What to do when the ghosts of your past won't go away, and your future hasn't arrived? Chris, wondering how artists can survive the ordinary drudgery of the everyday, and Trudy, recovering from mental illness, escape the drizzle of Britain for the scorching, solar-powered, garlic-and-chilli heat of Spain. They have a little money, their backpacks and a tent. This powerfully felt novel tells the story of their strategies for cash and survival, their travels, and the people they meet on the way. It's a story of campsites and cats, art and the ants of Spain, hashish and love under the stars. Most of all, it records a young poet's view of the world, and his growing fears for the fragile personality of his girlfriend. Anyone who has travelled with a backpack but no itinerary - or wanted to - trying to find a space between past and future, trying to hold on to the uniquely vivid and immediate perception of the young and the free, will recognise their interior journey in this novel.