April 2014
If you are in the States or can access this, it is worthing signing. Presidential support for bees would certainly help http://action.foe.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14079
A special month
April is a special month for me; it contains our wedding anniversary and my birthday. This year, the spring weather has been exceptional and I have been able to spend a great deal of time outside studying and photographing the various pollinators tirelessly working the blossoms, preparing the fruit of upcoming months for us, which…
Avaaz appeal
I received this email this morning and we are posting it in its entirety due to its importance. PLEASE help, donate, spread the word, change your gardening habits, please let us do whatever it takes to turn this crisis around Thank you Carol Dear friends, Right now, billions of bees are dying. Already, there are…
End of March
I cannot believe the month of March is almost over. It has been a splendid month and I have been out in the garden almost on a daily basis taking photographs of the changing faces of Nature. If you go to my Pinterest page http://pinterest.com/CarolDrinkwater/ you can enjoy some of the flowers and views that…
March 2014
Our bees are dying out fast. Last year your support was critical in convincing the Government to create a Bee Action Plan to save our bees. Now we need your help once again. Can you be part of the generation that helps save British bees? Bees Minister Lord de Mauley wants your thoughts on his…
Hotel Paradise
It is a special day today. A Publication Day. Hotel Paradise, my latest story for the Kindle Single store on Amazon, goes live. Hooray. We are all very excited about it. As with The Girl in Room Fourteen, it can be downloaded directly to your Kindle or phone or ipad or even your desktop, I…
Spring is stepping out
Spring is stepping out, putting on her finery, dressing the land in colour while the honeybees are about gorging on the almond and rosemary blossoms; the olive trees are pruned, the burning of the excess foliage has been completed and now sawing of what should be sufficient wood for the rest of this century is…
February 2014
Bees’ Gifts for your Valentine – please support this and share it http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1881/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=13426 As an organic farmer and someone who fights for the protection of our bees, I request you please to sign this and to pass it on. If you don’t speak French: it is the plea of a young viticulture, Emmanuel Giboulot, who…
Support Emmanuel Giboulot
As an organic farmer and someone who fights for the protection of our bees, I request you please to sign this and to pass it on. If you don’t speak French: it is the plea of a young viticulture, Emmanuel Giboulot, who is being prosecuted for refusing to treat his vines with an insecticide that…
Pruning
I am spending my days in the trees. Days in the silvery trees. We have been olive pruning. We are olive pruning when the weather permits us to go outside and work. February is traditionally the rainy season here but this year it really has been persistent. I am not complaining because it is feeding…
Home from The France Show and the mists of Ireland
After a very successful and great-time-had-by-all three days, the France Show has been packed away for this year. So many visitors came and none seemed exhausted because, unlike last year, they did not have to fight their way through snow blizzards and storms to reach Earls Court. Altogether, the mood was buoyant and optimistic. Friends…
January 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/jan/01/surgihoney-treatment-infected-wounds http://hilo.hawaii.edu/adoptabeehive/ http://www.marinbeecompany.com/Adopt_A_Hive.html https://www.facebook.com/adoptabeehive http://adoptabeehive.com.au If you in France and wish to sign your vote for the Bees, here is a link http://www.ogm-abeille.org I have heard stories such as this one below before
The New Year is Humming
The Mad Old Chateau, our residence and place of work outside Paris, is humming with activity. Both Michel and I are preparing our first trips of the year. I am leaving on Wednesday morning for London for three days at the France Show in Earls Court (see Events) followed by a week in Ireland while…
Christmas Newsletter
It is almost Christmas although I have not yet begun to do very much about it. We are both still hard at work, attempting to complete all our commitments before everyone shuts up shop for two weeks. There is a quite a bit to wrap up after a year that has seen a great deal…
December 2013
Another little blessing from the honey bee http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2013/12/better-berry-thanks-bees There is a Facebook page worth looking at called Beyond Pesticides https://www.facebook.com/beyondpesticides One of its posts is the following which those of you in the States who are concerned for your bees might want to sign. In Europe, we have begun our two-year trial ban on Neonicotinoids.
Writing from Paris
Yesterday, I took a day off. This is quite a rare event for me, but after the olive harvesting and a house crowded with lovely friends who have been olive-picking with us, I decided it was time for a little relaxation. We collected close to 400 kilos of olives, which for a year with not…
Wood smoke scents the air
A robin has flown into the house through a set of open French doors and is sitting in the corner by one of the antique lamps I picked up from a château sale near St Tropez. Michel is in the kitchen chopping up a mushroom he collected from the hillside this morning after yesterday’s rain….
Hola from Northern Spain
Hola, I am writing this from the Hotel Romantico in Sitges, northern Spain, twenty minutes south of Barcelona by train. Sitges in early October is a regular stop for Michel, my husband, and I. We drive here from our farm in the hills behind Cannes to participate in a Mediterranean documentary film festival and market,…
September Newsletter
These last few blisteringly hot months have been packed with work. A few journeys undertaken but mostly I have been at my desk at the farm, scribbling away. These are the days when I appreciate how very privileged my life is. I have the liberty to begin as early as I want and to type…
Kindle Single
Hooray! I have my first Kindle Single hitting the Amazon Kindle e-bookshop today. It is a love story set along the shores of the Mediterranean and is titled The Girl in Room Fourteen Here are British and US links to it. US http://tinyurl.com/kywqknu UK http://www.amazon.co.uk If you buy it, and I hope that you will,…