Name: Paradise
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Paradise Chapter 1

Introduction Welcome to *Paradise*—though if you think the name means sunshine, sangria, and a trouble-free life, you’re in for a surprise. Set in a small Spanish village caught between its centuries-old traditions and the sudden flood of tourists chasing their own slice of the dream, *Paradise* peels back the postcard image to reveal the real story. Here, lives intertwine in ways that are as warm and funny as they are sharp and revealing. You’ll meet Maria, the heart of the village, whose quiet strength and stubborn independence hide more courage than anyone guesses. There’s Alfonso, the local policeman with a knack for bending the rules when justice demands it, and Jack, the wily newcomer who arrives with holiday plans but ends up knee-deep in village politics. Add in schemers, dreamers, and the occasional outright rogue, and you have a world where alliances shift as quickly as the Mediterranean breeze. From laugh-out-loud market day squabbles to the tense, shadow-filled moments when old grudges resurface, *Paradise* captures a community on the cusp of change—where loyalty, pride, and the occasional touch of mischief decide who thrives and who gets left behind. Part comedy, part drama, and completely unputdownable, *Paradise* will make you laugh, shake your head, and perhaps even wonder what’s really going on behind the sun-washed walls of your own favourite holiday escape.

Paradise Chapter 2

High Season Havoc The first rule of summer travel? Never stand still. The second? Never underestimate the lethal combination of flip-flops and false confidence. “Get out of my way. I’m late for my flight!” The words were fired at me like a starter pistol before the main event, and then she came into view—an elderly woman, though she’d clearly had a lifetime membership at the Fountain of Denial. The short red rah-rah skirt looked like it had been borrowed from her granddaughter, the floral blouse was fighting a losing battle with her ample frame, and the fake tan radiated the sort of nuclear orange glow normally reserved for warning signs in power stations. On her feet—well, one them—was a bubblegum-pink plastic flip-flop, the left already making a bid for freedom. I, Steve Hopkins, had seen a lot in my years—thirty of them spent as an international copywriter, marketing man, and reluctant globetrotter—but I’d never seen anyone use a counterfeit Louis Vuitton suitcase as a weapon of mass obstruction. She rammed her way down the moving walkway, scattering fellow travellers like tenpins, before hitting the exit ramp at what can only be described as an artificially-induced sprint. Two steps later, she lost her remaining flip-flop and ploughed straight into a human wall of passengers who were trying, and failing, to squeeze themselves into the already jammed main concourse. The walkway, blissfully unaware that it had just become part of a disaster movie, continued to deposit unsuspecting travellers into the back of the human pile-up. In less than half a minute, we had the makings of a massive rugby scrum. Those of us approaching the chaos did what any sensible Brit would do—we started walking backwards, against the belt, in a desperate bid to delay the inevitable. “Switch it off!” someone shouted. “For God’s sake, switch it off!” Ignored, of course. It wasn’t until a young man stumbled off the walkway, tripped, and slammed his shoulder into the emergency stop button that the grinding, blessed halt arrived. Silence didn’t last long. A single voice—hers—rose above the crowd. “Where’s my feckin’ flip-flop?” Welcome to peak-season air travel. The last week in July is a time when airports stop pretending they’re transport hubs and reveal their true selves—battlefields. The main concourse was already at bursting point, a human stew of frazzled parents, overexcited children, and determined drinkers making a break for the nearest bar before boarding. The lure of two weeks under a sun that didn’t require an electricity meter was enough to make the entire UK mobilise. And here they all were: pushing, shoving, dragging luggage and dignity in equal measure. Ahead of me, a family joined the gridlock at the sliding doors. The children, feral with anticipation, immediately began weaving through the crowd like eels through seaweed, disappearing under elbows and between knees. Seconds later, they were gone. Dad, realising too late that “keep an eye on the kids” was more than a figure of speech, charged into the throng with a suitcase held like a battering ram, his wife clinging to his arm. The mass swallowed them whole. From somewhere deep inside came the cry, “I’ve lost my kids!” They emerged briefly into the concourse, gasping for air like corks popped from a champagne bottle—only for the children, entirely unfazed, to reappear back where they’d started. The parents fought to turn back but the human tide was merciless, dragging them forward. “Mum! Dad!” the children shouted from the scrum’s heart. Dad spotted them, tried to retreat, failed. Mum resorted to the oldest parenting tactic in history—yelling—before both kids ducked, vanished, and somehow popped up right beside their parents. She gave the eldest a clip around the ear, then smothered them both in kisses, a confusing cocktail of punishment and reward. Meanwhile, the halted walkway became an impromptu Olympic event. Suitcases, children, wives, girlfriends, and the occasional grandmother were hoisted over the guardrails like sandbags in a flood. Fathers and boyfriends then attempted their own heroic leaps. Some landed with the grace of gazelles; others collapsed in undignified heaps, faces twisted in pain but voices determinedly light-hearted. Dignity is a fragile thing, but British male pride insists on pretending nothing hurts. Not that it mattered—they’d barely take ten steps before hitting the same brick wall of humanity blocking the entrance. I waited, marooned on the dead walkway, scanning for any sign of movement ahead. After five minutes, salvation appeared in the form of a lone airport employee, high-viz vest gleaming, ID badge swinging. Finally, I thought, someone’s going to sort this mess out. I was wrong. Five yards from the main entrance, he veered off towards an unmarked side door. He swiped his pass and the little red light blinked green. That was all the encouragement I needed. I vaulted the rail like a man half my age and landed at his side just as he cracked the door open. By then, nine of us were clustered around him, the way pigeons mob anyone holding a bag of chips. Outnumbered and clearly more interested in an easy life than protocol, he shrugged and let us in. We slipped through like escapees from a prisoner-of-war camp, hurrying down the staff corridor before anyone outside noticed. Thirty seconds later, I stepped into the concourse proper, now seeing the chaos from the other side. It was no better—just different. The crowd at the entrance was still locked in mortal combat, a living dam holding back hundreds more behind it. Then, from the mêlée, a small pink missile appeared—a single plastic flip-flop, liberated from its owner. It spun lazily through the air before landing in Zone A. The baggage handlers’ boots pummelled it into the floor before an anonymous foot punted it onwards to Zone B. I watched it disappear under the tide of travellers, only to pop up again like some indestructible carnival prize. Finally, the rah-rah-skirted owner burst from the scrum, face glowing an even deeper shade of nuclear orange, screaming: “Where’s my feckin’ flip-flop?” Her voice carried over the din, half-desperation, half-accusation, as if the missing footwear was a conspiracy against her personally. It was, after all, the first week in July—Airport Bedlam Week—and I was just getting started. This was my last inspection weekend before we surrendered both the airports and the village of Paradise to the holidaymakers for two solid months. Only one set of clients to collect, which meant that—barring a plague of locusts or an unscheduled strike—today should have been straightforward. The concourse resembled a disaster zone. Prone bodies sprawled on the floor, luggage corralled like cattle, and a departure board boasting more delays than departures. Back in the days before thirty-minute turnarounds and budget airline cattle-herding, aircraft were met by armies—cleaners, caterers, engineers, customer service staff—each playing their part. Now, planes were flogged like rented mules, flying twenty-four hours a day, and any Monday delay would snowball into a Thursday catastrophe. This Thursday was no exception. Picking my way through family encampments—marked out with hand luggage at the corners like medieval boundaries—I spotted a familiar figure at the check-in desk. “No Way Jose,” our ticketing agent, was in the middle of a losing battle with a school party. Jose’s voice, thick with his Barcelona accent, boomed across the concourse: “Rodríguez! Sánchez! López!” Each name summoned either six children or none at all. The kids, high on sugar and freedom, had discovered the perfect game: collect your boarding pass, loop back into the first group, and claim another. Jose was on the ropes, and the teachers? Nowhere in sight—probably outside chain-smoking and questioning their career choices. Finally, in a move of pure survival, Jose dealt boarding passes like a Vegas croupier, shoved the tallest child into the role of group leader, and aimed them towards the departure lounge. Within seconds, the group had scattered like confetti into the airport crowds. Sensing my chance, I called, “Hola, Jose!” He grinned, waved me forward. I began the slow, bruising push through the British ‘We Will Not Be Moved’ queue, where ‘Excuse me’ functions as an optional sound effect rather than an actual request. When I reached him, he pulled me into a bear hug. “My friend, you’ve chosen well—your flight is… completely full.” In Jose-speak, “full” meant “grossly overbooked.” He asked about my clients, ticking them off his list before ordering the check-in girl to hand over three boarding cards. “If they’ve luggage, take it to heavy loads and tell them it’s for me,” he said. “If they don’t turn up, come back. But not too late—we’ll have a numbers problem.” I paused. “What flight is the school party on?” Jose just smiled. He didn’t need to answer. It was mine. Threading back through the crowd, I passed four frantic teachers. Jose pressed boarding cards into their hands and pointed them vaguely towards security. Their faces said it all: “Yes, it’s a free trip. No, we don’t want to be here.” I waited, people-watching, as the teachers corralled the majority of the children, two playing sheepdog while the others hunted for stragglers. Behind me, Jose was now breaking the news to latecomers that they’d be bumped to a later flight, triggering a chorus of outrage in three languages. Years of travel have cursed me with an invisible neon sign—one that changes messages depending on location. At airports, today’s read: I Can Get You On Any Overbooked Flight. In the past, it’s led to me being assaulted for not being a tour rep, insulted for not knowing the location of a hire car desk in an airport I’d never been to, and accused of having couples bumped from flights I wasn’t even on. Finding a pillar to hide behind, I spotted a couple scanning the departure boards. “Looking for Steve?” I asked. They were. Introductions done, I steered them away from the melee, straight to the heavy loads desk. The handler raised an eyebrow. “Jose,” I said. That was all it took. A grin, a couple of swift tags, and their bags were on their way to Barcelona. The man, George, chuckled. “Never seen check-in done like that.” “High season,” I replied. As the handler handed over the tags, he grinned. “Tell Jose he owes me one.” We headed for security. I caught Jose’s eye, signalled the clients were sorted. He mouthed “See you Sunday.” I still wondered how a charter flight could be overbooked by twenty seats, but Jose’s only answer had ever been a Catalan shrug. Behind us, the siege at the check-in desk showed no sign of ending, even as two policemen moved in to assist. The cavalry had arrived—though in this airport, even the cavalry might need boarding passes. To be continued…

Paradise Chapter 3

Maria-Jesus The first rays of the sun crept gently over the mosaic dome of the village church, painting its tiles in soft gold and copper. Morning light slipped between the warped shutters of Maria-Jesus’s modest bedroom window and dappled her pillow. She stirred, half-lost in dreams, until the warmth nudged her fully awake. For a moment she simply lay there, staring at the familiar water stains on the ceiling—ragged shapes formed by twenty winters of rain seeping through the same old roof. She made a mental note, for perhaps the hundredth time, to ask Miguel, the village handyman, to take a look before the heavy rains came. But the thought passed quickly, chased away by the more pressing memory of the last two extraordinary days. What days they had been—two days when Maria was certain the Lord Himself had smiled upon her. It had begun innocently enough. She had been scrubbing the church steps, bent over her bucket, tackling the latest offering from the late-night tourists—an unholy mix of cheap wine, beer, and stomach contents—when fatigue overtook her. She sat down to rest, just for a moment, her bucket beside her. When she opened her eyes again, she blinked in disbelief. There, floating among the suds, were wet bank notes , several one hundred pesetas notes three fifty pesetas, notes and there floating on the top a one thousand pesetas note. Through the subs she could see more coins sitting at the bottom of the bucket Money. Left by passing tourists, no doubt mistaking her for a beggar. The thought made her bristle. Maria was not a beggar. She had worked every day of her life and had never once held out her hand for alms. Yet, by the time she lifted the bucket, tipped out the water and counted the cash the sum had grown to over two thousand pesetas—more than she had held in her hand in years. Maria was always baffled by the actions of the tourists especially when it came to Spanish money. They appeared to have very little regard to it value often spending n amount that would keep her a Perro , her dog, for a week on a plate of poor quality paella or a glass or two of wine or beer no self respecting local would drink. Two thousand pesetas a small fortune collected while she slept. (Approximately £10 -$14) Her first thought was to put the money into the Church poor box. But then she thought of the thieving actions of the priest. She crossed herself quickly for even entertaining the notion, but the truth was she neither liked nor trusted him. In nine long years he had proved himself far from a model shepherd. Some in the village whispered they had been cursed with him as penance for the sins of past generations. If that were true, Maria hoped those sins had been worth it—because the penance was ongoing. After much deliberation, she decided the Lord had a purpose for this unexpected gift. And so, Maria bought headscarves—eight in all—at the market, haggling the price down to two hundred and fifty pesetas each. She would loan them to bareheaded tourists wishing to enter the church. It troubled her deeply to see women enter God’s house without their heads covered. This, she was certain, was divine intervention—a holy solution. That very afternoon, her fortunes grew. Perro, her scruffy, faithful mongrel, returned home, tail wagging, to announce he had “found” a stick of salami in circumstances Maria chose not to investigate too closely. That evening, as they shared the bounty, sitting outside her front door, a group of tourists passed and asked if the scarves she had on the little table next to her were for sale. Maria with a collection of odd English words a little bit of mime and a lot of arm shaking and pointing tried to explain they weren’t for sale but were for people to borrow when entering the church across the road. In the end one of the tourists grabbed the explanation and explained to the group who were delighted with Maria’s idea. One tourist even wrote, in English, the words for a sign explaining her scarf service. The next morning, she placed the scarves and the sign neatly on a small table outside her front door—directly opposite the church—and went inside to do a load of washing for a local lady. Later in the morning When she was finished washing and ironing two large bags of clothes she stepped outside to take a little rest. The table was empty, not a scarf to be seen and her little sign was on the floor. Her heart sank. Stolen, she thought. But then she saw it—the enamel cup she had used to prop up the sign was overflowing with money. Over twenty thousand pesetas. (£100 -$134) Maria had planned for people to borrow the scarves, but it seemed they preferred to buy them outright and for stupid prices . An average of two thousand five hundred per scarf (£12-50 $17) Maria knew tourists had no comprehension with money after all who in their right mind would pay six thousand pesetas for a plate of Anna’s awful paella in the restaurant next to her home. But they did and more and more did it every day. The world was changing in fact Maria believed the world was going mad. With that thought Maria went to bed. In the morning Maria slid her hand under her pillow, her fingers brushing the comforting bulk of the folded banknotes. She smiled. She had considered fixing the roof, but why would the Almighty, who had allowed it to leak for two decades, suddenly wish it repaired? Besides, her seven old pots caught the drips well enough. No, she had a better use in mind. She would take the money to her namesake, Maria at Bar Pueblo, to help the village’s elderly. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, speaking softly to them as if coaxing a reluctant mule. “Come on now, be good today. We’ve a short walk ahead, and you can rest when we get there.” Her legs creaked and protested as they always did, a reminder that she was no longer the girl who had once sprung out of bed eager to race barefoot through the vineyards. Those days—another life, another Maria—were gone. At seventy-six (or seventy-seven—no one was quite certain, as her father had never registered her birth), she had the wiry resilience of someone who had endured hard seasons without complaint. She was small but solid, her back still straight despite the years. Her face was a map of fine lines, the kind carved by sun, wind, laughter and sadness all in unequal measures. Her dark eyes still sparked with mischief when she smiled, and she wore her thick grey hair in a neat bun beneath a faded scarf. Life had given her little in the way of luxury, but much in the way of self-respect. Her father, she remembered, had never forgiven her for being born in the middle of the grape harvest. It was, in his view, an unforgivable inconvenience. And perhaps that set the tone for their strained relationship. But he had been gone three decades, and Maria had long since made her peace with the memory. In the corner, Perro raised his head. He sighed. When Maria rose, everyone rose. Within minutes she was downstairs, broom in hand, sweeping the kitchen before filling her bucket at the pump. Perro listened to the water gurgling, then heard her grab the scrubbing brush and head for the door. He decided it was hopeless to linger in his cardboard box; if he didn’t move now, he’d be trapped until the floor dried. He shuffled outside, pausing to lift a leg against the blackboard sign for Anna’s Spanish Restaurant next door. The warm trickle washed away yesterday’s specials. Perro considered this a public service. Anna disagreed. She had, in the past, demonstrated her disapproval with a well-aimed kick—or, just yesterday, a flying ashtray that had caught him square on the ribs. He glanced warily at the restaurant door before finishing his business. Maria was bent over her doorstep now, scrubbing in tight, efficient circles. Perro knew better than to cross her clean floor. Instead, he stretched out in the morning sun, letting its heat seep into his bones. The smell of salami drifted from the kitchen. His gaze shifted to the meat hook above the stove, where the remains of yesterday’s “found” salami hung. He concentrated on Maria, willing her to understand. Salami, Perro. Breakfast. The mental signal intensified until his tail gave a hopeful thump. Maria looked up, misreading his intent. “Bless him,” she murmured. “So protective.” Perro’s tail thumped harder. The day, he decided, was off to an excellent start. It was, after all, the dawn of a new chapter in Maria’s life—one she never could have imagined. Yesterday she had been a cleaner of church steps. Today she was, in her own small way, a fashion entrepreneur. And she had twenty thousand pesetas to prove it. Note:- At the time of this story the exchange rate for the British pound against the peseta was about one thousand pesetas to the five

Description

Brits Abroad

Welcome to Paradise—though it might not be quite the paradise you had in mind.

In this hilarious and heartfelt story, a group of British expats pack up their dreams, swap drizzle for sunshine, and set out to build a new life in a small Spanish village. The brochures promised blue skies, lazy siestas, and endless sangria. What they got instead was a crash course in Spanish bureaucracy, fiestas that never end, neighbours who know their business before they do, and builders with an elastic definition of “mañana.”

But behind the comedy of broken promises and cultural confusion lies something deeper: the discovery of friendship, resilience, and community. In a land where every mistake turns into a story worth telling, our characters soon learn that “paradise” isn’t a place you find—it’s something you create, laugh by laugh and mishap by mishap.

Packed with humour, warmth, and more than a touch of pathos, Paradise captures the many facets of life under the Spanish sun—and shows how to dodge the scams, survive the fiestas, and enjoy the ride. If you’ve ever dreamed of starting over in the sunshine, or simply love a good laugh at the triumphs and disasters of expat life, this book will make you feel right at home.