Well, dear readers and friends, I am home after a whistle-stop month, jumping like a grasshopper from one location to the next. It has been HUGE fun; I have met some of the best people: booksellers, readers, a writer or two; did an event in Edinburgh with my wonderful friend Jenny Colgan … ONE SUMMER…
Dear Readers and Friends, Today is the first of July. Summer is officially here. France, like other parts of Europe, is suffering under a canicule, a heatwave, that is very intense. In this kind of extreme weather, I only venture out of doors very early in the mornings, from about 6 onwards to water the…
I am a week away from publication of my latest novel, ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE. 3rd July 2025. It is always an exciting as well as a nerve-racking time. A broad synopsis of what the novel is about: a British couple, Celia and Dominic, are living on a vineyard in the south of France. A…
We are moving towards the longest days of the year, choruses of birdsong, glorious scents wafting from the flowers. However, over these last few weeks I have had little or no time to sit back and enjoy the arrival of full-blown summer. We are three weeks away from publication of ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE and…
Dear Readers, May is here, a crazy mix of hot sun and fast-falling showers and angry thunderstorms. The land is so full of life, of growth and colour, that I feel Michel and I should move out and leave the pollinators, the blossoms and nesting birds to it! We have every kind of fruit from…
Hello Dear Readers! In France we are allowed to wish others Happy New Year up to the last day of January. It cannot be said before New Year’s Day and then only through the month of Jan. So, I am just in time. Happy New Year! For 2025, I pray for Peace on Earth, an…
Below, I am in the company of: (left) Alan Wolven in the chair. Alan is a pianist. Now in his nineties, he is still playing. He was entertaining troops from the age of fourteen; (to my right) Suzie Cliff was marching for her Mum, Doreen Thompson. See, she is wearing her mum’s badges. Doreen entertained with ENSA….
Good Morning, I am writing this from my desk at our Mad Old Chateau east of Paris where it is misty, very wintery and damp. I don’t mind it though. Beyond the windows, the grass is full of mushrooms and mole hills while indoors we have a roaring log fire on the go. My mother…
Dear friends, It is midsummer here. I am in the south of France where the heat is almost suffocating if one is not fortunate enough to live by the sea, have access to a pool or be able to escape to the mountains. Up north, in Paris, the Olympic Games known here as JO (Jeux…
A few days ago, I set off from our Olive Farm overlooking the Bay of Cannes in the south of France on a nine-hour drive to our northern home east of Paris situated a few miles west of the border to the Champagne region. As I was travelling alone, I decided to take the timing…
I have been walking through wildflowers on the terraces that are waist high. The butterflies, bees, pollinators are gorging on their delights. The land really does feel to be alive, which is joyous to experience.
Hello dear friends, I am writing this on a cold, wet, blustery day in northern France, at our Mad Old Chateau. I have a chest infection. Last weekend I was in Berlin, accompanying Michel for a few days to the Berlin Film Festival where it was even wetter and windier. Fortunately I escaped the cold…
Due to Covid and work restraints, I hadn’t been back home to Ireland since the beginning of the pandemic. It meant that my trip planned for late November of this year (2023) was intended to be a special one. I was excited about it. I was planning to spend a few days alone in the…
Dear Readers and Friends, I am late with this again. Apologies. The last few weeks have been challenging and very busy. I seem to have spent most of late November and December in airports. I have been to London three times and to Dublin once. All that aside from trajectories between the Olive Farm and…
Above: Home-made vin d’orange from our farm. Hello dear Friends! My goodness, it has been a long hot summer. A time of waiting. Waiting for rain, waiting for news, waiting for inspiration! … I am happy to be back in touch with you all after a slightly longer than usual break. We have been struggling…
thanks to Linn Kessler for this video!
Hello dear Friends, My goodness, we are are experiencing temperatures here in the south of France that are WAY above what we used to think of as average for this time of year. Every day it hits close to or a wee bit higher than 30C. It has meant a change of life in that…
Recently, I had lunch under a thunder-grey sky in Paris. It was a Sunday and the cafés and bars were spilling onto the streets with Parisians enjoying the pleasures of their weekend. I had just flown up from the warm south. Michel, my husband, collected me from the airport before he disappeared for an afternoon…
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…