Page 52 Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019
by Carol
Drinkwater
outline of the drystone walls with
candles, erecting furniture in the leafy
shade, to protect against the heat of
the midday, mid-year sun.
Lunches were taken beneath the
spreading magnolia, evening meals
under the stars on a higher terrace
from where the Mediterranean and
Lérins Islands are visible.
The party continued for five days;
friends and close family flying in from
points across Europe.
When it was over, and the plates and
extra chairs had been stored, and
Michel and I were alone again, unwind-
ing, we gazed out at the remarkable
view. Another moment in our years
here had been joyously achieved.
I have lived in the South of France —
think cobalt skies, lapping waves,
rocky bays — for almost 35 years. I
came here as a thirtysomething
actress, having fallen in love with a
French producer who proposed to me
in Sydney, Australia, on our first date.
I did not immediately accept Michel’s
offer but, back in Europe, we embarked
on a wonderfully extravagant love
affair that was played out across the
Channel. One weekend in Paris; the
next in my scruffy flat in Kentish Town
in North-West London.
I have written about this heady
romance, which resulted in our
marriage and a dramatic sea-change
for me, in my series of memoirs, The
Olive Farm collection of books.N
O NEEd to go over that
ground again here. Suffice
to say that within months of
our first meeting, we were in
Cannes for the film festival and found
ourselves — recklessly, imprudently —
putting in an offer on this abandoned
olive farm with its crumbling villa and
ivy-infested, sinking swimming pool.
A property we could neither afford
nor had we the means or skills to
resuscitate. At that stage, I dreamed
of renovating it as a holiday home in a
land of forever blue skies, where I
could relax in between film and TV
commitments. Never, in my wildest
dreams, was I thinking of relocation.
However, love, landscape, destiny, fate
(or maybe the wine!) — call it what
you will — had other plans for me.
Once purchased, not a centime
remained to invest in our charming
ruin. Stony broke, we stared at an
empty pool while scorching in high
summer temperatures. We cooked on
the cheapest barbecue, one that
Michel had spotted for 25 francs at a
local hypermarché.
Still, here we were, happy-go-lucky,
in this glorious overgrown kingdom of
ours. Aside from enjoying the
pleasures of being insanely in love —
afternoons out of the heat in a
bedroom cooled by shuttered win-
dows — what else was there to do but
to discover the indigenous plants and
the history of the region.
I read, I wrote, I went walking, we
visited museums. I hiked to the beach
for swims — and to use the
municipality’s free showers.
At that stage, we had no water nor
electricity. A state of affairs that might
have proved frustrating, insteadbecame daily adventures. Hour after
hour of new discoveries.
Who knew that it is the law here in
France for every village to supply at
least one source of free drinking
water? We availed ourselves liberally
of this national hospitality. Every
morning, we descended on foot to
fill two 20-litre canisters from the
village’s flowing fountain, and then
hauled them back up the mountain-
side to provide us with water for
cooking and washing.
We painted the shutters of our
dilapidated villa in blue and
turquoise, echoes of the sea and sky.
I was learning to see colours, to
appreciate the nuances; to take
photographs. To look at the world
through unfiltered eyes. Until I
moved here, I never appreciated
that green was such a wondrously
diverse colour; that leaves could
display so many different shades.
After almost three years of propri-
etorship, Michel and I had earned
sufficient funds to cut back our ten
acres of impenetrable jungle. I will
never forget the day we stood at the
foot of our hillside, side by side, in
awed silence, staring up at a parcel
of steep land that had not seen
sunlight in more than a decade.
The earth was laid bare; the many
features of the hill exposed. Sixty-
eight olive trees, several of themO
NE morning this week, we
enjoyed the first of this year’s
squashy black figs, picked by
my husband, Michel, from the
elephantine tree by the poolwhile I brewed the breakfast coffee.
As we sip our coffee, I casually remark on the
arrival of another cruiser down in the harbour,
visible from our upper terrace. Staring at that
boat is the closest we’ll come today to
negotiating rush-hour traffic.
After all the figs have fully ripened on our
farm overlooking the Bay of Cannes, we’ll start
collecting grapes — if the birds haven’t nabbed
them first — and then comes the olive harvest,
our most precious comestible commodity.
Figs arrive mid-August; olives, half way
though October. Ruby-red cherries the size of
miniature golf balls greet the guests who stay
with us in May for the Cannes Film Festival.
You see, we mark time, the shifting seasons,
by the fruits offered to us by the land. By the
fresh produce on sale in the colourful food
markets. Nature’s clock.
Our shopping excursions take us across the
border into Italy, to the open markets of Ven-
timiglia or Bordighera, where we load up the
car before heading off for pasta on the beach.
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.
Instead, I married a Frenchman and live with
him on an olive farm. Although I still think of
myself as an actress, most of my time is spent
writing novels or memoirs about my adventures
and travels.
Michel recently celebrated a birthday with
a large ‘0’ in it. It was all the more cause forchampagne because, two years ago, he was
diagnosed with a heart condition. A change
of pace was prescribed. Time to slow down.
We bought the olive farm when it was a ruin,
when my French was faltering and Michel’s
twin daughters from his first marriage were
adolescents and refused to exchange a single
word with me in English. If I wanted to com-
municate with them, it had to be in French,
so I enrolled on a course at Nice University.
Those girls are now mothers, with five
offspring between them, including twins.
Several broken relationships trail behind
them, too. The same had been true of me
when I first settled here; the scores of life.
Michel’s daughters — grown into beautiful
women and now two of my dearest friends —
helped with the preparations for their father’s
bash. He is not a man who enjoys ‘fuss’. He
likes quiet and reflection when he is away from
the world of film production, his métier.
Still, surprisingly, he requested a party to
celebrate his new decade. The girls and I had
the best time putting it all together: pressing
mounds of home-grown lemons for lemonade,
stringing lights through the trees, snaking thePics: REX / SHUTTERSTOCK / ALAMY