abundance. Our chickens provide us with fresh eggs but, unfortunately, they also give us cause for concern.   more ...

Somebody knocked on our door this morning, and Joe and I immediately guessed who it might be. We were right; our next door neighbours stood on our doorstep, faces wreathed in smiles, arms bearing pre-Christmas gifts. This is our sixth Christmas in our tiny, remote Spanish mountain village, and Paco and Carmen have brought us gifts in the weeks before this festive season every time. But there is a problem. They gave us a bag crammed with bright, shiny tomatoes, grown by their son who exports them to the UK supermarkets. No problem there. The tomatoes are delicious, perfect for all sorts of recipes, salads, or at this time of year, homemade soup. And they brought a nice bottle of wine. No problem there, either. Joe and I often have a little glass or two of something nice in the evening.   more ...

Back in England, I don't remember thinking much about logs. Of course we had central heating, and although we had an open fire, we didn't rely on it for heat. How different it is here in our tiny, mountain village of El Hoyo!

When we first moved to Spain, one of our neighbours dragged us into his house to show off his central heating, fuelled by a huge tank of paraffin. "Nobody else in the village has central heating," he said proudly. He stood back, inviting us to examine it closely. Joe and I looked at the ugly setup. "That's wonderful!" we said enthusiastically. We didn't have the heart to tell him that central heating wasn't a novelty for us, and that everybody has it in Britain. And we didn't believe that southern Spain ever suffered much from the cold anyway.   more ...

Why does everything always happen all at once? This month has been crazy, so crazy that I nearly forgot to write this column. In the UK, they used to call me Schindler because I’m an incurable list-maker, and this list describes just a few of the recent events.

1) The village fiesta. This is never a quiet affair. For the whole weekend, processions marched past our front door, fireworks exploded and the dancing in the square carried on until 6 o’clock in the morning. We’re still finding rocket sticks in our garden and the chickens have gone on strike, flatly refusing to lay. Frankly, I don’t blame them. I couldn’t lay an egg with that noise going on.

2) My second book was released. This is the sequel to ‘Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools’. The telephone never stops ringing and my email inbox is full to overflowing. The paperback edition of ‘Two Old Fools - Olé’ will not be launched until next month, but the Kindle edition is already doing astonishingly well. Thank you, kind readers!   more ...

I always thought writing would be a gentle pastime. Sitting at a desk, fingers busily tapping the keyboard, ideas flowing from mind to computer in a steady creative stream. But it’s not like that in our household. For a start, if the words won’t come, I pace the kitchen, deep in thought. If Joe speaks, I snap at him, annoyed that he’s breaking into my train of thought.

Living in a tiny village in Spain is definitely inspirational. I can work undisturbed, gazing out onto the mountains between paragraphs. No sounds apart from the bee-eaters chattering as they fly through the valley in flocks, or Uncle Felix’s mule clattering through the streets. So there should be no distractions, right? Wrong, I’m afraid.   more ...

We’ve been back home in Spain for a full month now, leaving Bahrain and the Arab Spring behind for ever. Memories of being under house arrest, the distant gun-shots, the helicopters and the protests are fading.

Our Spanish neighbours gave us a lovely welcome and their eyes grew large when we told them about our year away. Very few have ever been out of Spain, and our tales of teaching Arab children and the uprising astonished them. But it was the day-to-day stuff that really fascinated them.

“Madre mia!” Paco said as he sliced the serrano ham.
“No ham or pork at all? For a whole year?”
“And you had to cover yourselves up in that heat?” asked Carmen, gaping.
Coming back to our mountain village was like pulling on a favourite pair of old slippers. We threw ourselves into cleaning the house and evicting the spiders and lizards that had taken up residence while we were away. It didn’t take long, and we were soon comfortable again.   more ...

Goodbye sand and suffocating heat. Goodbye political protests, shootings and constant helicopter activity above. Sadly, goodbye to our friends, too. To be honest, we’d grown fond of Bahrain and leaving it was harder than we thought it would be. I clearly remember our last day in Bahrain two weeks ago.

UPS came and collected our boxes for shipping, we handed in our apartment keys, and Ahmed the taxi driver drove us to the airport. We passed two military checkpoints, but, being Westerners, were waved through. We passed the Pearl Roundabout, scene of the terrible shootings last February and stared at the new highway intersection. Back in February, the Pearl Monument had stood there proudly, the most famous statue in Bahrain. Then the Shi’ite protesters camped under its giant shadow until government forces fired on them whilst they slept. Shortly after, the government demolished the monument, saying it had been ‘defiled’ by the protesters, and laid down a new highway intersection in its place.   more ...

Isn’t it exhilarating when you’ve been fretting over a life-changing decision, finally make up your minds, and just know you’ve made the right choice? That’s how Joe and I felt after we typed this letter:

Dear Ms. N,
Please accept this as our formal notification that we are resigning from our posts of High School Math/Physics teacher, and Grade 6 English teacher and will not be returning for the new term in August 2011.
This decision was not an easy one, but we have decided that we would like to return to our home in Spain and retire. We very much appreciate the opportunities we have been given here, and the welcome and support the school has given us.
We wish you all every success in the future,
Yours sincerely,
Joe and Victoria Twead   more ...

A calendar hangs on the kitchen wall here in our luxury apartment in the city of Manama, Bahrain. It is a mass of arrows, untidy notes and spidery scribbles, but the eye is drawn to the thick, black lines created by marker pen. This is how Joe and I cross off the days until the end of our year’s contract, and our return to Spain.

There are no more protest marches here in the Kingdom of Bahrain as they are now forbidden. Anyone breaking this law is imprisoned and severely dealt with. However, pro-Government demonstrations are encouraged, even within schools. Posters plaster every spare space of wall, whether inside classrooms, in school corridors or on the outside walls. Students’ work is removed from bulletin boards and replaced by posters. The posters are massive photographs of either the King, Crown Prince or Prime Minister smiling benignly upon their subjects.   more ...

Nobody is allowed to talk about what is happening here in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The news channels and internet have fallen silent, and I, too, will say little. Joe and I only have 10 weeks to complete of our contract teaching in an International School in the city of Manama, and then we hop aboard that plane back to Spain and our crazy, beloved village in the Andalucían mountains. How we long for the fresh mountain breezes and tasting food without a dusting of sand...

Last month, the troubles here in Bahrain escalated to the point where the British Embassy advised us to evacuate. They even laid on a special flight for British expats, although the fare cost more than a regular flight... (And they wondered why it returned to Britain empty?) But we’ve never felt personally threatened here, in spite of distant gunfire, numerous checkpoints, tanks parked along the roads and constant helicopter activity above. So we stayed. Nearly all the American and Canadian teachers left, and the Lebanese male teachers were deported. We felt we should stay and help keep the school open because the school has been very good to us and we owed the owners that.   more ...