Author Interview: Karen Telling

Today it's my pleasure to welcome Karen Telling to the blog to talk about publishing her memoir Another Day in Paradise.   

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you decided to write and publish this memoir? 
I started writing this book in around 2012.  I’ve always enjoyed writing and came second in a short story competition around the same time.  I didn’t know I would publish it, as self publishing wasn’t really an option then, but I wanted to record my experience of surgery in a foreign country, even just for myself.  I then forgot about it until lockdown, when I found it again whilst sorting through papers in an old filing cabinet.   I had retired from my holiday property rental business a couple of years earlier, mainly due to my disability, so I had the time to carry on and finish it.  

My main reason for publishing was to tell our story, which wasn’t one of retiring abroad, or buying and renovating a ruin, but of moving to Portugal in our late 30s/early 40s, finding work and living in rentals until we found somewhere to buy.  These are different challenges from those in similar memoirs that I have read.  I also wanted to show how much kindness we have experienced.  Strangers went out of their way to help us when I was extremely vulnerable in hospital, and I will always appreciate that.  There are humorous moments too and I have been told the book provokes both laughter and tears.  Finally, it’s the story of our beloved pets, the ones we took with us from the U.K. and those that adopted us in that first year.  I am hoping to publish a sequel in the next few months with the stories of more of our animal rescue journey, but am currently bottle feeding two abandoned puppies so I don’t have as much free time as usual!

If you had to give an elevator pitch for your memoir Another Day in Paradise, what would it be?
I think my elevator pitch would be from one of my reviews -

If you’ve ever pondered exchanging your hectic existence for a simpler lifestyle by the sea. If you’ve ever entered that demi-world of life viewed from a hospital bed. And if you’ve ever let your heart rule your head when adopting animals in need, then you will have much in common with the author of this witty, insightful, emotional yet unsentimental tale. 

What led to the decision for you to move to Portugal rather than relocate to a quieter town/village in the UK? 
We were already living in a small town in Berkshire, where Nick had been born and brought up, and running a metal finishing business when out of the blue someone wanted to buy it.  We weren’t sure what else we wanted to do, and somehow it just seemed natural to sell up and move to Carvoeiro.  Looking back it seems quite incredible but it didn’t appear so at the time.

How did you settle on the Algarve as your eventual new place to live? And what challenges did you face relocating abroad? 
We had visited Carvoeiro for the first time in the late 80s, just after we got married. It was pure chance, we had never considered a holiday in Portugal until a friend bought a place here and offered it to us for a couple of weeks.  We immediately fell in love with the place, the people, the food, everything.  I remember driving through the village that last morning on our way to the airport and thinking ‘This won’t be the last time we come here.’  

Carvoeiro has an indefinable charm that tends to cast a spell on visitors and there aren’t many people who only come once.

How has Brexit and Covid affected any planned visits, either by friends/family over to Portugal or for yourselves to return to the UK?   
We had bought an apartment to rent out a couple of years before we moved, so having been through that process and opened a bank account, we thought we were well prepared.  We were wrong.  It took a few years to get used to the different systems here, for establishing residency, registering as self-employed, and finding an accountant.  A lot of administration was done in person, rather than by phone or post, and now email or zoom.  This is one thing that has changed since Covid, when the tax and social security offices, and town hall have been closed.  Hopefully there will be more use of technology in future and less waiting in endless queues.

I haven’t travelled by plane since my spinal surgery in 2009, so Covid hasn’t affected my plans personally.  Nick used to travel frequently to visit family and friends, but he hasn’t been able to go except for his mum’s funeral last year.  We have just had the first visits from family in almost two years, and hopefully travel will become easier next year.  It has been a difficult time for the businesses who rely on tourism in the Algarve, but this summer we had more Portuguese, Spanish and French holidaymakers who helped to make up for the lack of British travellers.  Brexit has made it more difficult for anyone to just pack the car and move as we did, which is a shame, plus it’s impossible to get some of the products we were used to having sent over from the U.K.  There isn’t always an equivalent easily available from a European source.  

I became a Portuguese citizen in the summer of 2020, just over two years after my application was accepted.  The process involves a language exam, plus various documents and a police check, which all had to be translated and notarised, so it’s a lengthy and complicated process but I feel it was well worth doing.  Nick can now apply on the basis of having been married to a Portuguese citizen for more than 3 years, we have actually been married for 34 years.