BLUE SKIES & BLACK OLIVES by John Humphrys ( 9780340978849 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

BLUE SKIES & BLACK OLIVES
A SURVIVOR'S TALE OF HOUSEBUILDING AND PEACOCK CHASING IN GREECE

By:

John Humphrys

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£10.99

Our price:

£8.02

Discount:

27% off

You save:

£2.97

ISBN 10:

0340978848

ISBN 13:

9780340978849

Availability:

Usually dispatched within 1-2 days.

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Stock:

Currently 1item in stock

Publisher:

HODDER & STOUGHTON GENERAL DIVISION

Pub. date:

1 April, 2010

Pages:

288

Description:

Radio 4 Today presenter and national treasure John Humphrys' funny and engaging memoir of building a home in Greece with his son Christopher.

Synopsis:

'A very funny tome' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Hilarious' DAILY MAIL'A profoundly instructive course in the idiosyncrasies of Greek law, custom and culture ... entertainingly chronicled' SAGA* * * * * *From Radio 4 presenter, bestselling author and national treasure John Humphrys, a funny and engaging memoir of building a home in Greece written together with his son Christopher.It was a moment of mad impulse when John Humphrys decided to buy a semi-derelict cottage and a building site on a plot of land overlooking the Aegean. A few minutes gazing out over the most glorious bay he had ever seen was all it took to persuade him. After all, his son Christopher was already raising his family there so he would help build the beautiful villa that would soon rise there. What could possibly go wrong?Everything.John was to spend the next three years regretting his moment of madness.Some of it had its comic side. He learned to cope with a drunken peacock falling out of his favourite tree and even a colony of rats invading his bedroom. Some of the humans proved trickier: the old man demanding payment for olive trees in the middle of John's own land; the neighbour who dragged his lovely old fishing boat onto the beach and set fire to it after a row with his wife. And, of course, the builders. Was the plumber who electrocuted him in the shower vengeful or merely incompetent?John learned a lot about Greece in a short time. He grew to love it and loathe it in almost equal measures, but was never for a moment bored by it. And Christopher learned a bit more about John. Their shared experience revived keen memories for him of growing up with a father for whom patience was never the strongest virtue...Here father and son capture the idyll and the odyssey as paradise is found, lost and regained.

Illustrations:

8pp colour photos

Publication:

Imprint:

Hodder Paperback

Returns:

Returnable

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