The Olive Farm

This is television actress Carol Drinkwater's lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a "new" French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. The book opens the door on a bustling Mediterranean world using Carol Drinkwater's old abandoned villa as the gateway to it. It explores the local landscape, the various al fresco jazz festivals, the colourful carnival in Nice, the local cuisine, meals around an oval wooden table, the cycle of olive farming and pressing, local wines, Carol's bizarre friendship with a toothless Arab gardener, hours whiled away in a magnificent hammock lugged all the way from northern Brazil because its colours were an exact match for the slatted wooden shutters, and Picasso's museum at Antibes. It is a celebration of Appassionata and its wonderful olive-groved, sun-drenched world and its unlikely cast of characters.