Hello, dear friends. Greetings from France! I am writing this from our northern abode situated in between Paris and the Champagne region. A home I long ago christened The Mad Old Chateau not because it is a chateau – it is not – but because it is a very old stone property or rather two…
Hello to you all, dear friends, Spring has opened the gate here at the Olive Farm and is slowly making its way up the drive. While I am standing down by the pool giving the new season’s arrival a big wave and a sigh of relief. What a time! What a dark and scary time…
If you are reading this on the day I am publishing, it is Saint Stephen’s Day (Boxing Day). In many Catholic countries, Saint Stephen’s Day is a public holiday. In Ireland, certainly. As well in Catalonia. I single out Catalonia because below is a link to a very beautiful Christmas carol and lullaby from Catalonia. A song…
Dearest Friends and Readers, This will be a brief Newsletter because I am up against several deadlines and I haven’t even thought about Christmas and New Year yet! I have been in Marseille for the last three days doing a little research, checking a few details for my novel in progress. The sun has shone…
Hello from the Olive Farm where autumn is beginning to display its remarkable colours and offer us its many fruits. Aside from a few very windy days and one heavy overnight rain storm, our stay here has been upbeat, enjoyed beneath endless days of cloudless blue skies. I have managed to be outside as much…
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…