How Blue is my Valley

Animals behaving badly, other people's misfortunes and the most bizarre true crime story ever. French Fried is the unfortunately true account of Chris Dolley’s first eight months in France and has been described as ‘A Year in Provence with Miss Marple and Gerald Durrell.’

Moving house with three cats, two horses and an enormous puppy is fraught at the best of times. But during a storm? Within ten minutes of Chris and Shelagh landing in France a gust of wind rips the roof off their horse transporter and they and their animals are left on a cliff top while a replacement horsebox is sent for from England. From then on it gets worse.

Their new home has no heating or hot water. The plumber prefers to use the outside wall rather than any of the five toilets dotted around the house, and the police have just placed their car under house arrest.

Just when they think nothing more could possibly go wrong, they discover that Chris’s identity has been stolen and their life savings – all the money from their house sale in England that was going to finance their new life in France – had disappeared. A bank account had been opened in Chris’s name in Spain to take the proceeds.

Then they’re abandoned by the police forces of four countries who all insist the crime belongs in someone else's jurisdiction. The French say it’s an Irish crime as that’s where the money was held. The Irish say it’s French as that’s where all the correspondence came from. The British say it’s nothing to do with them even though forged British passports were used to open the bank account in Spain. And the Spanish are on holiday – and can’t even think about investigating any bank account for at least four weeks.

So Chris has to solve the crime himself. But unlike fictional detectives he has an 80 year-old mother-in-law and an excitable puppy who insist they come along if he's going anywhere interesting - like a stakeout.

Reviews:

"This was a fantastic read. It had me laughing so much that I nearly got relegated to the sofa! Once I had started reading this book, I could not put it down, I was even quite happy to miss my favourite T.V programmes!" - Bookmarked

"When I downloaded this book this morning, I had every intention of putting it on my phone and reading it in dribs and drabs. And now I appear to have finished the book! The best thing about 'French Fried' is it's sense of humour; warm, self-deprecating, and very British. Literally laugh out loud in several places (I'm glad I'm the only one home!)." - Librarything

"Chris Dolley's humour reminds me of James Herriot at times, with my husband shushing me in the middle of the night. I could not put this book down and enjoyed it immensely. The characters, especially Nan, were life-size." - Salammi

She and her husband, John, with their pate-loving dog, Folly, rejuvenate themselves by trading long work hours, traffic jams, and fast food for art, biking, and goat's cheese direct from the supplier. They garble French but figure out how to earn the best baguettes.

Gone with the Wine is not just a delightful story of their life, it also provides fascinating and fresh insights on everyday life, history, and the people of the earthly paradise called the 'Garden of France'. Joyful reading for real-life voyagers and armchair travelers alike!

When the opportunity arises to leave damp and dreary 1980s England, they would be foolish not to take it. So they do. Loaded up, complete with the family cat, the Yull family head off on an adventure to the South of France.

Their love affair with the "Midi" was first ignited almost ten years before, and when the chance to "live the dream" presents itself, they do not hesitate.

The dream, at times, turned into a nightmare, with snakes, cyclones and mudslides to contend with, but good food and excellent company with old friends and new, soon help the family settle into their new life in the sun.

In her fourth travelogue, Susie and her husband take to their bikes to explore the Marne valley, following in the carriage tracks of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI in their abortive escape attempt from the French revolution.

Susie is not a born cyclist, as she discovers within the first five minutes of a journey that will last three weeks. Neither does she look her best in Lycra cycling gear. While her husband whirls along effortlessly, she frequently grinds to a halt and has to be rescued. But the pair keep pedalling, from the glitz of Versailles to the hilly Champagne vineyards, via a hair-raising ride through Paris and through quaint provincial towns and sombre battlefields.

Like the bestselling "Best Foot Forward – a 500-mile walk through hidden France", and "Travels with Tinkerbelle – 6,000 miles around France in a mechanical wreck", "The Valley of Heaven and Hell – cycling in the shadow of Marie-Antoinette" is an enjoyable mixture of travel and history, told in Susie's characteristically light-hearted and self-depreciating style. One for armchair travellers to enjoy, or a good holiday read.

"This book manages to combine history, humor and the best of travel writing all in one."

"As someone who enjoys reading about travel on foot or bicycle I can say its as good as any I've read and is a massively entertaining and satisfying read."

"When it's funny it's laugh-out-loud funny, and when it's sad it is heart-breaking."

In 1965,Londoners Chris and Ken Davies went looking for fresh air and a different lifestyle.

They bought two windswept acres on the tiny Feudal Island of Sark in the British Channel Islands, just off the French coast.

Chris and Ken quickly mastered new rules of survival; they learned to milk goats, establish bee hives, grow vegetables and ran a 200 hen chicken farm to supply eggs to the residents.

This is an entertaining true story about characters on the Island; nursing experiences working with the only Doctor and the hardships and triumhs the Davies encountered while running their guest house.

Chris also illustrated this book and some recipes are included.

Full of energy and short of funds, old chums Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley decide to form the "Young Adventurers," and advertise themselves as willing to "go anywhere and do anything." Asked by a British Intelligence official to find a woman named Jane Finn, who disappeared with sensitive government documents, they soon find that their whimsical idea has drawn them into a complicated web of intrigue, intelligence agents, dubious identities, missing government papers, false clues - and all-too-real danger.