Top 44 Carol Drinkwater Quotes

The olive’s properties are not altered, but the flavour of oil pressed from green olives is different from black – green oil tends to be peppery and black has a more mushroomy taste.

Olives changed the direction of my life. My husband Michel and I found a ruined farm with an olive grove near Cannes. I became fascinated by olives and found myself travelling around the Mediterranean for 17 months, researching two books on the subject.

The olive tree is a tree full of health. It is a symbol of eternity. Of all things, it has peace attached to it.

The almond, the first fruit to flower round the Mediterranean, heralds the arrival of spring. It is also an early nectar for the honey bees.

There are more than 800 different types of olive tree and each region has its own varieties, creating unique flavours.

I always have a notebook – I have kept diaries since I was eight years old. My preferred choice is a Moleskine because they have a pocket at the back where I can keep airline tickets and my passport.

Our farm is a 15-minute walk to Pablo Picasso’s last home. Alongside it stands the lovely Notre-Dame-de-Vie Chapel with its 13th-century bell tower, which was visible to Pablo from his atelier.

Once you pass by the high crests of the snow-capped Pyrenees and move to the wild shores of the very lowest tip of southwest France bordering Spain, you are in Basque country.

I get so much mail from women who have lost children because one of my books is about that. There was also a period when my marriage was in difficulty, which people connected with.

I like the freedom of novels. With the memoirs, I always had to keep to the facts. I like that with novels, if I want to go off and write something quite dramatic or outrageous or something completely different, I can do it if I want to.

As I drove westwards along the A8, the purple hills of the Massif des Maures were rising towards a clear bluebell sky. Cradled within the Var between Frejus and Hyeres lies a bewitching hinterland, a low mountain range known in Provencal as Lei Mauro: the Sombre Ones.

Biarritz is one of the most popular holiday destinations in France and it tops the list for coastal resorts along the French Atlantic.

I loved Forcalquier, with its narrow medieval streets. Its elegant 12th Century cathedral boasts a carillon that chimes every Sunday morning. I also found a junk shop from which I could have furnished our entire farm.

Technically, my husband and I are residents of the Alpes-Maritimes, where we are tucked away on our olive farm overlooking the Bay of Cannes in a corner that is, as yet, rather undiscovered.

Although I still think of myself as an actress, most of my time is spent writing novels or memoirs about my adventures and travels.

Personal loss is a trial that we all face. Like every negative challenge we rise to it or we don’t. You grow stronger as you work your way through whatever life has thrown at you or you buckle and go under.

During the Second World War, the Cote d’Azur as a holiday destination closed down, but once the Allies had liberated the coast in 1944, the Riviera’s infrastructure grew rapidly.

I wrote my first play when I was nine, it was about Robin Hood, from Maid Marian’s point of view. I was a feminist from day one.

The widespread use of pesticides in the French countryside, and its worrying effects on nature and the environment, had troubled me for years.

Chicago’s history is a classic American tale of reinvention, while its present is buzzy, chic and architecturally stunning.

The almond grows very contentedly alongside olives. I discovered that while in Israel – both trees require only sparse watering once established.

There are several ways to ‘do’ the Lavender Route. You can hook up with a tour, travelling from the old Roman city of Orange or Montelimar and wind up six or seven days later in Grasse, the renowned perfume capital of the world.

The French take their festive platters seriously and spend lavishly on them. Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, is when they tuck into the big family meal known as Le Gros Souper or Le Reveillon. Traditionally, it was served after the return from midnight Mass.

Algeria, the second-largest country in Africa, has been dogged by terrorism. But while dangers remain, they are far outweighed by the hospitality of the people.

Indeed, I still read a fair amount of French literature and I am very attracted to the emotional depth and simplicity of writers such as Marguerite Duras.

The Whitsundays are a sailor’s paradise and because they sit at the southern limit of one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, they are also a diver’s dream.

Provence off the beaten track offers silence, stillness, sweet scents, eagles, chestnuts, endless avenues shaded by plane trees, fabulous walking, cycle tracks and beaches to die for.

Toronto is not a paler version of New York as I might have supposed. It possesses a style of its own: genteel, sometimes hippylike, rustic, peace-loving, pioneering, generous.

At the age of 10 I wrote and starred in a play that I took around to local old people’s homes.

Provence has become a moveable feast. To the south is the glittering Mediterranean; to the north are the Alps, while to the west and east the margins are fuzzy and seem to expand further with each passing year.

My husband is French and, before we bought our olive farm, we spent our early courting days in Paris. So I got to know well the intricacies of the city.

Organic olive farming was going to be a particularly tricky challenge, but Michel and I needed to take a risk and let the problems iron themselves out as we came up against them. It was time to make a leap of faith, just like we’d done when buying this farm.

All olives ripen green, then change to rose, shades of purple, and black. According to region, this process takes about four months and, once the fruits are ripe, they can be picked at any stage.

Pinhao, spectacularly haltered by terraced vineyards, produces most of the world’s finest ports.

After the first Olive Farm book was published, in 2001 I got a three-book deal with Orion for a large sum of money. Obviously it did not come all at once, but it made the difference to living here on a shoestring to being able to turn the whole place around.

Algeria does not court tourism. It doesn’t need to. It has vast crude-oil resources, equal to Libya’s. Its infrastructure does not accommodate tourists, and there is precious little visitor information – hardly any in English.

Part of the thing about why I wrote memoirs rather than a novel is that if anybody is going to tell my story it is going to be me in my way.

Christmas in the Caribbean, after a tiring flight, may sweep you out of the cold but it’s not a real Christmas, is it?

From September 1914 to August 1918, four major battles were fought along the banks of the River Somme in the region of Picardy, France. These included the 1916 Battle of the Somme, intended to drive the Germans out of France.

Reunion has been nicknamed the Rainbow Isle because it is considered one of the most integrated societies on the planet, and you feel that vibe wherever you go. There is joyousness, warmth and a sense of equality.

Provence, just one relatively small part of France, is almost twice the size of Wales, with double the population. It’s a region of the south that stretches from the borders of Monaco and Italy in the east to Hyeres in the west, the Alps in the north to the sparkling Mediterranean in the south.

It was Captain Cook who christened the Whitsunday Islands while sailing past them in 1770 on what he mistakenly believed was Whitsunday. His calendar was askew, but the name stuck.

Biarritz is world-famous for its surfing. The waves roll high and wild and surfers cross the planet to pit their skills against the swells and curls of these waters.

In my childhood dreams, I pictured Italy as paradise. I longed to be the next Sophia Loren, living in a village with winding cobbled streets where washing hung from windows and everybody gesticulated and shouted amicably. Ah, but life surprises.