About
About Victoria Twead:
Victoria Twead nagged her long-suffering partner, Joe, into moving from England to Spain in 2004. They settled into a tiny mountain village in Andalucía, became reluctant chicken farmers and ended up owning probably the most dangerous cockerel in Spain.
Woven into the chapters are a number of Spanish recipes given to Vicky by the village ladies.
Victoria’s hilarious record of their culture shock and life with the villagers is told in her two books, Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools and Two Old Fools - Olé! These charming, beautifully written books will have you laughing one minute, holding back tears the next, and finally reaching for your saucepan.
Awarded the HarperCollins Authonomy 'Gold Star'.
HarperCollins wrote: ‘laugh-out-loud funny...especially the Spanish women heckling over eggs from “The English”...hilarious...engaging... the interspersion of recipes is charming’.
Karen Wheeler, author of 'Tout Sweet: Hanging Up My Heels For A New Life In France' wrote: “Andalucía as it’s never been done before - a very quirky, funny and enjoyable tale - loved the subtle humour, Olé!”
Justin Aldridge, Eye on Spain, wrote: "I absolutely loved it! Funny, honest and impossible to put down."
The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls
Description
<p>Emerging from the long shadow cast by his formidable father, Harold Godwineson showed himself to be a worthy successor to the Earldom of Wessex. In the following twelve years, he became the King's most trusted advisor, practically taking the reins of government into his own hands. And on Edward the Confessor's death, Harold Godwineson mounted the throne—the first king of England not of royal blood. Yet Harold was only a man, and his rise in fortune was not blameless. Like any person aspiring to power, he made choices he wasn't particularly proud of. Unfortunately, those closest to him sometimes paid the price of his fame.<br /><br />This is a story of Godwine's family as told from the viewpoint of Harold and his younger brothers. Queen Editha, known for her Vita Ædwardi Regis, originally commissioned a work to memorialize the deeds of her family, but after the Conquest historians tell us she abandoned this project and concentrated on her husband, the less dangerous subject. In THE SONS OF GODWINE and FATAL RIVALRY, I am telling the story as it might have survived had she collected and passed on the memoirs of her tragic brothers.<br /><br />This book is part two of The Last Great Saxon Earls series. Book one, GODWINE KINGMAKER, depicted the rise and fall of the first Earl of Wessex who came to power under Canute and rose to preeminence at the beginning of Edward the Confessor's reign. Unfortunately, Godwine's misguided efforts to champion his eldest son Swegn recoiled on the whole family, contributing to their outlawry and Queen Editha's disgrace. Their exile only lasted one year and they returned victorious to London, though it was obvious that Harold's career was just beginning as his father's journey was coming to an end.<br /><br />Harold's siblings were all overshadowed by their famous brother; in their memoirs we see remarks tinged sometimes with admiration, sometimes with skepticism, and in Tostig's case, with jealousy. We see a Harold who is ambitious, self-assured, sometimes egocentric, imperfect, yet heroic. His own story is all about Harold, but his brothers see things a little differently. Throughout, their observations are purely subjective, and witnessing events through their eyes gives us an insider’s perspective.<br /><br />Harold was his mother's favorite, confident enough to rise above petty sibling rivalry but Tostig, next in line, was not so lucky. Harold would have been surprised by Tostig's vindictiveness, if he had ever given his brother a second thought. And that was the problem. Tostig's love/hate relationship with Harold would eventually destroy everything they worked for, leaving the country open to foreign conquest. This subplot comes to a crisis in book three of the series, FATAL RIVALRY.</p>
Story Behind The Book
Archibald Edmund Filby, proclaimed “the World’s most travelled motorist”, was my uncle. He died before I was born and my father, naturally taciturn, rarely discussed his older brother.
My parents died in 1993, and I inherited a strange-looking and aged manuscript. Without looking inside, I filed it away for future consideration. I had, after all, my own young family to raise and it would be another 20 years (80 since the expedition) before the manuscript would again see the light of day.
"Look what I found!" I said excitedly to Joe, brandishing the manuscript. We’d already collaborated in other books I’d written; Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools and its sequels.
“I guess I’d better start typing,” muttered Joe.
Three months later, he had transcribed the four hundred-page document.
The result is a book that reveals a bygone age. The British Empire was in decline but remnants remained. The ‘All-Red’ route, to which Archie frequently refers, indicates the red colour cartographers used to denote British-controlled countries on maps.
Attitudes in those days were very different and often shocking. For instance, big game hunting was popular. Archie refers to adult Africans as 'boys' or 'natives'. On one occasion an Egyptian guard is treated with unconscionable thoughtlessness, which would horrify us today. Despite this, Archie’s affection and respect for the indigenous populace cannot be disputed. He is clearly fascinated by the languages, customs and cultures of the African tribes he encountered - from pygmies in the Congo to the Masai in Central Africa.
We changed nothing of the original manuscript. It is exactly as Archie typed it in 1938, undoubtedly at the behest of his newly-wedded wife, Miss Fay Taylor, also a writer, whom he met following a radio broadcast he made from London. Sadly, their marriage was to become a tragic love story, described in the last pages of this book.
