CELEBRATING her 15th birthday at her Co Kilkenny home, Karen Considine’s mother presented her with a book which had already become something of a classic. Penelope Chetwode’s account of her ride around a remote part of southern Spain in 1961, Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia, made an indelible impression on the teenager who vowed one day to repeat it herself.

Penelope, in her fifties when she set off, was married to the British poet laureate John Betjeman. She rode her borrowed mare for over a month through a Spanish countryside virtually untouched by the 20th century, seeing only one tractor – which she resented! Here mules were the cargo-carriers and horses worked the land. Fascinated by Penelope’s adventure, Karen vowed she would follow in her footsteps and over half a century later, achieved just that.