Chris Stewart - A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

This book is the sequel to Driving over Lemons, which I have not read but do not feel that this matters. Chris’s laid-back and self-depreciating writing style is very easy to read and absorb. Chris and his wife and daughter live in the Alpujarras in Southern Spain where they have a farm.

Occasionally the books seems a bit jumpy as he addresses different topics in each chapter, rather than writing of events in a chronological order, but this should not detract from his Stewart’s tales.

Non-Alpujarras chapters cover sheep-shearing during a Swedish winter, not being in Genesis, life with a traveling circus and Chris’s love affair with the Spanish Guitar. Farm based chapters cover the troublesome parrot of the title who adopted them , volunteer land-workers, building an eco-pool and the arrival of a dam in the region.

Regardless of the topic Chris tells you exactly as it is without dressing it up for comic effect, as Chris often sees the comedy in everything (apart from, possibly, the dam) and has no need to exaggerate.