I have just returned from a memorable trip to Ireland – my semi-adopted homeland because I was actually born in London. My recently-departed mother and all her family were born and bred in County Laios, set in the Midlands of Ireland. The farm her parents spent their hardworking lives running is still in the family…
Many of my colleagues are writing glorious posts inspired by recent holidays. How envious I feel as I stay locked to my desk, moving inexorably towards my upcoming deadline. However, I did make a short trip to Krakow two weeks ago, for five days, taking all my work with me. I wrote all day in…
What is in a street? It was my husband, Michel’s, birthday last week. We were in Paris. I decided that aside from taking him for a delicious dinner it was time for us to stay up late and go to a jazz club. We haven’t done that in a while. Instead of choosing one of…
William Shakespeare and I were companions way back, from the time when I was about seven. We spent whole long days and nights together, when I had been ‘naughty’, when I was being punished for some misdemeanour or other. Our house in Kent had a spare room in it, a third bedroom, I remember. It…
I have taken a short break away from my desk to visit – revisit – Greece. Last week I was in Thessaloniki where the city’s 18th annual documentary film festival was in full swing. As my husband is a documentary filmmaker and I have written several films, this is always an excellent opportunity to meet…
I won’t pretend otherwise. This February is proving to be a very bittersweet month. As I mentioned in last month’s blog, my new novel THE FORGOTTEN SUMMER was published on 11th February with a few nice events lined up by Michael Joseph/Penguin to launch it. A special and exciting moment for me as this new…
Any author reading this blog who is two weeks away from publication will know the nail-biting angst I am suffering. Those days leading up to the release of a new work… So, I won’t describe any of the emotions that are soaring through my body right now. We all know them. Instead, I thought I’d…
I am in Rome. I usually make the ‘pilgrimage’ at some point during the run-up to Christmas. The street illuminations are magnificent, the shopping is deliciously decadent and hectic and the Irish Catholic child in me thrills at St Peter’s Church and Square decked out in all its Nativity glory. Except that this year the…
I have written and thrown out several posts for today, turning over in my mind what more could be said on the subject of the recent abominations that took place on Friday 13th in the City of Lights. An evening of darkness that has touched the world, preceded and followed by murderous atrocities in Beirut,…
Some of you may have read about or seen on the news the appalling floods that hit my homeland of Cannes and its environs in the south of France at the beginning of this month. We were there; we had driven down the day before to spend a quiet week together, olive harvesting and writing….
The destruction of our ancient history, of magnificent sites that are, or were, jewels in our cultural heritage and are now nothing but rubble, makes my blood boil. We are all of us reading the news and staring at photographs that are breaking our hearts. And we are so impotent, or so it feels to…
Provence. Provence-Alpes-Maritimes is my home, and it has also become my work. I never fail to remind myself how fortunate I am. When I first came here to this southern coast of France I was looking for a ‘house by the sea’. I had circumnavigated the world several times over, both as an actress and…
A few days ago I headed north, driving from our home on the French Côte d’Azur to our home in the Brie, mid-centre between Paris and Reims, fifteen minutes from the Champagne district. I love these long trajectories penetrating and discovering France. In the years I have lived here I have driven in every season,…
I am suffering from Deadline-itis. Two deadlines glaring at me with fanged intentions. As always during these stressful moments, it seems that all the world apart from me is in holiday mode; either on holiday or about to depart. I go out so rarely at present due to the pressure of work that when I…
By the time you read this, the 68th Cannes Film Festival will have packed up its wares and the pantechnicons will be back on the road. The awards will have been handed out and celebrated at illustrious parties, Elton John will have hosted his annual Aids event, and the stars will be on planes flying…
It has been reported in the press this week that a replica of the Grotte Chauvet has been created. It will be open to the public by the time you read this. The original, containing thousands of prehistoric animal and figure drawings, will no longer be accessible to visitors because our human presence is putting…
I have been focusing quite a bit on war recently so I thought for this month’s blog I would choose a subject that is closer to home and of a lighter aspect. A love story. This true story is set along the Côte d’Azur, the Blue Coast, but it began in the north of France…
Last month I wrote a little about the events surrounding the Charlie Hebdo massacres in Paris along with my reflections, observations while travelling in Algeria seven years ago. I am continuing along a similar theme today: Algeria and a broad brushstroke of the events that led to the Algerian War of Independence. The French colonial…
I am writing this ahead of my regular blog date because I will be away on a work commitment and possibly without internet. Much could happen between today and the 26th… However… This month of January has been a tragic opening to the year of 2015. One of the murdered Charlie Hebdo team collaborated with…
On Christmas Eve 1914 in northern France a frost set in. It had been raining for weeks, filling the trenches to waist height with water, soaking spirits, drowning hope. So acute was this drop in temperature, that it froze solid the soldiers’ great coats and hardened their boots. The men themselves were “frozen to the…