by Marina Shemesh

Created on: October 07, 2010   Last Updated: February 01, 2012

It still boggles the mind that a book about renovating an old house in France was published in the first place. But I, together with a lot of other people, enjoy reading this kind of travel book, as long as it is set in either France or Italy. Maybe it is the mix of descriptions of lovely food and eccentric locals.

The author, Carol Drinkwater, is a well known British author and actress. She is probably best known for her role as the vet’s wife in the series “All Creatures Great and Small”. In the book “The Olive Farm”  Carol Drinkwater describes how she finally succumbed to her life-long dream of owning a “house-by-the-sea”.

She and her partner Michel, a French producer, stumbled by chance on Appassionata in Provence, southern France, and decided to buy the run-down farm on an impulse.

There is quite an amusing description of how Carol and Michel went to meet the rich owner of the farm in Brussels, trying to convince her that they were worthy buyers. When she offered to give them a ride to their car, a beaten-up vehicle filled to the brim with their earthly possessions, they pretended to “forget” where they had parked.

After they had finally managed to scrape together enough money for a down payment, they set out to start make Appassionata liveable, as well as working hard at their professions in order to afford the renovations and the rest of the payments.

The first of their worries was the lack of running water. The water-less situation was even more desperate because Michael invited his two teenage daughters along on their first stay at the olive farm. The two girls expected to dive into a sparkling blue pool, not to camp out at a ramshackle house.

No sooner have all the bureaucratic knots been untied to get the water flowing when a terrifying fire breaks out that nearly burns down Appassionata and all the ancient olive trees.  The action does not stop there and we are entertained with stories about the strange neighbors, workers who drink all the beer and the rescue of an odd assortment of dogs.

In between writing about the olive farm and all the stuff that is going on there, Carol Drinkwater also writes about their professional lives away from the farm. This for me was less interesting but the contrast between Appassionata and the rest of the world was notable.

“The Olive Farm” is the first book of a series and is followed by the book “The Olive Season”. Carol Drinkwater got hooked on olives and the process of making olive oil just like anybody else living in the Mediterranean. Her description near the end of the book of visits to two oil presses was quite fascinating.

You can read more about the author at her website - Carol Drinkwater.

You can also read a review of her book “The Olive Season” or an article about how to look after olive trees.

Learn more about this author, Marina Shemesh.
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