Tangerines remind me of childhood Christmases. Can you recall that tangy aroma once you’d pierced the skin with your thumb, peeled it away and the juice began to spray out like an ignited sparkler? Dates were rare in my childhood home. Amber-coloured like big sad eyes, dry and sugary, they arrived in elongated oval boxes,…
Here is me getting wet!!! The Ice Bucket Challenge has gone viral and for good reason. It offers a laugh at the sight of others suffering momentarily while creating awareness for a disease that I had never heard of before, ALS The ALS researchers are looking for funding to find a drug to help combat…
July has been one of those months when, as they say, I hit the ground running. I am not sure that I have ever actually used that expression before, certainly not in connection with my own life, but it seems fitting this time. On 5th July, I arrived into Cork just before the start of…
I wrote this for the History Girls blog over two months ago. It was posted today… Planting olive trees in the West Bank : http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-tree-of-peace-by-carol-drinkwater.html Carol
I am in Bantry, West Cork, attending the West Cork Literary Festival where this afternoon I am In Conversation with the Irish writer, Alice Taylor, talking about gardens and the healing powers of the earth, and throughout the week I am teaching a workshop on Memoir writing. I was here for the same workshop last…
I sincerely hope this is not true. I am posting it so that any of you who reads this in the States can look into it for us all. http://www.globalresearch.ca/illinois-illegally-seizes-bees-resistant-to-monsantos-roundup-kills-remaining-queens/5336210 Friends, if you haven’t signed this, please do. https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/mailalert/953/red-alert-for-bees-support-the-eu-pesticide-ban Please can we post this on BEE page? I hope the link opens correctly https://www.facebook.com/GMOFreeUSA/photos/a.468695639837571.108816.402058139834655/778403705533428/?type=1&theater It…
On 12th June, I attended the Prix Fitzgerald award ceremony at the Hôtel Belles Rives in Juan-les-Pins. The hotel looks out over the Mediterranean and has views all along this famous stretch of French Riviera. I live inland of this smart address on a rundown olive farm and although I am no longer one for…
My goodness, we are June already. I am not sure where the time goes but we have been enjoying the splendours of early summer with its wonderful balmy evenings, drinks outside and plenty of reading in the garden after a hard day at the desk. I have two events coming up in the next month…
It is six in the morning, the birds outside my window are chattering away. Aside from their song, all is still and quiet – I am the only one awake. A few kilometres down the hill, the Cannes Film Festival is in full swing. Alas, due to my own work commitments, I have not paid…
April is a special month for me; it contains our wedding anniversary and my birthday. This year, the spring weather has been exceptional and I have been able to spend a great deal of time outside studying and photographing the various pollinators tirelessly working the blossoms, preparing the fruit of upcoming months for us, which…
I received this email this morning and we are posting it in its entirety due to its importance. PLEASE help, donate, spread the word, change your gardening habits, please let us do whatever it takes to turn this crisis around Thank you Carol Dear friends, Right now, billions of bees are dying. Already, there are…
I cannot believe the month of March is almost over. It has been a splendid month and I have been out in the garden almost on a daily basis taking photographs of the changing faces of Nature. If you go to my Pinterest page http://pinterest.com/CarolDrinkwater/ you can enjoy some of the flowers and views that…
Spring is stepping out, putting on her finery, dressing the land in colour while the honeybees are about gorging on the almond and rosemary blossoms; the olive trees are pruned, the burning of the excess foliage has been completed and now sawing of what should be sufficient wood for the rest of this century is…
As an organic farmer and someone who fights for the protection of our bees, I request you please to sign this and to pass it on. If you don’t speak French: it is the plea of a young viticulture, Emmanuel Giboulot, who is being prosecuted for refusing to treat his vines with an insecticide that…
I am spending my days in the trees. Days in the silvery trees. We have been olive pruning. We are olive pruning when the weather permits us to go outside and work. February is traditionally the rainy season here but this year it really has been persistent. I am not complaining because it is feeding…
After a very successful and great-time-had-by-all three days, the France Show has been packed away for this year. So many visitors came and none seemed exhausted because, unlike last year, they did not have to fight their way through snow blizzards and storms to reach Earls Court. Altogether, the mood was buoyant and optimistic. Friends…
The Mad Old Chateau, our residence and place of work outside Paris, is humming with activity. Both Michel and I are preparing our first trips of the year. I am leaving on Wednesday morning for London for three days at the France Show in Earls Court (see Events) followed by a week in Ireland while…
Yesterday, I took a day off. This is quite a rare event for me, but after the olive harvesting and a house crowded with lovely friends who have been olive-picking with us, I decided it was time for a little relaxation. We collected close to 400 kilos of olives, which for a year with not…