Life in a Postcard – Rosemary Bailey
In 1988, Rosemary Bailey and her husband were travelling in the French Pyrenees when they fell in love with, and subsequently bought, a ruined medieval monastery, surrounded by peach orchards and snow-capped peaks. Rosemary Bailey was born in Halifax, Yorkshire. She has lived in the French Pyrenees for seven years. Her previous book, the bestselling Life in a Postcard, also published by Bantam, describes her life in a mountain village and her attempts to restore a Romanesque monastery. Her account is skilfully interwoven with the poignant history of the monks and villagers who once lived there, adding a rich vein of history to a personal and contemporary tale. Bailey has been a travel writer and journalist for many years.In 1997 she wrote the acclaimed Scarlet Ribbons: A Priest with AIDS, the story of her brother, Simon Bailey, and the remarkable support he received from his Yorkshire mining village parish. Her latest book, The Man Who Married a Mountain, was published in 2006. Bailey is married to the biographer Barry Miles, and has one son, Theo, who plays his own part in this book. |
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"I wake to the sun striking gold on a stone wall. If I lean out of the window I can see Mount Canigou newly iced with snow. It is wonderful to live in a building with windows all around, to see both sunrise and sunset, to be constantly aware of the passage of the sun and moon." In 1988, Rosemary Bailey and her husband were travelling in the French Pyrenees when they fell in love with, and subsequently bought, a ruined medieval monastery, surrounded by peach orchards and snow-capped peaks. Traces of the monks were everywhere, in the frescoed 13th century chapel, the buried crypt, the stone arches of the cloister. For the next few years the couple visited Corbiac whenever they could, until in 1997, they took the plunge and moved from central London to rural France with their six-year-old son. Entirely reliant on their earnings as freelance writers, they put their Apple Macs in the room with the fewest leaks and sent Theo to the village school. |
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Tags: Rosemary Bailey
Expat Tales | Keith Eckstein June 18, 2010