I chanced upon this book in my secondary school library and something about the book called out to me and I read the book. I loved the story so much that I still can remember the story after 10 years.
“All my life, I have dreamed of acquiring a crumbling, shabby-chic house overlooking the sea, and renovating it. In my mind’s eye, I have pictured a corner of paradise where friend can gather to swim, relax, debate, talk business if they care to, eat fresh fruits picked directly from the garden, prepare great steaming plates of food served from an al fresco kitchen and dished up onto candlelit tables the length of railway sleepers. In this land of liquor and honey, guests would eat heartily, drink gallons of home-produced wine, chill out to great jazz and while away star-spangled hours till dawn. I envisage a haven where city manner and constraints can be cast off, where artists, travelers, children, lovers and extended family can intermingle and find contentment. Among all of these altruistically gregarious and bohemian activities, I’d slip away unnoticed to a cool stone room of my own, lined head to the with books, spawning maps and dictionaries, switch on my computer and settle down peacefully to write.”
I have always dreamt of something like this so this book really struck a cord with me. Carol Drinkwater takes her readers on a journey of trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it and becoming “accidental olive farmers”. She tells of overcoming the heartaches of taking on a ‘new’ *French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community.
Get The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Olive Oil in the South of France by Carol Drinkwater.