Read previous postcards from The Olive Farm

May 2010
This is a little late and I apologise for that. It has been a long and rather difficult winter for many people. I am aware of that. Down on the farm, the months have been wetter than usual and we experienced two bouts of snow, one fleeting and the second that stayed and settled on the trees.

December 2009
I have recently returned from a month in Australia and a few days at Tauranga Bay in New Zealand where I was appearing at the bi-annual arts festival there. If you attended either of my Tauranga events, thank you so much for coming. They were terrific and I met so many readers. I felt really high when I flew back out again to Sydney.

September 2009
There are few moments that match the sense of release I feel after my latest book has been delivered and an email comes winging back a few days later from my editor with the message, ‘LOVE it!’  Hooray!

April 2009
We have been pruning in our olive groves these last few weeks, pruning back thirty of the big old fellows and every single one of the juniors and these now number over two hundred and forty, I think. It is backbreaking work, but it is also extremely satisfying, particularly if the weather is kind.

January 2009
The days leading up to Christmas were not the happiest for me or our olive farm. I had spent November in Africa, visiting the magical rainforests of Madagascar before travelling briefly through Kenya and then on to South Africa.

September 2008
I feel that silent shift, the interstices between the changing seasons, when the burning heat of the sun has lessened, before the trees change colour, before leaves begin to drift earthwards, when the grapes and figs are fat and ripe and juicy and the olive harvest lies ahead.

April 2008
Close to midnight last night I strolled out onto our top terrace to stretch my legs after a long day in front of the computer, completing the very final touches to my new book, The Olive Tree.

May 2007
The final days of May are upon us and the south of France, the Midi, is buzzing with the prospect of summer while those who have crewed the 60th Cannes Film Festival are rolling up the famous red carpet for another year.

Autumn 2006
Summer is over. The tourists have all returned home and the south of France is settling back into a more familial rhythm. We, like most other olive farmers, are beginning a venerable annual ritual, preparations for our upcoming late-November harvest, which looks set to be a reasonable one.

Spring 2006
Spring is here. Its arrival is always uplifting yet I cannot help feeling that this year it is more lovely than any that has preceded it, but when I say to my husband,