Andrea Montgomery's Blog: Andrea Montgomery's Blog, page 4

The Trouble With Being A Vegetarian in Spain

I remember well the day I stopped being a vegetarian in Spain. It was on Avenida Marítima in Santa Cruz de La Palma on a June Sunday morning.

We had already been on the beautiful island of La Palma for five days, walking every road, street, and plaza of its main towns: driving every kilometre of its sinuous mountain roads; and hiking great swathes of its challenging trails. And I was hungry.

For five days we had found ourselves looking at menus on which, ninety percent of th...

Finding The Way

T his week, we listened to a Wander Woman podcast called Camino de Santiago – Finding The Way  – which featured the host, Phoebe Smith, following one of the Inntravel routes Jack and I created. Handing the directional reins to her navigationally challenged friend, Cerys Matthews (of Catatonia fame), Phoebe follows the Portuguese Camino de Santiago using our notes.

On the Portuguese Camino de Santiago

It’s fair to say I was extremely nervous to listen. What if Cerys went wrong...

The Yin & Yang of Ageing

I always thought ageing brought its own rewards.

I have seen colleagues retire from work over the years and they’ve come back to visit the office looking happier and healthier than they ever did in work.

Although my own ‘career’ took me far from the office and led to premature ‘healthier’ and ‘happier’, nevertheless I still looked forward to ageing bringing the freedom to do the things I really love instead of the ones I get paid to do; being able to spend more time with fami...

2023 Booker Prize Winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

The world we encounter in Paul Lynch’s 2023 Booker Prize Winner, Prophet Song is familiar, traumatic, and terrifying. And it could so easily become reality, is indeed already real for millions of people.

The power of Paul Lynch’s writing creates a gripping narrative, at once both repulsive and compelling. His ability to build tension on the page almost imperceptibly, like the dark undercurrent of a bad dream, is consummate. By focussing on the plight of one woman and revealin...

The Tenerife Legacy

It is rapidly approaching the seventh anniversary of leaving Tenerife, the sub-tropical island which had been our home for 14 years. In the seven years since we left, we have returned to the island twice; once when we lived in Portugal and returned to visit a very close friend who had been ill, and briefly this time last year to make some amendments to a walking route.

Yet, only this week The Daily Express is quoting me in an article about the ‘dangerous’ road to Masca which ...

Off-Grid Living

One of my brothers lives off-grid. And when I say ‘off-grid’, I mean he lives as if the world had not moved on in the last 60 years. He has no Internet access, no TV, no credit or debit cards, no flushing toilet, no household bills, and no hot water. He lives in two static caravans in a secluded glade on the side of a Devon estuary with a woodburning stove for heat and a camping gas stove as his only form of cooking energy. He has a mobile phone, and his preferred method of c...

Why Writing a Novel is a Bit Like Designing a Kitchen

I t strikes me that writing a novel is a bit like designing a kitchen.

Designing a kitchen

J ack and I are embarking on a brand-new experience for us… we are about to have our first ever new kitchen fitted.

Having decided towards the end of last year that a new kitchen would not only add considerable value to the house but more importantly, would bring us endless joy, we took the plunge in the January sales and ordered a new kitchen. Very quickly, a design consultant came ou...

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

M emphis by Tara M. Stringfellow is a glorious homage to the strength, beauty, and power of black women.

Told through the eyes of nine-year-old Joan, we track the lives and loves of three generations of one Memphis family. Frequently wives of men who, powerless to fight back against prejudice and social injustice, vent their anger on them, these women build strength and a quiet defiance through their strong ties with family and the women of their neighbourhood.

Through the ba...

The Speed Awareness Course

At the beginning of last week, I attended a Speed Awareness Course, having been, ahem, invited to do so by Avon & Somerset Police.

 

Caught on camera

On our drive to Scotland at the beginning of December, I picked up my second-ever speeding ticket, this time for doing 57mph in a 50mph zone on the motorway somewhere in Gloucester. When Zöe, our fab postie, handed me the ‘time sensitive’ envelope with a look that said Oh dear, I think we both know what that is, I truthfully re...

Hitting the Writing Refresh Button

Over the twixmas period I inadvertently found myself hitting the writing refresh button and returning to my current work-in-progress. I don’t quite know how or why it happened but after months of barely thinking about it, let alone attempting to write, I am finally making progress.

New year, new goals

I have a sort of ‘I do and I don’t’ approach to New Year’s Resolutions.

I no longer sit down and consciously write lists of things I intend to achieve over the next year as Jac...