FINDING THE SIMPLE LIFE IN RURAL SPAIN

SOMETIMES, says David Baird, he dreams about garbanzos.

“Yes, chick-peas, those little bullet-like beans which have to be soaked for days and boiled for hours so that finally you can add some flavouring and create a fine stew — fine that is if you like bullet-like beans.”

He claims that’s what he lived on most of the time when he and his wife first settled in a Spanish village. He describes his efforts to live “the simple life” in Sunny Side Up — The 21st century hits a Spanish village.

Hilarious, nostalgic and moving, his book inspired the Sunday Times of London to comment: “Recommended reading for anybody who ever wondered what happened to the ‘real Spain’.”

Anther angle on that ‘real Spain’ is contained in Between Two Fires, Baird’s book about the guerrilla war that raged in the 1940s.