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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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.
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…
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 Readers and Friends, I have been waiting quite a while to send out this letter to you, waiting while we finalised the colours and the look of this cover pic for my next novel, AN ACT OF LOVE, to be published in the UK on 29th April 2021. It is available for pre-order on…
A Felixstowe Festival Zoom Chat between Carol and Rachel Sloane. This replaced the cancelled event https://www.facebook.com/FelixstoweBookFest/videos/716342118912290/
Someone sent this to me recently. It is the film found on Youtube, adapted from my very first novel for children, THE HAUNTED SCHOOL. It was made into an eight-part TV series which we shot in Australia. Disney bought the series and edited it into a film, (which is the link below). It won the…
I am frequently asked who my favourite writers are; authors I return to time and time again. One of the first who springs to mind is Jean Giono. Son of a cobbler and a laundress, he is a Provençal writer through and through. Henry Miller, the great American writer, described Giono as one of the…