Hello Dear Friends! Welcome to my Spring Newsletter. This last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Last Saturday, the 22nd, was my birthday – a milestone one. We celebrated quietly but with gusto. M took me for dinner to one of my favourite “special” spots, La Colombe d’Or in Saint Paul de…
Dear Reader, Spring is in sight. Mediterranean Spring. We have almond blossoms almost in full flower which, of course, is the first sign of spring around the Mediterranean basin. Do I say this every year? Possibly. I am always so overjoyed to see that lovely pale pink petal showing its face like a blush on…
Happy New Year! There was a time when I used to look to the years after 2,000 and think of them as distant stars. A universe I could not see into or imagine. Now, here we are, almost a quarter of a century into this millennium. It hardly seems possible. I remember my father when…
Small Things Like These by the Irish novelist Claire Keegan is my Book of the Year. There have been several books especially by women authors that have ‘spoken’ to me but this one hit a deep chord. I am late to the party in the sense that this novel, published in 2021, has already been…
This was last year. Ours is not up yet! This letter is so overdue that I am almost too embarrassed to apologise, but here we are and … erm, sincere apologies. My last note was in July. I wrote it soon after Michel and I had made a journey across southern France to spend a…
Here we are (Me, Michel and François to the right) at the confluence, the conflux, of the Lot and Garonne Rivers. The sound of water crashing and engaging was rather spectacular. Three weeks ago, Michel and I crossed France to the new home of one of Michel’s daughters, Clarisse. She has moved to a region north…
May It is hard to believe that it is only three weeks ago we were celebrating my late-April birthday. Michel took me to La Colombe d’Or in St Paul de Vence, not simply for dinner but for an overnight stay. As a treat from time to time we have lunched there or dined in one…
Happy Easter, dear Readers and Friends! I am moving offices! A few yards from one building at our home outside Paris (fondly known as the Mad Old Chateau) to another crumbling stone building on the same patch of land. Today is Good Friday, the sun is shining and I am traipsing back and forth through…
Hello! Once again this letter is a little late. My sincere apologies. It has been a low-key Christmas and winter for us this year, which explains my silence (nothing really to write about!). After I had finished shooting and recording the final episode of Carol Drinkwater’s Secret Provence (Channel 5 changed the title from A…
“France is Josephine” 1906-1975 This is one of the photos I took of the facade of the Panthéon, snapped while I was queuing to pay my respects to Josephine Baker. Exceptionally, during that first weekend of December, entrance was free to everyone, thus offering citizens the opportunity to say farewell to a woman who had…
Dear friends, here is a short story. Please enjoy it. In these dark difficult days, I hope this story sent from the warmth of the French Riviera will bring a smile to your days. Happy Winter and stay safe, Carol x HARRY AND MELANIE Once Upon a Time, a little magic dropped into a troubled…
Hello! This comes so late! I meant to write this Newsletter almost a month ago. I apologise for the delay. My only excuse is that I have been so busy. Thanksgiving has just been celebrated by all our American friends, Black Friday has been studiously avoided by us and we are now looking at the…
Today you can buy the Kindle edition of The Olive Farm for just 99p on Amazon.
Dear Friends and Readers, PLEASE tune to Channel 5 in on Sunday and join me in PROVENCE.
Hello! I want to begin this missive with an apology for the delay in writing a Newsletter. I know, it has been several months since the last one. Truth is, it has been a hectic summer and I have quite a bit of news. I am writing this from Greece where I have been attending…
I have recently been on an excursion to Marseille. It is a little less than two hours west of our Olive Farm in the direction towards Spain. Marseille is an ancient harbour city set right in the middle of the stretch of Mediterranean that fringes the south of France. I have written at length in…
Hello! I am writing to you from the South of France where our first waves of spring have been very contradictory. The blossoms have been simply spellbinding. Hours I have spent strolling about the land breathing in the delicate scents of fruit flowers only to wake the next day to heavy rains, which have driven…
Dear Friends, Spring is coming – it really is. We’ve had some wild days here at the Olive Farm with winds blowing and trees creaking like ghosts opening doors in old houses. Here’s a visitor who came to cut three trees for the neighbour because they were threatening to fall on another neighbour’s house right…
How do we find the stories, the ideas for our novels or how do they find us? I am always on the lookout for ideas, for seeds that might grow like flowers into fully-realised stories. We writers are always digging about for nuggets. Magpies, we are, looking for what shines. Sometimes, the work involves weeks,…
Dear Friends, Well, if you are reading this you, like Michel and myself, are still here. Thank heavens. We have all struggled through and reached December of this crazy, rollercoaster of a year of 2020. Earlier, back in the spring, which seems like many lifetimes ago now, I lost two very dear friends to Covid….