The Olive Harvest is the sequel to The Olive Farm and The Olive Season, it’s a year in Drinkwater’s life, a very hard year during which she and her husband have a car accident and the olives don’t grow well. Drinkwater is probably best known in this region for being the first person to portray Helen Herriot in the television series All Creatures Great and Small. She did a wonderful job and for this reason alone I had to read her book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style.  She has a laidback style while giving all the information you need and more. It’s a challenging year for her, after the accident her husband becomes very distant to the point of moving to Paris severing as much contact with her as he can but she keeps trying, sometimes sending produce from the farm and sometimes sending notes. The farm is in Provence, her family remained in England so she dealt with all her problems with the aid of the Arabic Monsieur Quashia, some new friends who told her off for not asking for help and her improving French.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  The writing is just perfect. Drinkwater has this ability to describe each scene and make me feel as if I’m there watching her.  She talks about her love of animals, constantly demonstrating this by caring for birds and animals who have been injured and doing her best to avoid having the wild boars, who are causing much damage to her farm, killed but in the end lets the swimming pool clean organise the kill.  She manages to convey her negative emotions of the situation while describing the whole event so that we can see it in our mind’s eye.

During this time she is endeavouring to have her olives accredited so she can sell the oil, it’s challenging to get past bureaucracy and her French husband normally handles that side of things but she is forced to do it herself when he goes to Paris.  Drinkwater does end up having bees on the property and that is a delight to read about, she describes the problems of transporting the bees even telling us how much the hives weigh.

I can’t tell you much more succinctly, you have to read this book. I’m not normally so forceful with books but this is one of those books everyone should read. There may be swear words but I’ve forgotten.