Our bees are dying out fast. Last year your support was critical in convincing the Government to create a Bee Action Plan to save our bees. Now we need your help once again. Can you be part of the generation that helps save British bees? Bees Minister Lord de Mauley wants your thoughts on his…
It is a special day today. A Publication Day. Hotel Paradise, my latest story for the Kindle Single store on Amazon, goes live. Hooray. We are all very excited about it. As with The Girl in Room Fourteen, it can be downloaded directly to your Kindle or phone or ipad or even your desktop, I…
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…
Bees’ Gifts for your Valentine – please support this and share it http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1881/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=13426 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…
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…
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/jan/01/surgihoney-treatment-infected-wounds http://hilo.hawaii.edu/adoptabeehive/ http://www.marinbeecompany.com/Adopt_A_Hive.html https://www.facebook.com/adoptabeehive http://adoptabeehive.com.au If you in France and wish to sign your vote for the Bees, here is a link http://www.ogm-abeille.org I have heard stories such as this one below before
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…
It is almost Christmas although I have not yet begun to do very much about it. We are both still hard at work, attempting to complete all our commitments before everyone shuts up shop for two weeks. There is a quite a bit to wrap up after a year that has seen a great deal…
Another little blessing from the honey bee http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2013/12/better-berry-thanks-bees There is a Facebook page worth looking at called Beyond Pesticides https://www.facebook.com/beyondpesticides One of its posts is the following which those of you in the States who are concerned for your bees might want to sign. In Europe, we have begun our two-year trial ban on Neonicotinoids.
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…
A robin has flown into the house through a set of open French doors and is sitting in the corner by one of the antique lamps I picked up from a château sale near St Tropez. Michel is in the kitchen chopping up a mushroom he collected from the hillside this morning after yesterday’s rain….
Hola, I am writing this from the Hotel Romantico in Sitges, northern Spain, twenty minutes south of Barcelona by train. Sitges in early October is a regular stop for Michel, my husband, and I. We drive here from our farm in the hills behind Cannes to participate in a Mediterranean documentary film festival and market,…
These last few blisteringly hot months have been packed with work. A few journeys undertaken but mostly I have been at my desk at the farm, scribbling away. These are the days when I appreciate how very privileged my life is. I have the liberty to begin as early as I want and to type…
Hooray! I have my first Kindle Single hitting the Amazon Kindle e-bookshop today. It is a love story set along the shores of the Mediterranean and is titled The Girl in Room Fourteen Here are British and US links to it. US http://tinyurl.com/kywqknu UK http://www.amazon.co.uk If you buy it, and I hope that you will,…
Please sign this, if you agree we must uphold the ban http://action.sumofus.org/a/bayer-bees-lawsuit/4/2/?sub=fb
I am very concerned to have learnt that Bayer is suing the European Commission to overturn its two-year ban on the use of Neonicotinoid pesticides. These pesticides are a major factor in the dying off of millions of bees around the world. A huge public push won this landmark ban only months ago. Please, let…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/beekeeping/10206225/Radar-antennae-reveal-how-disease-and-pesticides-are-harming-bees-navigation.html Can you see this, one on top of the other as though mating? Can anyone identify this wasp, please? A Yellow Jacket? http://investmentwatchblog.com/31-percent-of-u-s-honey-bees-were-wiped-out-this-year-who-will-pollinate-our-crops/ Here is an interview I have just done with California. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/themagicoflife/2013/08/09/carol-drinkwater-the-bees-with-max-ryan A BBC Horizon Special entitled What’s Killing Our Bees? was shown last week. Bill Turnbull, journalist and beekeeper, takes a…
La Rentrée in France has several meanings. The Return. It is the time when everyone is heading home, heading north, after their holidays. It is back to school, back to the office. The beginning of autumn, the end of summer. All the big supermarkets are packed with satchels for sale, special deals on exercise books…