Franglaise Au Sud

The death of journalism

2012-02-14T03:27:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, a great friend of mine was arrested. Twelve police officers carried out a dawn raid at his house, waking him and his family at 7am and searching their house, removing PCs, his mobile phone, passport and documentation. An officer accompanied him to the shower in case he tried to dispose of 'evidence.' Then he was driven to a police station where he spent a whole day being questioned before being released without charge on police bail. His arrest was the lead item on all the weekend news bulletins.

By now you are probably thinking, well, if he is a suspected drug dealer or terrorist, fair enough. My friend is neither. He is a law abiding journalist of some 30 years standing, over two decades of which has been spent writing world exclusive scoops and putting his life at risk reporting from the front line in Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones around the world. He is considered by his colleagues and fellow reporters at rival newspapers to be one of the very best in the business. His work has helped to sell millions of newspapers, making many millions in profit for a certain Mr Murdoch.

Meanwhile the cosy relationships between David Cameron and certain high level Murdoch employees have been elbowed out of the spotlight while the witch hunt at grass roots level continues. It is already part of the biggest police criminal investigation in British history.

'Journalists pay for stories' alert has now been replaced by 'journalists arrested for writing stories' so we had all better hope that there are no more scandals like thalidomide, cash for questions and MPs using taxpayers money to pay for private moats lurking in the establishment shadows because we have now created a toothless gutless press which is too fearful of prosecution to publish.

Two days later, in another part of the UK, Islamic extremist Abu Qatada, described as the spiritual head of the mujahideen in Britain, is released from prison despite warnings that he poses a dangerous and very real threat to national security.

If this was the plot of a Hollywood movie, it would be deemed too far fetched to be true. You really couldn't make it up. The next time I'm asked to mentor a young idealistic student who dreams of writing for the national press, my advice will be to steer well clear of a profession that hangs its own out to dry when the going gets rough and try banking instead.

Snow at last

2012-01-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

There has been no snow all season, which seemed to signal a relaxing non-skiing ski weekend of spas and bars for Handyman at beautiful Foux d’Allos, pictured, in the Var. So you can imagine his distress at reading the snow forecast last Thursday to discover it was due to blizzard from Friday lunchtime onwards. In the words of that old disco classic I Haven't Stopped Laughing Yet (or was it dancing?)

We left Bar sur Loup kitted out with snow socks(a treat for the Jeep,) leaving a huge vat of Thai chicken curry so the girls didn't starve as they opted to stay at home in the rain rather than join the oldies on the slopes. I filled the fridge with appealing foods and not so appealing oven chips and left strict instructions on walking the dogs, feeding the cats and dogs and refilling their water bowl. The last time we left the girls home alone, the dog bowls were bone dry, pardon the pun, when we arrived back and the poor mutts drank for five minutes without stopping. I'm more worried about the survival of the pets than the girls, who will languish in PJs, unwashed, snacking on pizza and chocolate and watching Celebrity Big Brother until we get home.

We arrived to find the sparsest snow in a decade but by Saturday morning, the white stuff was gently falling and it didn’t stop all weekend. Handyman was quietly gutted at the prospect of actually skiing. Some of the printable comments I heard muttered behind me on the slopes were: ‘I feel like I’ve just hiked up the Eiger with a Mini on my back,’ ‘Welcome to hell’, ‘My thighs feel like they have been smashed with giant mallets,’ and on spotting the bodies of powder virgins strewn across the piste below us, ‘It’s like a scene from Casualty.’

He only needs the tiniest incentive to quit skiing for a glass of red in front of a roaring fire at a bar. In fact as we ate pizza and drank wine (him) and champagne (me) at lunchtime, he confessed that if he was with his friends he wouldn't even venture out of the restaurant until closing time. But he was with me. And I came here to ski. At least he remembered his ski jacket this time.

We arrived back at the hotel pleasantly pooped to hear that there had been an earthquake in Liguria which measured 5.3 on the Richter scale and the tremors were felt as far afield as the Var, the Alpes Maritimes….and Fenelon School! Livvy rang to say that her building was shaking so much that a projector fell to the floor and smashed, causing major panic among the students. They evacuated the lycee but poor Issy, who is at the college building down the road, was forced to continue playing ping pong in the gym as everything shook around her! French teachers don’t get fazed by much. I wanted to laugh but given that I was 100 km away from my babies while they endured a minor earthquake, that would make me a very bad momma indeed.

We spent Saturday on un-groomed reds and perfect off-piste powder with virtually no visibility due to continuous snow and low cloud. It was like skiing with a black bag over your head but it was amazing nonetheless and although I was shattered by late afternoon, the hammam and steam room restored me in time for a scrummy supper at the Dahut in town.

The journey home was another story. Three and a half hours in blizzards along snow packed passes and narrow cols with sheer drops to be exact. I’ve experienced some dramatic journeys over the years – hanging off the edge of a sheer drop in Meribel with my precious 15 month old Livvy strapped into her car seat as we teetered precariously and navigating from the Grand Canyon to the Rockies in Colorado in an open top Porsche Carrera on the Bull Run are right up there – but this was something else.

The sat nav inexplicably bypassed snow-free Castellane to take us on am icy climb through medieval villages at the top of the world which would have been gloriously picturesque in the summer but in failing light and snow storms was anything but fun. As we slowed down to put the car back into four wheel drive mode near Greolieres, we started slipping backwards towards a snowy ditch. The signal on our phones went kaput and despite gentle acceleration, the car kept slipping backwards off the road. A very stressed Handyman had to get out and wrestle with the snow socks before we finally managed to get back on the road and creep along the scariest pass of all, some 1000 metres high in driving snow, with a sheer drop on skating rink style roads with not a snow plough in sight.

Fifteen minutes from home, the snow gave way to slush. I have never been so pleased to see rain in my life.

Blue Monday

2012-01-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

Well it's mid January, the most depressing month of the year, and today is officially the most depressing day of the year, which for some reason was designated the third Monday in January by someone who knows about these things.

As days go, I have had more depressing ones, particularly as I started today in bright sunshine with an almond croissant and a large full fat latte.

The past ten days, on the other hand, have been deeply depressing mainly due to the lack of honesty from people who say they are going to do a job for you. Back in October, we decided to have our pool renovated over the winter period ready for spring this year. Many back issues of Cote Sud later, I settled on the perfect look....refurbished dry stone walls, green tiles and lining and chalky white travertine terrace, as seen rather stylishly above.

The work was supposed to take a month...and three months later, we still have an empty pool surrounded by cement mixers, muddy trenches and building materials. The scenario seems to go like this. You engage a builder, he looks at the work, gives you a price and a start date. You part with some cash upfront to buy the materials, the start date comes and goes, no-one shows up, the mobile voicemail says, you can leave a message but I can't retrieve them so I can't call you back, and you are left high and dry until said tradesman decides he might put in an appearance after all.

I'm not sure what is so difficult about just turning up with a diary, checking the date you are free and writing it down and then turning up as arranged. My career has run really effectively on this premise for the last 25 years.

The work started, stopped, started, stopped and after a frustrating ten day hiatus a propos of absolutely nothing, finally restarted again on Saturday. Our pool liner man, the next domino in line, had to have a major operation last week. Coming hot on the heels of the builder who rarely showed up, he arrived on Saturday, ten days later than originally planned, in a neck brace and armed with his hospital scans. If this is a scam to complete another job on the side, it's pretty damn convincing.

As you can see from the photo, it's a long way off the contemporary oasis we envisaged last year. At this rate, we'll be lucky to get it finished by next October, and it's not even the fault of the weather. But when it is finished, the idea of sitting down there in warm sunshine on a lounger and looking across the valley with a glass of rose in hand is deeply comforting.

There is always a positive point of view when you flip it, and the upside is whenever Handyman moots the idea of buying a plot of land and building a house from scratch,which he does at least once a week, I simply laugh hysterically and aim a slap at his idealistic butt once I've picked myself up off the floor. I would rather poke rusty pins in my eyes than embark on a building project here unless we did all the work ourselves. Which is unlikely despite us having every back issue of Grand Designs ever published. It also means we won't be doing our usual, and finishing a house and then selling up before the paint is dry to move onto the next shack, I mean project. So maybe the lax, laidback, diary-free builders have done me a favour after all.

As first months of the year go, this one is pretty damn fine. The weather has been phenomenal, with blue skies and warm sunshine pretty much every day for the past six weeks. It's more like April, in fact it's drier and less windy than many Aprils I can remember here. All we need is some snow for Greolieres and January will be just perfect.

To ski or not to ski?

2011-12-31T00:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas just isn't Christmas unless I see snow and given that we have had the driest, warmest winter since we arrived in France in 2008, there is a significant lack of the white stuff in our local resort Greolieres les Neiges.

So we decided to head up to Isola 2000, a two hour drive away, for a day skiing in the sunshine with Karin and Paul and the boys. Handyman likes to get out of the door as quickly as possible, often waiting impatiently in the car glued to his watch while I 'faff about' checking that we all have gloves, hats, ski boots etc.

So reader you will understand how much I laughed when on arriving at the car park by the ski pass desk yesterday morning, we got out of the car in minus 5 but sunny weather to discover that brainiac had left his ski jacket on the sofa at home in his haste to leave the house and get on the road. A couple of friends pointed out that this is the kind of behaviour one would expect from a teenage girl, who fancied her chances of snaring a new designer jacket at the resort's massively overpriced ski boutique. Indeed, Handyman shares quite a few qualities with the teen breed, chiefly an ability to drink his own bodyweight of whatever alcohol is on tap, throwing a strop if he can't watch the TV show of his choice, namely Top Gear, and an obsession with farting as loudly and as often as possible and exhibiting no shame at this spurious talent.

In his defence, it also has to be said that he is always up at the crack of dawn, tackling any number of household maintenance tasks (he is currently redesigning and renovating the pool) he always brings me my glass of water and lemon and cayenne in bed each morning, he cooks a mean curry and he generally does all of this with a smile on his face.

Off he trotted to the aforementioned rip off joint to be sold their most stylish budget ski jacket at a mere 250 euros (it is replacing the electric drill he covets as an early birthday present) and to complete a successful morning, he also got fleeced spending over 100 euros on a ski helmet for Issy, who took advantage of the incumbent stress to choose the most designer crash helmet on offer. It came in handy when she fell off the steepest part of the drag lift just as I was watching her ascent and thinking 'God I really hope she doesn't fall off.' She rolled down the hill on her butt, with both skis whacking her in the head, later telling me 'Mum I will never ever moan again about wearing a helmet.' Luckily the Raybans that she had 'borrowed' from Livvy without permission also stayed intact, although on seeing photographic evidence of Issy sporting the shades in a photo I bbmed Liv in London to try and elicit some envy, it's questionable whether Issy will remain intact having been threatened with strangulation for the dawn raid on her stuff.

As we got on the first lift of the day, Handyman's observation that we had already spent the equivalent of a return flight to the Caribbean and we hadn't even had lunch yet could not be argued with. Moreover,he added, 'I'd rather be lying on a sun lounger in Barbados than sitting on this bloody lift freezing my tits off. I HATE skiing.' So the new jacket was a great investment. I think my idea of buying a ski lodge in the mountains for winter getaways with the proceeds from my first book needs some more work.

All there is to add is that I had a good time, enjoyed a delicious lunch and a couple of pre New Year glasses of bubbly at the Cow Club, which has set me up perfectly for preparing our New Year's Eve curry extravaganza with friends tonight.

Happy New Year and may 2012 be a healthy, happy fruitful for year for us all.

Christmas cheer

2011-12-21T03:56:00.000-08:00

Festive fact of the day...six people a year die after eating Christmas decorations they mistakenly thought were chocolate. Is this is a case of fatal tinselitis?

Having tried denial on the whole yuletide festivities front, I failed miserably, realising that even though the teen and tween no longer believe in Santa, this doesn't get you off the hook in any way whatsoever. They forced me to ditch the Sunday papers to watch The Santa Clause, which I secretly enjoyed and so began the decking of the house.

The eco tree from Botanic and the LED Habitat tree have been dug out, but still this isn't enough for one member of the family, who berates me every day over the fact that I still haven't bought a real Christmas tree. The fact the last ten days has been a frenzy of socialising in London on our annual pre-Christmas visit followed by entertaining London friends here is lost on her. All that matters is we still haven't bought a tree and it's now December 20th. No matter also that I have no idea where the tree decorations are and given the festive fact above, am not so sure its a good idea to even try and find them. I think the tasteful little number pictured above should be enough.

So far it has been a far less stressful preamble to the big day than usual. I think I may have come up with a blueprint for how to do it minus the grief while also enjoying basking in a eco glow of smugness. Any resemblance to a certain Dickens character is purely coincidental.

1. Instead of buying gazillions of presents for the rugrats to open under the tree, rely on the generosity of other present givers and just buy one big present each. This equals five minutes wrapping and only one tree branch worth of Christmas paper as opposed to five days and a South American rainforest.

2. Tell everyone you are donating to charity instead of sending out Christmas cards to people you no longer see or even realise are still friends until you check last years dog-eared Christmas card list. Alleviates all guilt of receiving a card from someone you thought was dead on Christmas Eve when it's too late to send one back. Moving to another country works quite well too although it is a bit extreme.

3. For the tricky dilemma of what to buy the person who already has eveything, head to Selfridges and buy a gift card which comes in a smart box with ribbon and a glossy yellow bag wrapped by a man who makes Rowan Atkinson's sales assistant in Love Actually look slapdash. I spent 15 minutes Christmas shopping for tricky to buy people this year, the rest of the time can be spent at the Champagne bar celebrating how easy it was.

4. For food shopping, forget braving the traffic and queues of angry motorists huntng for car parking at some ungodly hour of the morning and head instead to Leclerc (or Waitrose) at lunchtime on Christmas Eve when every other shopper has vacated the area to start their Christmas shenanigans....no queues, freshly stocked shelves and a speedy exit via the empty tills. You may even bag a bargain as the stores try and offload everything they fear they'll be stuck with.

5. Failing all of this, you could just come to my house where Handyman will be dominating the kitchen and the port supply on Christmas morning while I unwrap pressies with the girls, get stuck into the Ruinart that is quietly chilling in the wine fridge and singalong to Cliff, Wham and Kirsty and the Pogues on a never ending loop.

Merry Christmas tout le monde.

The Street of Shame

2011-11-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

So Fleet Street’s finest rolled into town and it’s fair to say I have not stopped laughing since they arrived, or since they left, at the ridiculous antics. Being former Sun journalists, albeit before mobile phones had even been invented lest anyone tars us with the same brush as the hacks who are currently hanging their heads in shame, we held our own Leveson inquiry chez moi, fuelled with Champagne rather than tap water. Forget phone hacking, you would be amazed at how many money grabbing family members sell their own celebrity sons and daughters, brothers and sisters down the river for a sheckle from Mr Murdoch and others.

Handyman said it was just like having his mates to stay, except mine are louder, drunker, more coarse and vulgar than any of his friends. Life chez Hockney has resumed to its normal, serene state...yoga in the sunshine, green tea, peace, cleanliness...and is all the more boring for it.

Here are the heavily edited highlights from the Street of Shame, which temporarily located to the sleepy rural backwater of Bar sur Loup for three nights only, not nearly long enough. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

* Angela announcing to anyone in earshot that she 'doesn’t really drink anymore' and was 'really dreading that first glass of red wine as I just don’t fancy drinking.' Akin to the Pope saying he doesn’t really pray much these days. Then slamming her glass down on the kitchen bar empty with alarming regularity and feigning distress as I refilled it, only for it to be slugged with gusto.

* Clara guffing and burping like a navvy, blaming the dogs for any errant smell, refusing to move off the sofa, and cadging a refill off anyone who was on their way to the fridge, and showing no shame at requesting wine top ups from both the (underage) girls.

* Clara insisting on kissing me and Sazzle goodnight despite the fact we had been puking for hours in the hope she might catch food poisoning and proclaiming that it was 'unfair' that we were the lucky bitches with a bug while she was just going to have to keep all her calories and not dispel them down the toilet.

* Clara sitting on the stairwell on Sunday night while tending to the sick, and reassuring Iain that the only reason she wasn’t joining him downstairs was so she was on hand to change our sick buckets. She later confessed to one patient that she daren't go downstairs because her gastronomic wind was making even her feel sick.

* The girls eschewing the lovely French boulangeries and trying to sabotage my gluten free sugar free cupboards with a supermarket-bought preservative-filled E number savvy long-life chocolate cake while rebelliously proclaiming 'Long live Mr Kipling'. Even the sugar addicted junk food loving teens won’t go near it.

Three cheers for bad behaviour.

Never trust a man in lycra

2011-11-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

After a week of rain, and not just rain but biblical, wash-everything-away rain, the sun returned as did the warm spring like temperatures and we decided to go to the beach for lunch. We took the hounds with us now that the beach ban on dogs is over for winter, and started the coast walk from la Napoule to Port de la Rague.

You can see from the photos that the beach did not look its usual pristine style. The storms have battered the coast to such an extent that the usually fine golden sand was completely invisible under a barrage of driftwood, bamboo, flotsam and jetsam and even the odd fridge and armchair. It looked a bit like a riot scene from London last summer minus those naughty looters. We’ve had some storms here but I’ve never seen anything like this. I even saw surfers at Sainte-Maxime three weeks ago, which means handyman and I may have to retire there with a surfboard at some point in the future.

Lunch at le Repere was fantastic; sitting on the deck in warm November sunshine with a glass of champagne, a beautiful sea bass with tabouleh, rounded off by a crisp chocolate ganache, can a Sunday get any better?

As well as the bizarre weather, we have also had some classic one-liners from the youngest member of the house. The other day she finished her chat with Livvy with the cruel and cutting: ‘I’m so much taller than you, I could just step on you like road kill.’ Thankfully we are all very thick-skinned, a necessity when you live with the female equivalent of Peter Kay.

We had a Premier Mardi meeting last Tuesday at the new deli and cafe in Valbonne, La Pomme Rouge. Kate Adams has given the place a fabulous facelift and it’s simply furnished, serving coffee and tea as well as breakfast, lunch and occasional evening tapas. Always good to see someone do something different, especially in Valbonne. Le Kashmir Indian restaurant is going great guns, packed to the rafters throughout the week with as many French diners as spice hungry ex-pats so hopefully Kate will also find a niche and a regular flow of customers.

My fellow blogger extraordinaire Chris France has just published his first book, Summer in the Cote d’Azur. If sales are anything like as successful as the recent launch party in Valbonne, then Chris looks set to clean up where Peter Mayle left off.

One of the most memorable meals for some time was at Shan and Tony’s glorious pad last Thursday. We gave the Kashmir a run for their money with a dazzling array of home cooked curries but the talking point was the Piste 2 Plage bike ride next year in aid of Help for Heroes, which Al and Susie are gamely organising. It’s a 450k journey through some of the highest cols in Europe, a couple of which are previous Tour de France routes ridden by the likes of Lance Armstrong. We are going to scale heights as high as Everest, which means some serious training from next spring onwards.

Tony has been talked into taking part. Let me tell those of you who have the misfortune not to know Tony what makes him tick. Tony is a man who spent a fortune transforming an outbuilding into a beautiful, state of the art gym complex complete with cinema size plasma screen right next to his pool but cannot remember the last time he went in there. Or indeed the first time either. In his Hong Kong apartment, he christened his spare room the Pointless Purchase room and used it for storing running machines, rowing machines, juicers and other spontaneously bought gadgets that never made it out of the packaging. The other day, we put the world to rights on health, fitness and the dangers of too much alcohol while I drank green tea and he supped beer with red wine chasers. I think you get the picture.

Suffice it to say, he was furiously back peddling as he knocked back the red and started talking of lending his support to the support vehicles rather than taking part in the challenge. When he was shouted down by Al, Susie and the rest of us, many of whom have also signed up, he disappeared, only to reappear in a skin-tight lycra cycling suit, which along with his brand spanking new mountain bike has never yet seen the light of day.

I wish I had a photo but you will just have to trust me when I say that it was a sight to behold, especially the lengthy zip that he kept whizzing up and down rather alarmingly. I laughed so hard my mascara ran down my face, which was also an attractive sight and second only to Lycra Larry. It was decided that if only for laughter and entertainment value, Tony has to take part, and to hell with his high blood pressure and all the other ailments he keeps trying to use as valid excuses. I for one will be making sure I cycle slow enough to enjoy his company and his zip prowess.

My next project is to make Oscar a YouTube star and us millionaires. People are raking in the bucks putting on home-made video clips of Charlie bit my finger. It sounds pretty boring to me, you can come and watch the girls in a violent bitch slapping catfight any night of the week chez moi, but it has been watched 386 million times. How successful would my Oscar video be if I filmed him head-butting the TV screen and barking rabidly at black people, gays, the disabled, wheelchair users and bald men, in fact any individual who is not a WASP? He's even started having a go at Fatima Whitbread on I'm a Celebrity, who probably fits a couple of the criteria above. I’m calling it Reservoir Dogs. The money is already in the bank.

Wintry weather

2011-11-07T04:22:00.000-08:00

One of the things I really love about living in the South of France is there are no half measures with the weather. If it’s hot, it’s immensely hot, with clear blue skies and relentless sunshine for months on end. And when it rains, it doesn’t just drizzle or half heartedly shower here and there, it really comes down like the end of the world is nigh. We have had three days of relentless stair rod style rain, where the prospect of even stepping out of the door feels you with dread.

I remember reading once that Nice has as much rainfall annually as London. I pooh poohed this idea, especially when we lived in the UK, but now realise it's true. I just didn't grasp that it all falls in the space of about two weekends a year.

My grip on weather patterns causes much hilarity in our house. When I check the weather forecast, I always tap in 'Cannes' which is 35 minutes away, rather than 'Grasse' which is a mere 10 minute drive from our house, because the forecast for Cannes is always better. I call it keeping the glass half full. Handyman calls it delusional. Yet, nine times out of 10, I'm right.

I do like to dress up the facts. This is something I never did when working at The Sun, obviously, but when we left the UK, I made a poster for our leaving party which declared 'Au revoir Potters Bar, bienvenue Bar sur Loup.' I spent weeks smugly taking photos of my wellies outside the back door, queues of traffic in rain drenched Darkes Lane and Tallullah soaking wet after yet another weekend soaking in Northaw Great Wood to illustrate the Potters Bar end of the deal.

Contrast this with the pictures of the Gorges de Loup view from Mas St Michel, vistas of snow capped mountains, skiers enjoying a chocolat chaud in sunny Greolieres and wide open Atlantic beaches drenched in sunshine (ok, this pic was a touch wide of accuracy as Biarritz is not exactly the Riviera, although it is still technically the South of France, a mere six hour drive west) and funnily enough, not one partygoer asked why we were leaving, they merely asked if they could come too.

More than 800 people have been evacuated this weekend for fear of landslides, making our leak upstairs seem not very traumatic by comparison. The only sensible thing to do was stay in, light the candles, watch old movies and cook a huge roast chicken and bake lovely sugar free cookies and apple and pear crumble with my new natural sugar substitute Xylitol, which looks and tastes just like naughty refined white sugar and hence like it should be incredibly bad for you but is made from the bark of the birch tree so could almost be counted as one of your five a day. It's licence to eat all the stuff you usually feel guilty about.

We did try and venture out with the dogs to the Valmasque forest for a walk, but even they couldn't believe we were making them trek through six inch puddles in torrential storms. At one point, Tallulah stopped dead and refused to take one more step. Oscar stood beside her, piggy tail uncurled which always signifies despondency, shaking with cold. So the proposed ramble was cut short to 15 minutes and we all raced back to the car. They looked much happier once we got home and Oscar was able to settle down and watch David Attenborough in the warm.

The downside of such violent storms is not being able to go out for a run. I had to wait until today, when the warm sunshine finally returned, to put on my trainers. I did half an hour on the flat, and after a slothful summer am aiming to build up to three 40 minute runs a week. I let my iPod play on shuffle and ended up listening to great tunes that all had their own memories.

Calvin Harris’s Ready for the Weekend and Eric Prydz’s Pjanoo remind me of Sarah and I getting ready for a mad night clubbing at Le Palais in Cannes (the anticipation was actually better than the reality, which was hundreds of 17 year olds getting wasted on vodka and Red Bull to a soundtrack of pumping electro dance music...naturally we left them to it) The Ting Ting’s That’s Not My Name recalled the Parker and Kershaw clans having a pizza night chez nous and dancing round the house to the amusement of all the teens and Kings of Leon made me smile at the thought of zipping around Lake Maggiore in a speedboat, stopping at Stresa for prosecco and proper Italian ice cream.

Hyeres we come

2011-11-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have to start today by sharing the funny little quote that the youngest member of the family came out with as I gently reminded her of the 101 jobs she has to do before school resumes tomorrow. 'Mum, you are sooo annoying, you are like my talking to do list.' I'm sure she meant it as an insult but it just made me laugh.

It's been a while since I blogged, have had lots on over the last month or so, but I'm back. We have been out and about a lot, the highlight being a trip to Hyeres and the stunning Ile des Porquerolles.

We have been talking about going there all summer but have to say that seeing it unadorned by hundreds of tourists in October was probably better than going in the height of summer. The beaches were deserted and the hotel we chose, the Hotel Bor, was everything you could possibly want...right on the beach, with a fabulous deck leading straight from our bedroom, an oyster bar, minimalist but comfortable rooms and to die for views.

I preferred the little surf hang out of La Capte rather than Hyeres town itself, which is a typical French town with the usual glut of tourist shops. La Capte, by contrast, was very casual, with great little bars and cafes hidden in the backstreets just behind the beach and had an almost Balinese vibe about it. La Bastide, right on the beach, offered fantastic lunches, an open fire inside for cooler evenings and great wines by the glass. We'd have gone back for dinner that night if it wasn't fully booked.

Instead we ended up at le Provencal, the only duff recommendation of the trip, which was like being in a scene from Fawlty Towers. Picture a faded seaside hotel, with a dining room that hasn't seen a paintbrush for about 40 years, and a dessert trolley and you are getting the picture. It was pitch dark so the view, which is perhaps the only reason people flock there, was non-existent. The food was OK but expensive and every time our waitress walked past she dropped something, smashed something or tripped over, which made the evening quite entertaining.

We hired bikes and set off for the Ile des Porquerolles, which looks a little like a Maldive that has been thrown into the Med. The heart of the village is full of cool cafes, bars and restaurants include L'Oustaou, a B&B with a great restaurant where we tucked into seafood and a cheeky glass of LP. We cycled past beautiful beaches, through pine forests and up a few hills and ended up on a beautiful stretch of coastline for a swim and sunbathe before catching the ferry back to Hyeres. The snorkelling here is among the best in France and there are no cars on the island, just bikes and golf buggies, which make it an absolute must for a return visit next year.

Maybe the best bit of all was leaving the rugrats at home for a weekend. They were quite happy watching The Only Way Is Essex and X Factor on a loop, not getting dressed and taking themselves out for a pizza for lunch.

Happiness

2011-09-26T03:33:00.000-07:00

So the weather is still amazing, hot, sunny, but cooler at night. Definitely the best time of year on the Cote d'Azur. Sorry, am not meaning to rub my UK readers noses into this joyful fact but I did at least choose to write this on a day when you too are enjoying lovely weather.

I have a new writing project underway at the moment. It is a fairly sudden development, borne out of some unusual circumstances, and no more than that can I say at the moment. But what I can say is that I have been surprised to find that amazing material can come out of even the most negative of situations. It also serves to remind me of exactly why I became a writer, because apart from the joy of seeing something you have written read and hopefully enjoyed by millions of readers, writing is a very cathartic and personal experience.

I am reading a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It's about finding happiness and the writer's quest to devote herself to the pursuit of happiness for one year. Sounds fairly unremarkable doesn't it, except you start reading and it really makes you analyse how you live your life. It's also great to read bits and think, hmm I do x already, but actually I could start do y and see if it made a difference. It's not rocket science but sometimes we have to take ourselves back to the simple stuff to find a better way forward. On a far more shallow level, the picture above of my new Gucci shoe boots from Florence makes me quite happy, and I will be even happier when I'm wearing them.

I have decided to stop feeling guilty about the time I spend not working, and use it to enjoy my time without manically checking my BlackBerry for work emails/unimportant minutae. I started this new approach on Friday when I went to the beach on my own for the day. I had plenty I could have been doing, but nothing urgent, so I swam in the sea, ate a beautiful salad, drank lots of water and read The Happiness Project. The only irritation was a jellyfish sting....there were only a couple of the blighters in the bay but one found me as usual. The plagiste Steve arrived with vinegar and swabs so it wasn't all bad.

I also went for a long swim in the Bay of Cannes early yesterday morning with some of the girls. The water was like a millpond, so still and calm, and it was totally uplifting. Not even the headache of diversions all around Cannes extending my half hour ride home to 1hr 20 could take away from the loveliness of it all.

I also discovered a book called Surf Mama, which arrived this week, about a 42-year-old artist who discovers surfing, moves her three kids with her to Biarritz and sets up the surf mamas group. Wilma sounds like my kind of girl. We exchanged messages on her blog and her book is sitting alongside How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran (which Handyman found excruciating to ask for at WH Smiths much to the amusement of the queue behind him) Peter Kay's new comi-biography, Waterlog, about one man's swimming journey through the rivers and waterways of Britain, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Elizabeth David's mediterranean inspired food eulogy A Taste of the Sun.

The book says find your own Happiness Project...and I am.

Starry starry night

2011-09-13T05:38:00.000-07:00

However hard I say I work, there are doubting Thomases in my family who regularly challenge this fact. The girls' favourite riposte to a hard day's slog at my PC is usually along the lines of, 'So mum, how many journos holidays did you say yes to today?' When I point out that these so-called journos holidays are press trips, where one is required to dress up, do some research on interviewees and perhaps hop on the occasional plane to a five star hotel, the sarcastic laughter drowns out any further response.

The Montblanc Princess Grace Foundation Gala in Monaco was one such event last week that earned me short shrift along with jealous, withering glances and that was just from the Handyman. Having accepted Juliet's invitation to cover the event for Hello I found myself sitting in chauffeur driven luxury in an official Montblanc car from Bar sur Loup to the very swanky Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel where I met the lovely Katie from This is Mission PR who was looking after the event.

As I am more used to driving myself to events, the journey itself was as much a treat as the rest of the evening. And what a night it was. I had the full experience, being papped on the red carpet as I walked in with Amy from You magazine, the photographer's blank faces betraying the fact that we are nobodies. Champagne at the Monte-Carlo Opera, where I chatted to Eva Herzigova and Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, was followed by a lyrical performance by Bryn Terfel, an amazing soprano called Diana Damrau and Rufus and Martha Wainwright in the presence of Prince Albert, Princess Charlene (who wasn't crying and looked quite happy to be there) and Princess Caroline. There was one awkward moment just before the royals arrived when a clearly impatient member of the audience started slow clapping and shouting for the evening start. PA's security people quickly had her removed and left everyone wondering whether she was marched off to Monte-Carlo's version of Traitor's Gate.

After the performance, where I spotted Jerry Hall wearing a necklace worth more than most people's houses, Daryl Hannah and Natalie Imbruglia, more Champagne was imbibed (taking full advantage of the fact that I didn't have to drive home) as we admired the collection of jewellery designed by Montblanc to raise funds for Princess Grace's Foundation-USA. A little chat with Olivia Palermo and her humungously handsome boyfriend Johannes Huebl was followed by supper at the Hotel de Paris and a chat with Aussie actress Naomi Watts, who despite being jet lagged was charming and very chatty, telling me how she is criss-crossing Europe to promote her new movie J Edgar Hoover with my Cannes party host Leo diCaprio and Clint Eastwood. Just to clear up any confusion, the pap shot above is me, not Naomi, Eva or Olivia.

We finally repaired to the hotel at 2am with goodie bags containing Montblanc sunglasses and a corsage (don't get excited, it's a large flower) after what can only be described as a totally luxe night. If you are still keen to hear more, my piece is in this week's edition of Hello, and after writing it, I felt it only right to enjoy breakfast on the terrace before a swim and lunch at the Cafe de Paris with Katie and Amy. Right on cue, my driver arrived and delivered me complete with a mild hangover and a head full of showbiz goss back to what passes for normality at Chemin du Laquet. Today I spent my morning cleaning the dirt off the white leather sofas....nothing like a bottle of Jif and a sponge cloth to bring you back to earth with an almighty bump.

Home at last

2011-09-02T04:35:00.000-07:00

So we left Florence and after a traffic-laden seven hour journey, we finally arrived home in Bar sur Loup after five weeks away. No matter how good a time you have had, getting home to your own bed and four adoring pets is always a highlight. The view above is one I never tire of although Issy, 12 going on 22, begs to differ.

The tourists have gone home, the sun is still shining and finally the Cote d'Azur is back to being less busy, with space to park, eat out and sit on the beach without feeling like a sardine tightly packed in a tin. It's my favourite time of the year.

We celebrated our return with a little soiree as so many friends have been over visiting from the UK. The food was a little bit of Puglia...mozzarella, salads, parma ham, grilled chicken, griddled aubergines and courgettes...and the wine flowed.

By chance, my first boss JR was staying at his house near St Tropez so he came over too. We laughed at the story of how as a young, green, enthusiastic trainee reporter I had begged and pleaded with him for my first job at Fleet Street News Agency in Exmouth Market. He let me state my case in his office about how hard I would work, for the princely trainee sum of £65 a week, and what an asset I would be before fixing me with a look and asking: 'Give me one good reason why I should train you up only for you to settle down, get married and have babies?' He'd never get away with that now!

So although the hols were strictly speaking over, I had a cheeky extension of about a week while Sarah, Norma and Karen were still around, telling myself that August is a write off month for working really. Lunch at Vegaluna, supper at L'Ecole des Filles, where Stephane's flair for making something amazing from locally sourced ingredients is earning him rave reviews from all over the Riviera, a lazy Sunday lunch at the Rose's, dinner at Pat and Tony's in Plascassier along with Issy and Chris France,fellow blogger and teller of extraordinary and amusing tales, and many swims at the beach have perfectly rounded off the month.

Now that September has arrived, so too has the new school term, signalling the end of an almost three month break for two girls who have to swap midday lie-ins for the 7am school bus. The mood in the house is becoming greyer by the day, especially since Livvy's lovely boyfriend Rob left to go home last night after four days with us.

Just as my heart was sinking at the thought of a proper routine again, I had a call from lovely Juliet at Hello asking me to cover a glitzy bash in Monaco next week. And with plans for a working holiday to Coachella in Palm Springs next Easter already well underway, along with some light shopping in West Hollywood and surfing at Venice Beach to lighten the load, the future is looking quite rosy.

The devil wears Prada...and so do I

2011-08-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

The best kept secret in Florence is housed in a nondescript grey factory building in a quiet village south of the city. Space is the factory outlet for Prada and Miu Miu and is fashion mecca for any style conscious designer or wearer.

With promises of massive discounts on end of season, end of line and even ranges that never made it onto the shop floor, it's too tempting to pass up. Even though the day we arrived it was shut, we rushed back the next morning to grab a ticket which allows you to browse...or sweep crazily...through the outlet grabbing whatever takes your fancy. We arrived 35 mins before opening time and still our tickets said 90-92 and the queue in 35 degrees of heat snaked into the car park before the doors opened to the stampede.

It was like the first day of Harrods sale and it's fair to say the Japanese tourists were the most excited ...one tiny girl got a mouthful of abuse from the burly Italian man she was shoving in order to get through the door. There's method in her madness, in Tokyo, prices are virtually double what we pay in Europe.

So was it worth it? Even Issy, who dragged herself out of bed at an ungodly hour to come, thought so.I bought a Miu Miu wallet and a pair of Miu Miu leather thong sandals while Handyman bought a jacket, jeans and a hoodie, outspending me! But our purchases were outshone by the Japanese who rampaged around grabbing bags and purses like their lives depended on it. The girl in front of me spent two grand on two bags and two wallets while Iain saw two guys straight out of Pulp Fiction who bought ten pairs of shoes each!

The great thing is, you can touch everything and not feel intimidated or have three assistants by your side giving you evils if you dont buy. The Mall at Leccio, in the Tuscan hills just outside Florence, is also worth a visit...Gucci new season at 50% off, Hogan, YSL, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and many more. By this point the temperature had risen to 43 degrees and my Amex card was feeling the heat.

We spent a lovely day in Lucca yesterday exploring the walled city before enjoying a long lunch at Paulette and Nick's beautiful stone house in Pescaglia. Today is our last day in Florence, so we are off to the Dali/Rodin exhibition by the river then onto lunch at the Golden View restaurant, with a fabulous position overlooking the Ponte Vecchio. There are some great restaurants here, and others which cater solely, and rather soullessly, for the tourist market, which is in stark contrast to Puglia.

One of the best so far is La Cantinetta in Via Borgo... we have eaten there twice. It looks like a deli at the front but don't be fooled, they have a great wine list by the glass as well as the bottle, home cooked food - the bruschetta with pomodorini and vegetable lasagne were fabulous and Handyman rated the pork with rocket and parmesan. They only opened four months ago but they are consistently busy and service is among the best we have found in Italy.

When in Rome...

2011-08-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a holiday in an unspoilt region of Italy where the people welcome you with open arms, the food is simple, local and delicious and the scenery breathtaking, then Puglia is your spot.

We spent a gorgeous day at the Masseria Torre Coccaro beach club, which took St Tropez’s Club 55 as its inspiration and managed to outshine it. A beautiful stretch of Adriatic coastline, with an azur blue sea, lovely sunbeds and waiters who will bring a chilled glass of prosecco to the beach makes this the perfect spot. Vittorio, the owner, also runs Torre Maizza nearby and told me the secret of his success is not promoting his hotels but letting the service and setting do all the talking. It works. His land also yields olives, olive oil, artichokes and other produce which has a mere few steps to travel from picking to serving.

We also tried Al Fornello da Ricci, reputedly the best restaurant in the region, run by Antonella Ricci and her husband Vinod. Lily Allen was at the table next to us, not that this mattered as all eyes were on the food which was cooked and served by Antonella in her beautiful garden. The antipasto, with stuffed courgette flowers, fava bean paste, simple fine griddled zucchini with mint and melanzane, was unforgettable.

We left with heavy hearts promising to go back as there is still so much to explore. At Cassino we visited the war graves where Jean’s father is buried having lost his life in the battle of Cassino in WWII along with thousands of other allied servicemen. The graves where unknown soldiers were buried made the trip even more poignant, with gravestones bearing the inscription: ‘A soldier of the 1939 – 1945 war known unto God.’

Onwards to Rome and we spent a fantastic day yesterday at the Colosseum and Palatina, which is the original birthplace of ancient Rome 2,750 years ago. Fascinating. By the way, the strange looking specimen at the bottom of the picture is not Iain with a wig on... Dinner at the cool Antica Enoteca wine cave was followed by an amazing performance of live opera at the foot of the Spanish steps last night, where renditions of La Vie en Rose, Nessun Dorma and songs from other famous operas had the crowd in a frenzy. Except for Issy who, spotting the TV cameras recording the performance, said, ‘Come on, you can watch this back at the hotel on YouTube.’

Italia Part One

2011-08-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

So we left France in the midst of an unpredictable summer for the sunnier southern climes of Italy. It's amazing how quickly the pretty French Riviera coast give way to the industrial parks and greenhouse clad hills of the northern Italian coast but it isn't long before the distinctly industrial landscape turns into the prettier Ligurian coast, home of Santa Margarita, Sestri Levante and Cinque Terre. Then it was into Tuscany past Florence, Chianti and Orvieto through Umbria and into Lazio.

This might be a generalisation but Italian drivers seem to have a death wish, driving two metres behind your bumper at 130 kph weaving, lights flashing, overtaking on the inside, cutting in and virtually slicing the side of the nearside bumper as they jump in, which brings out the worst in any normally quite sane driver....

We approached the toll after nine hours on motorways expecting to pay a large wedge of euros but miraculously the barrier was inexplicably up so we sailed through without paying a dime! Happy days!

After two rainstorms, 40 degrees of heat and two terrible service station stops, we reached Formia, between Rome and Naples, at teatime. Bufala mozzarella is the speciality of the region with tiny farm shops on the side of the road selling only that...a little local farmer sold me four huge hunks for 8 euros and threw in a small one to taste which was divine.

We went to a fab little trattoria il Gatto e la Volpe for supper, where we tucked into octopus and potatoes, fritto polipi, pasta with swordfish and olives, gnocchi with clams, pasta fagioli with mussels and good old grilled chicken with peppers. Along with a bottle of prosecco and dessert, the bill came to a very un-Riviera total of 93 euros.

After breakfast and a swim at the hotel, (thank you Trip Advisor, 2/2 so far) the journey continued. Cutting across country from Naples to Bari, you drive through lush dramatic mountain ranges which resemble Hawaii more than southern Italy.

As well as being one of the poorest areas of Italy, Puglia is also conversely one of the most gastronomic regions, with basic ingredients being given a twist to make them more palatable and interesting by the great mamma cucinas. So at Trattoria Piazza Plebiscito, we enjoyed antipasti with tempura aubergines, griddled courgettes with mint, mashed fava beans with spinach, local tiny mozzarella knots, mussels with peppers and tomato, the list goes on and on...

Norma has been unable to order a glass of Prosecco since arrival. She usually asks for a glass of proscuitto or a glass of bruschetta, as long as it has three syllables and ends in a vowel it passes for a glass of Italian bubbly. As she says, there is no end to her language talents.

The stone house we rented is just phenomenal...comfortable, uber-stylish and well equipped. We have a daily routine of finishing on the cabanas by the pool, pictured above, with a bottle of Prosecco every evening in the sunshine. That photo is the reason we booked the house, it ticks the cool contemporary vibe while being surrounded by five acres of olive groves, giving us all the privacy any hermit could possibly desire.

On our second night here, we were greeted by Francesco walking up the drive with some friends. He grew up here and what he doesn't know about our village Ceglie Messapica and Puglia in general isn't worth knowing. He wanted to show his friends the grotto in the garden, which goes 52 metres deep and was a hide-out for persecuted Byzantine monks in the 7th Century. There is a fresco of Christ as well as the local saint San Michele on the walls.

The Norm and I have been running every other day. It's very hot, 36 degrees is not unusual, so we have to go by 8am and now she has set this amazing TRX gym equipment thing in the garden which uses your own body as resistance. It's very clever and a bit like boot camp so not quite what I had planned for my hols but my body will be a temple by the time I leave!

Puglia is everything we hoped for and more...the people are so friendly and hospitable I'm even picking up a bit of Italian much to the girls horror! Today I booked a restaurant table for tonight without lapsing into French, English or double dutch much to Tony and handyman's amusement but they soon shut up when I told them they can take it in turns to book in future.

We have adopted a kitten called Bella, she eats swordfish, scambled eggs, smoked salmon and every other leftover every morning and loves us. In fact, she is my Oscar substitute.

So far we have visited Martina Franca, a beautiful baroque town nearby which is worth coming to Puglia on its own, Lecce, known as the Florence of the south, Ostuni (in last week's Grazia as the cool hang out and yes it lives up to the hype although it's a little touristy too), Gallipoli, a bit disappointing and good old Ceglie, which is the gastro heart of the region. With that in mind, we have bribed the teens with fish finger burgers and pesto pasta salad to stay home and have a movie night while we sample the local Michelin starred Cibus, one of the most celebrated restaurants of the region. Hello bacchanalian feast, goodbye waistline.....

The best laid plans....

2011-07-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has never holidayed with us, it is an experience simply not to be missed. There's always plenty of excitement, run-ins with authority and drama and Monday was just one more example of this. We decided to have a barbecue on the beach at Theoule. I have seen lots of people having barbecues on the sandy stretch leading into Cannes in previous summers so supposed that as long as we were quite careful, we would be fine.

Milly suggested Aiguille at Theoule, far away from roads and prying eyes, just along from the beach restaurant. So we arrived, lugging cool bags filled with fish kebabs, marinated chicken, prawns, lush salads and a bottle of two of wine. We took our disposable barbie, while Paul, not realising it wasn't wise to leave this purchase until the last minute, had to buy two scaled down proper barbecues as the disposable ones had ran out, as well as a huge bag of charcoal.

Lighting them in the escalating winds was a challenge but soon the flames were licking over the sides, glasses were chinking and children were enjoying the almost empty beach while we watched a beautiful sunset and contemplated putting the food on.

Alas it wasn't to be....Three burly police municipale sped up in a van looking menacing and suddenly it was game over. Despite our best efforts to bribe them with a sausage, they made us chuck sand all over them (the barbies, not the cops) because of forest fire risks. As you can see from the picture above, fire risks were minimal. Even Eleanor, who is a reincarnation of Carmela from The Sopranos, couldn't crack them despite her best efforts to flirt and joke, so €200 of food went back in the cool bags (which by now were no longer cool) and we had to slope off to the local restaurant as a small group of French picnickers sniggered smugly nearby.

We are convinced the nearby restaurant shopped us, spying 17 extra covers if they could rain on our parade and get us to eat there instead so we stoically marched past laden down like donkeys as Handyman loudly relayed the completely made up tale of how he had suffered chronic food poisoning the last time he ate there. At least we were forced to try a new eaterie on the water before Marco Polo, where the moules were probably the best I've ever had in France so all was certainly not lost.

I have a feeling the French and English Rivieras have been mysteriously swapped by aliens as we have been under grey clouds since yesterday and walloped by torrential rain today. This isn't July as we know it and frankly 40 degrees in the Italian south is sounding very attractive given that the girls have stolen the only capri pants, jeans and hoodie that I packed so my day has been spent freezing in summery cutdowns and trawling the net to find a great little place to stay en route to Puglia on Friday night.We have settled on Formia, just south of Rome on the coast, at a boutique hotel with a cool pool, an even cooler bar and a position on the coast just outside the medieval heart of the town.

After numerous hotel/restaurant disasters over the years, I have decided to eschew bland motorway motels and questionable establishments on the edge of industrial estates and red light districts and be, for once, the most well researched traveller Italy has ever seen. I am going with the highest rated picks on Trip Advisor from fellow Italian travellers. The fact that I can speak no Italian is of little importance as long as they have marked the place with five stars and mentioned bellisimmo and splendido a few times in their review. It's a risky strategy and you will know in three weeks time if it has paid off as our entire road trip to Puglia, Rome, Florence, Lucca and Formia is resting on this plan.

Superyachts, Seal and seriously good fun

2011-07-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

I have been following the developments at News International with horror. It’s a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion. Seeing Neil 'Wolfman' Wallis, my old features editor, arrested and become the catalyst for the resignation of the two top dogs at the Met was surreal enough but events took a very tragic turn with the death of Sean Hoare yesterday. We worked together on the showbiz desk at The Sun and despite the dark turns his life took after that period in the early 1990s, I remember him as a funny, genuinely nice newspaper guy who was kind and had a good heart. Very strange to see my old stamping ground right up there making headlines as shocking and sensational as any of the scandals we ever unearthed.

So, the girls spent two weeks in London and I can’t pretend it wasn’t a little bit of a holiday for me too. No mess, no screechy hormone-driven hissy fits or shuffling around unwashed in pyjamas until late afternoon, just peace, tranquility and a house an OCD sufferer would have had trouble finding fault with. I missed them, and they missed me (I think) but as all my friends were going into meltdown about the long stretch of school summer hols that lie ahead, it was blissful to know that they were off having fun while I worked, relaxed, socialised and had some time to myself. Made me laugh when they started asking what handyman and I were having for supper every night…I think takeaways lost their allure after a week or so and they couldn't wait to get home for a proper cooked meal.

I had to ask my friend Karen, who has four lovely kids aged between 20 and 12, if it was weird not to miss your children painfully after two weeks. She told me that she thinks we have done such a good job of bringing them up and being there for them that we reach a point where they need us less and it all feels perfectly natural for them to flee and for us to have some quality time without them. That day is probably not so far off for Livvy, who is planning to go back to the UK to study at the end of lycee in three years time. I’m hoping Issy might wait a few years before I have to deal with empty nest syndrome but I think a two week sojourn to break up the ridiculous 11 week summer break is going to be a permanent fixture chez Kershaw.

They arrived home with piercings (ears - Issy, belly button – Livvy), dirty washing and a desire to once again sit in their rooms on their PCs Facebooking all their friends rather than seeing them in the flesh.

The highlight of last week, apart from the girls returning (this turned quickly into a lowlight when they embarked on a screaming row within an hour of arriving home) was being asked to meet Tamara Ecclestone, billion-heiress daughter of F1 supremo Bernie, on board the spectacular £100m plus superyacht Sea Force One in Saint-Tropez to interview her about her forthcoming Five documentary series Tamara’s World. I wasn’t sure what to expect but she was charming, funny, self-deprecating, refreshingly down to earth and a very good interviewee. And the boat wasn't bad either, as you can see above.

My only concern is how I will come across, as the Five team spontaneously decided to film me meeting her on board and interviewing her. I know I wasn’t looking my glamorous best after an hour in 90 plus degrees waiting for them to moor in the harbour, so if you see a sweaty, shimmering mess sitting opposite a beautiful, natural, non-sweaty brunette dressed head to toe in Missoni on your TV set sometime in October or November, please bear this explanation in mind.

Work was interrupted by a rather lovely night out with Milly at the Nice Jazz Festival last week, drinking champers in the old town, before watching a stonking performance in Place Massena by Macy Gray and Seal. Macy (whatever happened to her?) was great value but Seal topped her with an electrifying performance which included Crazy, Kiss from a Rose and Love’s Divine. He even spoke some French, which the mainly local crowd loved.

Have been rather busy with interviews this week, including Disney megastar Selena Gomez (sweet and professional) and Hustle actress Jaime Murray (wicked sense of humour) who stars in Warehouse 13 on SyFy next month, as well as moving to Mougins for two weeks before our trip to Italy at the end of the month. We are staying in a quaint stone cottage on the edge of the old village with a beautiful pool which has seen rather a lot of me since our arrival at the weekend. It’s way too hot to run so 40 lengths a day seems like the way to go and is far more enjoyable than puffing up hills in 32 degrees of July heat (sorry to all UK readers for whom 30 degrees would be a joy right now.)

So lovely to be able to work in the morning and take a few hours off with no chores beckoning, cobwebs to hoover or painting to do. Anyone who knows me will tell you that while Hockers works hard, she plays even harder. I have come to the conclusion that a functional two bedroom cottage with small terrace and a pool you don’t have to clean makes a pleasant change from a large, totally white house, which while chic is also a nightmare to maintain, plus an acre of weed-infested grounds which won’t obey the rules and stop growing due to the unusual humidity we are experiencing right now.

Just to make you Brits feel better, it is actually raining as I write which is why I’m finally updating the blog instead of pounding the pool.

The World Ends...

2011-07-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a bleak day for journalism. The News of the World, the UK's most popular newspaper (yes, contrary to all the knockers, it actually had quite a few million readers) closed under the shadow of phone hacking.

I can't defend the ghoulish revelations that have come to light in recent days detailing murder victims and grieving relatives whose phones were hacked by the paper in the endless search for stories (although I find it hard to have sympathy for any hacked expense fiddling MPs, playaway Premier League footballers and poncey 'my family are my world' actors who are secretly sleeping with prostitutes.)

But I can shed some light on what it's like to be a tabloid journalist, having worked at The Sun for four years and later for the News of the World when I first went freelance. When people ask me the innocent question 'So what do you do?' I steel myself before answering as it's usual for the conversation to take the direction of 'Okay, where is the tape recorder hidden, all this is off the record.' Journalists, and tabloid journalists in particular, are generally a distrusted, even despised breed, and you get used to defending your reputation to people you have never met before at a party or a dinner. I've done it so often, it doesn't even occur to me that it's not normal behaviour to defend your profession and qualify why you do it.

When I started out on Fleet Street (Wapping actually) at News International, it was 1990, Piers Morgan was my first boss as editor of Bizarre, Andy Coulson was a keen young showbiz reporter just across the newsroom from our desk and Rebekah Brooks was soon to be promoted from Sunday magazine to be features editor at News of the World in the office just down the corridor.

While tabloids are looked down upon (even by the people who surreptitiously hide their copy of the NOTW under their Sunday Times or Telegraph) broadsheets are feted yet it's widely known in Fleet Street that any tabloid hack could cut it at a broadsheet (many have jumped ship to work for the respectable press) while there aren't many broadsheet journos who could hold their own at a tabloid. The pace is rapid, the competition to get a story cut-throat but the camaraderie and loyalty is never in doubt. If you are lucky enough to be at a dinner table with a bunch of journalists, I can promise it will be the most entertaining, witty and outrageous spot in the entire room and the best night out you might ever have.

I had four of the best years of my career at the Currant Bun, working for Kelvin Mackenzie in a newsroom where there was rarely a dull moment. It wouldn't suit everyone but even the madness of standing on The Highway with the entire editorial team being urged to shout 'Up yours Delors' for a front page decrying the idea of Britain joining a single currency in Europe, through to being asked to sing rather tunelessly the song I reckoned was going to be the new chart No 1 that Sunday in the editor's office in front of a roomful of grinning executives (FYI it was Crystal Waters' La da de La da da...and no, it didn't reach the top)couldn't dim the excitement of working at the newspaper every other daily watched so they didn't get left behind.

Andy lived and breathed the job, often wiping the floor with the opposition which is how he came to be promoted to editor of the News of the World. Rebekah was ambitious but friendly (in those days) and Piers was, by his own admission, celebrity-obsessed and always destined for a career on the other side on the fence. This all feels like a very long time ago.

Journalism is full of talented, erudite, streetwise people who expose wrongdoing, scandals and cover ups at the highest levels of society, as well as the tittle tattle gossip that even the broadsheets cannot resist rewriting from the front pages of the red-tops. Let's not forget all the good the power of a free press can achieve.

Lots of decent people are now paying the price for the reprehensible behaviour of a few bad apples. And to the gloaters who are basking in the glory of seeing a 168-year-old newspaper go under in shame, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Don't believe everything you read, especially if it's in the red-top bashing Guardian.

Surfing...not drowning

2011-07-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

Have been rather busy of late (not just lying by the pool, uncorking rose, shopping etc) but working hard, travelling and generally getting things done. Then I had a few emails and calls saying, why haven't you posted for the last two weeks, so while Bar sur Loup sits under a big threatening rain cloud, rendering the pool sadly out of bounds, here I am.

I left you a day before Biarritz, which was our annual surf trip. I also left blazing sunshine to be greeted by grey skies, drizzle and chilly temperatures which meant I had to wear my cleverly packed capsule summer wardrobe all at once in order to keep warm. Having been told that our beachside apartment at Hossegor was within walking distance of everything, it came as a shock to find walking distance meant 3 kms via roadworks to the nearest supermarket for supplies. Having cadged a lift there, Norma and Sarah tried to covertly steal the wheely basket to transport our breakfast supplies and the odd bottle of veuve and vodka back to our base, and narrowly escaped being arrested by leClerc's security officer who chased them across the car park. Sarah then begged a local gardener to down tools and drive us back with our shopping, telling him we were lost, and amazingly, he agreed. I think you are getting the picture on the kind of trip it was.

The sun shone next morning so as you can see above, we donned wet suits and set off to hire boards. The fact that Hossegor hosts the annual Euro surf championships should have told us that this might not be the best spot for novices who get out into the surf one weekend a year. One minute we were kneedeep, the next we were up to our necks with 8 footers crashing down on us. It was a combination of terror, exhileration and sheer madness that kept us out there for three hours being thrashed to death by bigger waves than I saw in Hawaii and Malibu.

Norma, wishing to avert another Baywatch style rescue alert a la Watergate Bay, sensibly opted to stay on the beach and watch from a safe distance wrapped in 20 pashminas. Given the conditions, it's nothing short of a miracle that we actually managed to catch a few terrifyingly powerful waves and surf into the beach albeit looking like something Jaws spat out, covered in sand, shingle and seaweed from the churning currents.

After a long recovery lunch, the surf shop guy Fred came to warn us that a storm was brewing and it was too dangerous to go back into the water so we had to console ourselves with exploring the shopping opportunities instead. Devastating.

The following week was the Ogilvy & Mather ad party that Sarah organised at the Grand Hotel in Cannes, with high wire artists, wickedly strong vodka cocktails and food stalls including sausage and mash, oysters, fish and chips and chocolate covered strawberries. The slightly more generous than canape-sized portions meant that the handyman felt no shame in eating seven servings of sausage and mash and fish and chips, washed down with his own bodyweight in Guinness. He claimed that this translated to one modest supper portion. On that we beg to differ but historically, he has a habit of over-estimating anything that is measured in inches so maybe this is his way of redressing the balance.

Then to London to do some interviews, and the lovely poeple at Disney booked me into a hotel which rather conveniently had its own state of the art spa and was a mere hop and a skip from Westfield so that was a rather lovely way to spend two days in between assignments.

With the girls breaking up for close to three months of summer holidays, the prospect of them lurching from bed to PC to fridge and back again for weeks on end was too much to endure so they were packed off to London last week for a fortnight of family and friends. Made me laugh when Livvy told me that on the first morning of their stay at my mum's, Nanny Carole was sitting on the end of their bed like the ghost of Christmas Past at 6.45am waiting for them to wake up....that's the kind of behaviour that would get you shot in our house!

On a sliding scale, the situation at home is mess = 0, pressure to cook supper = 0, tranquility = 10 but despite all of that, we are really starting to miss them. Just not the rows, hormonal rages, dirty linen on the floor and booming rap music....

The only downside of summer on the Cote d'Azur (yes, there is one) is the mosquitos. After three years of being bitten alive despite sporting every spray known to man, handyman decided that this was the year we put up mosquito nets over all the beds. They look rather lovely in a colonial/princess kind of way, and confidence was at an all time high as we flung open the bedroom doors and windows on the first night, daring the mossies to come on in and do their worst.

Unfortunately, when he got into bed, he didn't secure the net properly and awoke the next morning to find he was covered in hives and had a dozen swollen critters circulating INSIDE the net, above his head. To add insult to injury, they hadn't touched me. Obviously, there is nothing amusing whatsoever about this story. I just told it to illustrate the fact that the UK, for all its poor weather patterns, miserable economy and traffic jams, occasionally has the upper hand at times like this.

Incommunicado...

2011-06-15T01:11:00.000-07:00

Question...how can you maintain your reputation as a high flying doyenne of showbiz journalism when you are inhabiting a caveman like scenario where following electric storms last week we had no mobile phones for five days followed by no landline or internet for a further week, rendering us incommunicado for approaching a fortnight?
Answer... be intrepid, drive hundreds of miles in search of a connection, rack up hundreds of euros worth of mobile bills when the signal finally returns and whatever happens, do not lose your sense of humour, which as anyone who knows me will testify never happens (people I live with are exempt from having an opinion on this last point.)
Trying to file features,get copy approved and liaise with A list celebs and magazine editors on tight deadlines is not easy when you are stuck in the communication desert .... even the views of my valley, which is lush and green because of all the rain, cannot make up for this aberration. As you can see from the picture, Oscar has no such worries, oh to be a fat lazy pug whose only concern is sunburn and when the next meal will be served...
After burning the midnight oil til 1am yesterday morning, I thought I'd hit on the solution...to Fayes house first thing to send copy in a laidback fashion before embarking on zen-like calming yoga. Instead it was a wacky races rush from Faye's where the internet was also down as of the moment I arrived to Chateauneuf where the internet cafe secretary was barely capable of boiling a kettle, much less sending urgent copy across to an incredibly important interviewee. This culminated in me in a sweat not caused by yoga and people arriving at my Premier Mardi meeting before I was even home!
All in all, it's been a terrible week what with the internet debacle, my lovely new Armani sunglasses being whipped from my beach bag on Sunday while I swam in the sea (there were a film festival freebie but that's not the point) and falling down the stone garden steps in a storm, badly bruising my shin and making the prospect of surfing in Biarritz this week remote or best case scenario, incredibly painful(cruel bystanders might say this is nothing unusual given my surfing prowess.)
I have had no sympathy from the Handyman, who reckons my fall was precipitated by far too good a time over lunch at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival and the fact that I was wearing my impossibly high Prada wedges at the time. This is purely circumstantial and not the root cause obviously....
Anyway my semaine horribilis was nothing that a coffee and a slice of lemon drizzle couldn't fix..not to mention a glass of rose at lunch as I didn't have to negotiate any steps in the company of a small but amusing bunch of lunch guests including fellow blogger and man about town Chris France. With our collective memories of the music biz and Fleet Street in the 90s (or the last century as the girls love to say) it's safe to say many people in the public eye and monarchy were defamed, ridiculed and shamed in the privacy of my four terrace walls and that is all that can be said on the subject...unless you read Chris's blog which will no doubt shed a more revealing light on the conversation.
This is without even mentioning the MC TV fest..the highlight of which was Prince Albert shimmying on the dance floor with rather enthusiastic Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman as Kool and the Gang played at the gala dinner at the Sporting. It was surreal, a sight to behold and probably, quite fortuitously, never to be seen again.
Many of my friends ask me a. How I know all this stuff and b. Why I didn't take a picture of whatever was going down. The answer is a. I was there and b. I might have got chucked in Monaco's equivalent of Traitors Gate for showing His Serene Highness letting down what little hair he has. Maybe he was treating the evening as a dry stag run for his forthcoming wedding?
This was all preceded by drinks with lovely Juliet from Hello, where we sat at a bar on Larvotto beach putting the worlds of showbiz and European royalty to rights....again in a most slanderous fashion.
Tomorrow, the merry-go-round of work, chores and dog-walking is stopping for a few precious days as me and my swollen green gammy shin head off to Biarritz to meet fellow surf chicklets Norma and Sarah for four days of extremely competitive watersports, with perhaps a glass of something fairly pink and well chilled making its way into our company.
On our last surfing trip to Cornwall, Norma's unplanned excursion into a rip tide at the far end of Watergate Bay ended with the Baywatch lifeguards steaming up the beach to rescue her and her board. This was 20 minutes into our first surf session. One can only hope this year's trip yields the same levels of adrenaline and excitement...the coastguards from here to Calais have been warned.

Another film star fabulous weekend

2011-05-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

I wonder what will happen when I finally stop getting glamorous invites and have only cleaning the windows, washing the car and walking the dogs at weekends to look forward to encore une fois? Now that film fest is done, my mingling with the A list is over (well for a few weeks anyway, until the Monte-Carlo TV Festival starts in June) and I was expecting to come back down to earth with a bump this week.

Fortunately it has been mitigated by a few extra lovely excursions to postpone the inevitable return to drudgery a little longer. A swim at the beach with Bex and Tom followed by cocktails and dinner at the Marco Polo was a rather lovely start to the week. Then it was a girl’s night with Fiona and her Berkshire buddies at Sparkling in Cannes, a great new-ish bar restaurant in rue des Freres Pradignac, where the lovely owner Jean-Pierre plied us with Limoncello and strawberries in hibiscus after a delicious dinner on the terrace and made us promise to come back for a night at the club downstairs once Cannes gets all summer lively....and we will!

After writing gazillions of pieces about Elle Macpherson for Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model from my Miami trip (big raspberry to all those doubters, well, Iain and the girls, who think I just enjoyed myself partying and playing in the surf and didn’t do a stitch of work) it was time for a little R&R, which has been little in evidence lately...so to Saint Tropez with Sylvia on Friday morning for a weekend which started out as work but ended up as, well, a little light shopping, a little less light lunching, a little rose and some serious pitches to boutiques there with her fabulous jewellery.

We had good reason to celebrate after getting her designs commissioned by Trinity, Hippychic and the beach boutique at Club 55, where the A list will soon be clamouring to buy her designs. Only the three most happening stores in the town so flush with success, we went to Salama, a very chic Moroccan restaurant on a backstreet (rue des Tisserands as I recall) serving great food in a beautiful riad-like setting that transports you straight to Marrakech. They had the most amazing playlist which the lovely waiter compiled himself and where they played one of my all-time favourite tracks of the summer, La Ritournelle, try the address below for a taste of divine Sebastien Tellier...if this doesn’t put you in the mood for summer, nothing will...

http://vimeo.com/1516056

Saturday lunch at Club 55 was memorable for the amazing atmosphere, addictive people watching, very sweet maitre d and humungous prices for what was very average food. Really not sure about the panier of raw vegetables that arrives on the table at €25 euros. Ditto my poulet fermier aux herbes which was actually chicken and chips but as I say, it’s not about the food, more about the ambience. It’s packed so they must be doing something right...

Then it was off to the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday with Milly. We are Formula 1 virgins, so this invite was mannah from heaven...come and watch the Grand Prix at a roof terrace party at the port, pictured above, 200 metres from the start line and in full view of the exit from the tunnel and the port stretch of track. Oh yes, and have some vodka cocktails and lush Lebanese fare for lunch and listen to the sounds of the Garden Brothers DJ-ing....We watched Vettel blast his way to victory, and being just above the Red Bull stand, also saw him arrive on a private launch after the race to party with his friends, family and Red Bull team, and spray them with Champagne as they cheered his arrival. Pretty special.

It made the fact that I almost missed the train there almost bearable...having driven inexpicably to Villeneuve-Loubet instead of Cagnes-sur-Mer where I was due to meet Milly on the second last carriage of the 10.35am to Monte-Carlo. I would have been fine if only Iain hadn’t mysteriously removed the sat nav from the car on Saturday for his journey to Barcelona WHICH WAS NOT HAPPENING UNTIL WEDNESDAY ANYWAY.

It should have been like something out of Brief Encounter, it was actually more like Benny Hill as I drove around VL for ages, watching the minutes tick by and driving in and out of private domaines in rising panic looking for the roundabout I recognised until I rang MC veteran Faye to plead for directions. Somehow she navigated me to the station where I abandoned the car, waited for the dork in front of me to try and get his ticket three times from the machine because he was putting his credit card in upside down and then legged it onto the platform just as the train arrived and Milly leant serenely out of the carriage to greet me. My beautiful silk dress was soaked in sweat and I couldn’t speak for the first five minutes. But as reported, all worth it to hear the beautiful drone of those engines in glorious reality rather than through the TV screen.

As I relayed this story to Faye and Fiona this morning just before yoga, they were screeching with laughter and urging me to follow my true calling which is surely as a stand up comedienne. It made me realise that there is a reason why these things always happen to me. It’s to bring joy and laughter to those whose lives operate without the same levels of disaster and drama....

My night with Leonardo DiCaprio

2011-05-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

So, the end of the Film Festival and my feet, (crows and otherwise) liver and stamina are all feeling the strain of nine solid days of partying and an average of two to four hours sleep max a night. I know my friends have had enough of me going on about the hardship of yet another glass of Laurent Perrier in yet another VIP area at yet another exclusive party full of A listers, but it really is....okay, stop twisting my arm, a bloody brilliant way to earn a living.

I thought I had peaked already with the Jon Hamm close encounter at the Eden Roc, Will.i.am’s brilliant DJ stint at de Grisogono and Calvin Klein’s stylish party at the Martinez beach but the best was still to come.

My last party night kicked off with champagne at Roberto Cavalli’s new boutique on the Croisette. It was a short skip to the Carlton for the Cinema for Peace dinner hosted by Sean Penn, who was on great form, surrounded by his film stars pals Robert de Niro, Uma Thurman, Harvey Weinstein, Ryan Gosling, Naomi Campbell , Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway. Then, slipping in after the rest, the welcome addition of Leonardo DiCaprio, the newly single man du jour who has been spotted wooing Blake Lively on Steven Spielberg’s yacht.

He was on fine form, interrupting the auction to make a huge pledge of his own for Haiti and press-ganging three of his mates at the dinner to match him. As the dinner ended, I was ready to head home, feet screaming as they were wedged into yet another pair of heels for the umpteenth time. But lovely Juliet from Hello magazine had other ideas. ‘We’re off to Roberto’s yacht for a party, you have to come,’ she told me...so I did, as you can see from the pic of Juliet and me above, taken just before we went on board.

The joy of kicking off those masochistic Stuart Weitzman snakeskin babies that I so love to walk barefoot on Cavalli's teak decks (and I'm not talking about the great designer's chest) was almost as good as being served Champagne on his amazing yacht which is decorated in animal print galore plus his own range of homes furnishings.

The DJ was rocking the guests, which had included Janet Jackson earlier that evening, and everyone was en forme. Then Juliet had another suggestion....what about the Jamiroquai private gig at the Replay party? This was the hottest ticket of the night, everyone wanted to go, but the list was tight. I was erring towards home at this point but J was insistent, telling me the PR had been badgering her to come along and it would all be fine.

We arrived to see thongs of people fighting to get past security, who were having none of it. But one quick call from Juliet and the PR was whisking us past the hoi polloi, ushering us into the VIP area with a glass of champagne each and suddenly we were a few feet from Jay Kay blasting out some of my favourite songs of the last 15 years.

There’s no way to top this, I thought, until we scored an invite to Leonardo’s private party at his villa above the Croisette, which we walked straight into with no silly red velvet ropes, security goons or other annoyances. Leo looked pleased to see us (!) and stood right next to me chatting with his entourage, fighting off female attention from a gaggle of gorgeous models and looking very relaxed. I did wonder if he had Blake hidden in a cupboard upstairs but he was happy to mingle and chose a large cigar as we all admired the view of the bay of Cannes, which was truly spectacular.

We left at 4.30am, with the party still going strong, the DJ playing a great disco mix and the chef cooking sausages on the barbecue for the 100 odd guests.

A truly fantastic finish to a really brilliant two weeks. It was a bit like being up for an Oscar – I was ‘gifted’ as they say in the good old USA, a pair of Armani rimless sunglasses and a bottle of Mont Blanc perfume to make my festival even more enjoyable. This one is going to take a lot of beating.

Was planning a nice quiet week of writing and working diligently at my PC, with no more namedropping now that I am back on school run/Carrefour/dog walking duties once again, but alas, it is not to be. St Tropez on Friday and Saturday, where Sylvia and I will no doubt be tripping over celebrities as they clamour to get near us and checking out the fab looking Hotel Sezz. Then it’s the Formula 1 terrace party at the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday with Milly, where we will be watching our first ever GP in true style. Normal life will just have to be resumed next week instead.

Night Fever

2011-05-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

Who knew I could be this hardcore? Eight days into the Cannes Film Festival and I have been out every night partying...or should I say watching celebrities partying. Ok, partying a little alongside them. Everyone knows I love a party but this is ridiculous....on Monday night I went to four and Sunday’s party started at midnight and ended at 6am!

I've watched Duran Duran and Jessie J in concert, mingled with SJP, Uma Thurman, Lara Stone, Naomi Campbell, Jude Law, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, watched Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody try and out party each other, drank champagne on a yacht, eaten sushi and drank lavender vodka cocktails at the Nobu pop up on the roof of 3.14 and still have cocktails with Roberto Cavalli and dinner at the Carlton with Robert de Niro, Leo diCaprio, Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling to come. As you can see, namedropping doesn't come easily to me.

So far, the best party has to be Art of Elysium purely because I was in the presence of long time crush and Mad Men star Jon Hamm. We had a little chat, he touched my arm and it was just magical although I'm sure his girlfriend didn't see it that way.

For atmosphere, it had to be the Calvin Klein party which was on the Martinez Z plage and full to bursting with A list celebs dancing their socks off and drinking the bar dry. Watching the Duran Duran boys jump around like teenagers at VIP room was a laugh too.

But for good old fashioned fun, and not a celeb in sight, it was the Bollywood party on the beach opposite the Carlton, complete with Sikh DJ, fantastic Indian buffet, champagne and a lot of people who knew how to enjoy themselves and dance the night away. Had a lovely chat with Greg Dyke, head of the British Film Institute, former tv-am boss and the man who famously invented Roland Rat.

Last night it was de Grisogono, always a glittering bash, at the Eden Roc, as you can see from the picture above it was black rather than red carpet but nonetheless filled with stars galore and Will.i.am on the DJ decks by the pool. There were fireworks and balls of flames shooting into the night sky in time to the music…just utterly, utterly fabulous.

So I've been on the red carpet, interviewing the stars, partying and writing fab reports for Life and Style in the US and Look in the UK. But I haven't been invited to have supper with Johnny Depp. That is Issy’s invitation from her friend whose dad is a film director and fair to say that mama and big sis are green with envy and planning to turn up and deliver her `”forgotten” overnight bag just after he arrives! I've been topped by my 11yo, which is actually quite cool.

Cannes Film Fest Day One

2011-05-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

So the 64th Cannes Film Festival has started, and first things first, they were a little behind yesterday morning, or relaxed, in what some would say is true French fashion, still unrolling the red carpet ready for the press screening and photo call of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, a romantic farce starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Adrien Brody, Kathy Bates and Marion Cotillard.

Woody loves France, he was here last year with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and his new film is a real love letter to Paris, with long loving shots of the city by day, by night, in the sunshine and the rain. It’s a quirky rom com and fans of the art and literary worlds of yesteryear will relish it.

One scene where Owen’s character meets Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why until I realised that it was filmed at Les Caves du Polidor, the fab little Parisien bistro just off Boulevard St Germain that we ate in last summer on the night we arrived in Paris. And where the clumsy waitress clumped iain over the head with a bread basket!

After the film, Woody talked all about how inspired he was by French directors as a young film-maker and he waxed so lyrical about France that he will probably be back chairing the jury next year. Lucky French dwellers can read my piece very soon in next month's edition of The French Paper.

The red carpet premiere last night was a blaze of cameras and thousands of people cheering as Robert de Niro, Uma Thurman and Jude Law arrived first as members of the official jury.

Then it was Melanie Griffiths and Antonio Banderas, she sporting a tattoo of his name in a heart on her right arm, and another at the back of her neck. They cuddled like loved up teenagers on the red carpet, followed by Salma Hayek in a shimmering silver sequin strapless gown and the show’s stars Owen, Rachel, Michael Sheen and Adrien flanking Woody.

Owen looked astonished at the hordes of fans gathered below the Palais and snapped a sneaky shot of the crowd with his mobile phone before heading into the theatre. But as my LA film pal Lissa, who is down here every year, said:'Hollywood loves Cannes, it's old school glamour. Not even the Oscars does the red carpet this well.'

The day was enlivened by lunch at Vegaluna with Sylvia, where I had a birds’ eye view of the Puss in Boots photo call with the still gorgeous Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.

It is moving rapidly upscale tonight as I am soon heading off to a very glam party hosted by Calvin Klein's designer Francisco Costa for Hollywood's most chic A listers.....the only problem being what to wear, which is why this blog is going to be sort and sweet as a wardrobe raid is imminent.

Party party party party....

2011-05-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

If you are extremely sensitive in disposition, or extremely jealous of my life here in the sunny South of France or both, I can only tell you for the good of your future mental health to stop reading now. If however, you are a masochistic soul who enjoys being made to suffer, feel free to carry on...

After three weeks of wedding celebrations both Royal and otherwise, Elvis themed 50ths and much revelling by the pool, the fun continues on Wednesday with the opening of the Cannes Film Festival.

It's the busiest two weeks of the year for a certain showbiz journalist, pictured very hard at work above, and it means allowing the pool loungers to gather some dust, letting the housework go to rack and ruin and leaving the Kershaw household to fend for itself while I hotfoot into Cannes each morning for screenings, interviews with the A listers and then, oh joy, the parties.

Having revelled rather hard of late, I'm torn between feeling excitement at the thought of some seriously souped up bashes and trepidation at the lack of sleep and general full on-ness of the next two weeks. Invitations to Cannes Film Festival parties are a bit like buses...you wait for ages then three turn up at the same time so it's a case of arriving, checking out the action and making a calculated guess on whether to stay or quit for the next one, and of course, not missing one single bit of action or saleable gossip in the process. All the while sipping a glass of fizz on a yacht/Nikki Beach/the Martinez. And people think my job is easy.

There are some seriously good names arriving as we speak, Johnny Depp, Jodie Foster,Sean Penn, SJP, to name just a few, and some great films that I will struggle to make the horrifically anti-social 8.30am screenings for (I'm sure it's a deliberate attempt by the killjoys to punish freeloading hacks who have partied long and hard into the night. Naming no names.)

My top choices are The Tree of Life with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn (who to pick, I love them both) Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris with a massively starry cast including Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates and Carla Bruni, This Must Be The Place, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Drive and the latest Gus Van Sant offering Restless.

My lovely friend Judy is coming down with the BFI so I will have a pal to party with, hurray. Cannes, be very afraid! There's no danger of an anti-climax once the festival ends either. After a two day 'working' trip with Sylvia in St Tropez, I will be off to Monaco on May 29th after a rather lovely invite came through via a DJ events company, asking if I fancy watching the Grand Prix at a champagne fuelled party with guest DJs from around the globe on the Formula 1 Terrace....and I have a plus one!

And it's not going to Iain, who is at this moment kicking himself and sticking rusty nails in his eyes as he was so super organised this year that he has already arranged a boys' race day (with a far less superior view to mine!) To say that he is super gutted is an understatement. It's going to Milly instead, so we will be GP virgins sipping LP together for one day only.

There's barely time to catch my breath before the Monte Carlo TV Festival kicks off in early June with a horde of UK and US TV stars descending on the principality for five days of press and, oh yes, partying. And then precisely one week later, it's surfing in Biarritz with the gang, by which time all I will be fit for is a cuppa, a Stannah stairlift, a facelift and some very, very early nights. And if you believe that, you are very gullible indeed.

All in the best possible taste

2011-05-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of the Royal wedding came the second most eagerly anticipated celebration of 2011, Nick P’s 50th, and despite my instincts screaming out that it’s not a good idea to throw a party the day before a party, we couldn’t let the Royal wedding pass without inviting a few Brits to goss with about the outfits, the service and why Victoria Beckham seems incapable of smiling EVER.

An afternoon of champers, sushi, chocolate cake and Eton mess was the perfect way to see it through and I was feeling rather smug as I packed and tucked myself up in bed at 11pm ready for a big weekend. I enjoyed a rather lovely mojito in the sunshine by the river at Richmond before heading off to Parker Towers in Twickenham.

It started looking dangerous when we heard the order of the night was aperitifs, supper, pre-party drinks, party and post party back at the house. Nick indulged his twin passions for Elvis and karaoke, hiring a dwarf called Brian to dress up and perform as Elvis. We were all wondering how Dwelvis actually earned a living given that he had hearing issues, didn’t really know any Elvis stuff and seemed to be struggling to read the lyrics on the screen, until it became clear that Nick had simply googled ‘dwarves for hire’ and briefed Brian in great detail for his first ever public performance as Elvis.

No expense was spared as dressed in a suit from Argos, he arrived on stage to the strains of the Superman theme tune and cheers from the crowd. My personal favourite was Suspicious Minds and there was no shortage of support from Nick, Jeremy and Shekhar as you can see in the picture above.

If there were prizes to be dished out, the award for Best Elvis Voice would have to go to Mr P, but given that Dwelvis had trouble seeing the screen and was tone deaf, the competition was a little lacking. Best Elvis costume – well, that would be Jeremy Armstrong, in a white rhinestone suit, Elvis wig, and glasses so convincing that many people failed to recognise him, the only giveaway being his red Converse peeping out from beneath the nylon bell bottoms.

Most chivalrous party guest goes to the hack who shall remain nameless but whose family are big in the lemonade industry. On being introduced to me, he said ‘Over 40...but looking good’ and without missing a beat, then turned to the hostess and said ‘So, you’re his wife....I was convinced you were going to be a big, fat, ugly munter.....but you’re rather lovely!’

Sight of the night – the hostess landing in a black bin full of ice cubes and beers (she insists she thought it was a stool when she sat down) and being manoeuvred out by four Elvis impersonators. She has now been christened Clare Bin Parker.

There was also an incident with a corset and a trouser suit in the ladies’ but the perpetrator will never speak to me again if I say anymore so nuff said. Another great moment at 5am, when someone of Geordie origin who shall also remain nameless ‘rescued’ a half eaten kebab from the bottom of the bin and tucked in with gusto as everyone else looked on horrified, especially when she tried to offer it around.

It was a little after 6am before Fleet Street’s finest reluctantly left, many in varying states of Elvis-like dishevelment, leaving bandanas, rhinestone belts and wigs in their wake but on the upside, the police left us alone this time, making it only the second house party in Parker Towers history where they haven’t put in an appearance.

Sunday was planned as a post party chill out so quite how it was that we ended up at the White Swan on the river in Twickenham until closing time is anyone’s guess. Suffice it to say that in 14 years, I have never once sat on Clare and Nick’s sofa or watched TV at their house despite our best laid plans for building in recovery time after particularly long and eventful celebrations.

As we left this morning, bleary eyed and baggy faced to catch the flight home, we caught the headlines that Osama Bin Laden had been shot dead by US troops. The phone rang, and Nick’s bank holiday was hastily relocated to Pakistan. But there’s a silver lining – it’s dry there so a perfect place to detox and a there’s a nice long flight to sleep on.

A big fat gastronomic wedding

2011-04-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Post the excitement of New York and Miami and with the Easter holidays looming, I was expecting a couple of weeks to calm down, catch my breath and get my feet back under the table, or preferably on top of a lounger by the pool.

Not so. First day back and I was interviewing like a demon. Richard E Grant was charming, as we discussed the South of France, he quipped: ‘Are you doing this interview from your sun lounger then?’ If only he knew how near the truth he was.

Billy Connolly was a dream, just as funny off camera she you secretly hope he will be (particularly as a fair few comedians I’ve interviewed are surly and completely unfunny as themselves. Naming no names but a certain rubbery faced Blackadder star was one of the very worst.) Billy on the other hand is a brilliant raconteur as well as searingly honest and not afraid to say what he thinks, which is also a rarity among the A list these days.

And Ashley Jensen, of Extras and Ugly Betty, was every bit as down to earth as you would hope, holding forth on everything from Ricky Gervais’ controversial performance at the Golden Globes and life in Hollywood to the difficulties of losing pregnancy weight and refreshingly, how in the plastic fantastic world of LA, packing a few extra pounds of post baby weight really doesn’t bother her.

Then we had the pleasure of Poppy’s company for six days, Issy’s best pal from London. They have known each other since birth when her mum and I used to sneak off to the David Lloyd outdoor pool during our precious few weeks of maternity leave in the long hot summer of ’99 and place them side by side in their car seats. They are like sisters, born eight days apart and sharing an insatiable passion for chocolate, popcorn and fit Abercrombie male models.

We had a week of beaching, going wild at the Labyrinth adventure park in Villeneuve-Loubet and shopping in Cannes. Since Pops left I have been finding sweet wrappers, chocolate foil and empty popcorn bags stuffed into carrier bags and hidden not so discreetly all around the garden, so I obviously didn’t foil their nightly midnight feasts.

The week was rounded off by Eric and Corinne’s long-awaited wedding. After a month of relentless hot sunshine, it poured with rain on the big day but not even the storms could dampen the joy of seeing the happy couple above exchange vows at the Mairie in Bar sur Loup. It was the quickest wedding I’ve ever been to, half an hour from arrival to finishing the photos on the steps outside under storm clouds, and then the celebrations really began in earnest. We had aperos and canapés at their restaurant Michelangelo before moving onto La Bastide aux Oliviers in Vence, a beautiful chambre d’hotes with a wedding marquee in the grounds.

Now the French are a nation of food and wine lovers and Eric is a chef and a perfectionist to boot so it was obvious that the catering was going to be top notch. But oh my God, I now need to run five marathons to work off the delicious array of delicacies we waded through that night. Jerome Ravel provided the catering and the tiny bouchees of spicy crab and avocado, quails eggs on caramelised onions, mozzarella and sun dried tomato skewers, crab morues, tempura courgette flowers, stuffed aubergines, marinaded barbecued prawns and scallops washed down with Champagne flowed until 11pm.

Then to our utter astonishment, we were ushered to tables to sit down for the wedding breakfast proper of perfectly pink duck, sea bream and mountain cheese from the Savoyarde village where Corinne’s family come from. At 1.30am, what can only be described as a juggernaut sized trolley rolled out of the wings laden with around 500tiny servings of home-made tiramisu, crème brulee, choux buns, and I cannot remember what else.

There were many memorable moments, not least during the vows when Eric, in response to being asked if he would take Corinne as his wife, uttered the French equivalent of ‘Bring it on!’ Then, as we sat down at 11pm to continue the food fest, he took the floor with Corinne for the first dance, and suddenly everyone got up and joined them in a mad frenzy of boogying for an hour before reluctantly taking to their seats to eat!

The partying continued until 4.30am and resumed a few short hours later on Sunday for brunch back at Michelangelo with all the other wedding guests still looking as fresh as daisies. Meanwhile Fiona and I sat wearily in dark glasses trying to sip a hair of the dog glass of pink Champagne. We felt like even bigger lightweights when Corinne’s 94-year-old grandpa arrived with his walking stick and greeted everyone with a nifty shimmy, a broad grin and a cheery ‘Bonjour tout le monde!’

I’ve been to many weddings but this was my first French one and I was struck by how friendly everyone was and how quick they were to embrace les Anglais. Along with Fi and Graham, we were the only English guests, the rest having travelled from Paris, Annecy and even the Phillipines. If Will and Kate have half as good a time at their nuptials on Friday, they will be very lucky indeed.

Miami V nice

2011-04-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

My Transatlantic adventure continued when I waved goodbye to the girls and the handyman at JFK after a fabulous weekend and hopped on a flight to Miami. I got a flavour of what to expect at Miami airport waiting for my baggage at midnight....the skirts were short, the tops were even shorter and there were a lot of mahogany tans and varying shades of pink clothing going on.

On arrival at the W South Beach, however, good taste and cool vibes returned with a vengeance and even though it was 1am, I spent the next hour marvelling at my suite. Overlooking South Beach, it was enormous, with a mammoth bed boasting the best pillows I’ve ever slept on, and Wi-Fi, iPod docking station, DVD/CD player, plasma screen and a huge bathroom full of Bliss Spa products. Given that this was home for the next five days, I had to indulge my OCD tendencies and unpack immediately as you never know on a work trip when you are next going to see your room. This is why Miss Emma Cox and myself made full use of the lounger above at any given opportunity.

Breakfast was on the terrace with a balmy breeze blowing, and given the spread on offer, eggs Benedict, pancakes, bagels, smoked salmon, fruit, granola etc it was tempting to eat a day’s worth of food at one sitting...until I remembered that I was going to be hanging out with Elle ‘The Body’ Macpherson and the finalists of this year’s Britain’s Next Top Model, which returns to Sky Living later this year. That thought alone was enough to keep me in check, funnily enough.

While a touch of luxury is important, what is most important of all is great service and the service at the W is top notch. I’ve sampled their outposts in Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Montreal and LA and they all deliver on this score. The staff are friendly, full of initiative and eager to help without being in your face.

The pool, which is set back from the beach, is the perfect place to lounge during the day and the bar is a cool hang out for a cocktail in the evening. What more could you ask for...oh yes, the Wall Lounge, adjacent to the hotel, which had to be sampled purely in the interests of research of course, and was packed on Tuesday evening. It would give any West End club a run for its money.

I’m lucky enough to be invited on quite a few foreign jobs (commonly referred to in my house as journos holidays, I know not why) and sometimes you don’t know who you are going to be thrown together with, or how it is all going to pan out. You just have to hope for the best.

I have to say my fellow scribes and PR supremos Jakki and Justin were on top form, even when faced with a potential hijack situation in a taxi. We’d asked to go to the Miami Dolphins sports stadium but somehow ended up in Fort Lauderdale on a two hour $200 ride from hell. The driver stopped for petrol twice and the second time, with one of our number desperate for a pee and the rest of us fearful of ending up in a Miami Vice crack den, all of us piled out throwing ourselves over car seats as the driver paid for his petrol in our haste to escape a grisly fate. It turns out that when you ask for a destination in Miami, you must actually say Miami, otherwise you might end up in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Worth or maybe even Fort Knox.

Interviews done (Elle and designer Julien Macdonald were my highlights, she looks AMAZING and he is naturally a very funny man) we even found time for a swim in the waves, but not before Justin had scared the life out of everyone with his constant reminder to beware of sharks, followed by a very convincing impression of a shark attack (the fact that this took place in the pool meant that we lived to tell the tale.)

So, if you are lucky enough to be leaving the blink-and-you-miss-it UK spring sunshine for toasty Miami shores anytime soon, here are my top tips.

• The W South Beach on Collins – simply the coolest hotel in the best location with sublime service. We popped into a couple of other hotels while there...they didn’t even come close. http://www.wsouthbeach.com
• Soho Beach Club – the Florida outpost of Soho House, this retro bar and restaurant is decorated with white pea lights and has exactly the feel you would expect of the London club on its holidays. You need your name on the door.
• Blue Door Fish restaurant at the Delano – this legendary hotel in Miami still has what it takes to impress. The Blue Door Fish was buzzing on a Tuesday night with a lively crowd who were ready to party after finishing supper. I am heartily recommending the crabvacat as well as the scallops...perfection. Wish I’d had the time to sample the rest of the menu.
• Sushisamba on Lincoln Boulevard – Craig David, who lives in a hotel suite in Miami, met our own lovely Kay from Heat for drinks here on Tuesday so we thought we’d give it a whirl the following night, minus Craig who was otherwise engaged on Wednesday...and Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The sushi is fantastic – tempura prawn iso rolls and spicy tuna rolls were my highlight and the prawn and vegetable tempura we kicked off with defy description. Just remember to take your ID if you want a glass of wine, the laws are strict and the waitress wouldn’t serve me until I flashed my Amex saying member since 93! I know I should be flattered but when that glass of prosecco was slipping from my clutches it wasn’t pretty.
• Quattro Gastronomica on Lincoln Boulevard – a cosy Italian trattoria which does a great spaghetti alla vongole, rivalling any I’ve had in Sestri Levante and San Remo.
• The Everglades at Coopertown – no great restaurants but plenty of alligators to admire as you power down the water channels in an air boat - just don’t trail your hands in the water!

Arriving back last Saturday night in Nice after three flights and 28 hours on the road (it’s tough at the top) was no anti-climax as the weather has finally turned to proper spring/summer temperatures. All angst ridden memories of almost missing my New York flight back due to ridiculous queues at security (a worrying pattern is emerging at airports) were wiped out by seeing the wisteria blooming, the pool climbing up to double figures in less than two weeks and the spring jasmine starting to flower and smelling divine. Much as I love being on the road and having adventures, it’s always good to get back home.

The Big Apple

2011-04-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this sitting at JFK one leg down into three flights home and remembering all the great bits about our stay in New York.

But the story has to start with the stress filled journey getting to the airport, as nothing is ever simple in the Kershaw household. There we were all packed, fairly organised and waiting for the girls to come home from school so we could leave for Nice and our flight, which had recently been changed from 3pm to 5pm.

As I checked through passports, travel documents and many pieces of paper, I found the original booking and thought it might be useful to print off the updated flight times. Imagine my horror at 1.30pm when I logged onto the booking to see the original flight time 3pm flash up. After many minutes frantically scrolling through, it finally dawned on me that it wasn’t connecting NY flights to London that had been changed, it was my mum’s forthcoming May flight home from our house, which happened to also be at 3pm and have the same flight number!

Cue major panic as we bundled the cases, girls and dogs into the car, drove manically to Fi’s to turf out the dogs, who then started chasing our car off the drive in rain, leaving BSL precisely one hour before our flight was due to take off. We made it in 25 mental minutes, and after dumping them and the cases at kiss and fly, I parked and legged it complete with heavy hand luggage to the terminal, arriving just as check in was closing.

As we sat on the plane we worked out that less than an hour before, we were at home in meltdown mode. Amazing what you can achieve when the traffic is with you and the adrenaline is pumping. What a start to the trip!

Arriving at JFK, the girls were desperate to get into the city and watching their faces as the Manhattan skyline came into view was nothing short of magical. I think it is one of the world’s best views, it never gets any less exciting no matter how many times you have been to New York. We arrived at The Element Times Square West, a brand new eco-hotel which is part of the Starwood group, famous for the brilliant W hotel chain which I have stayed at many times.

It’s a more budget conscious, slightly less lux version of the W. Urban pared down utilitarian chic best describes it, and it’s a brilliant choice for anyone with a green leaning and a mid budget. Certain aspects are similar to the W....amazingly comfortable beds and pillows, fantastic Egyptian linens, plasma TVs and well appointed bathrooms. There are no overpriced mini bars, where moving a can of Pringles invites a $6 charge on your bill instantly, instead The Element boasts kitchenettes, so you can buy less expensive versions of the mini bar contents at the local mini mart.

They also do a great complimentary breakfast but you have to be up early to get the best choice of fresh fruit, bagels, muffins and hot breakfast. One niggle, no toasters which renders bagels and English muffins a bit redundant. Plus there is a great little apero each week night Monday to Thursday, where they lay out wine, Caesar salad and nibbles, again gratis to hotel guests. The gym is also well equipped and the hotel is so central to Times Square and mid town Manhattan that getting around is very easy. Check it out if you are heading to NYC...you won’t regret it. http://www.starwoodhotels.com/element/property/overview/index.html?

We did Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Centre and had a fab view of the Empire State Building, which you don’t get if you are viewing from the ESB instead, took the Staten Island ferry to look at the Statue of Liberty and explored SoHo, Greenwich Village, Wall Street, West Village, Central Park, Fifth Ave, in fact all the usual haunts as well as spending most of the morning in Forever 21, a teen heaven which sells fashion at ridiculously low prices. As it was raining and it was Livvy’s 16th birthday, I relented and spent almost an hour in the changing rooms giving my opinion on their many dazzling outfits.

We headed to Abercrombie so the girls could have their photo taken with the topless hunk at the front door. Yyou may or may not be relieved to hear that I (reluctantly) passed on this photo opportunity myself. Then it was off to Tiffanys on 5th Ave, minus the croissant Audrey H had when she went, which was deemed too cheesy by far to re-enact. The marvellous assistant there helped the girls choose a necklace and a charm within budget to remember their trip by.

We also passed Ground Zero, which still has an eerie atmosphere and sends chills down the spine when you look at the vast open space amid all the other skyscrapers. A year before 9/11, I took my mum to the top of the Twin Towers to look at the views across the river and we wandered around the shopping mall immediately below. There is a very moving memorial in the West Village with hand painted tiles inscribed with messages to those who lost their lives that day, I defy anyone not to shed a tear while reading them.

We headed to the Mercer Kitchen for lunch in Soho and had a fab birthday celebration before spending the rest of the afternoon on foot while the girls pretended to be Gossip Girls and spent huge amounts of dollars. Other great finds include Sardis, a famous old theatreland restaurant a lot like Joe Allens where the walls are lined with caricatures of famous Broadway stars. Ever since Jimmy Cagney’s was stolen on the day he died, the owners have insisted on two identical caricatures, one of which is given to the star so that if one is stolen it is able to be replaced. Ruhlman’s, opposite the Rockefeller Centre, is another NYC stalwart, with a sunny terrace and great brasserie menu. The lobster rolls and fries were amazing.

Harrisons in Tribeca was buzzing at the weekend, it’s the closest New York has to a gastropub and the stand out dishes were the lightly fried skate and home-made gnocchi. The only place that was over-rated, touristy and uninspiring was Seaport in South Street.

Mother’s Day was spent wandering around West Village in the sunshine before we headed for the airport so that the guys could fly home and I could fly to Miami...but that’s another story for another day.

One brave lady

2011-03-24T05:53:00.000-07:00

Just a short post today....It's easy to get caught up in the frivolity and petty silly stuff, worrying about things that in the great scheme don't really matter.

I am posting an article published yesterday in The Mirror, written by one of my Fleet Street colleagues, about her battle with cancer. It sounds depressing but Sue, who is not only a great writer but also a fair boss and a very kind and funny person, has managed to turn a brutal subject into a very honest, heart-warming and humorous - a strange word to use when talking about cancer - read.

Judge for yourselves. And good luck Sue.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/03/23/sue-carroll-my-cancer-fight-mirror-columnist-opens-her-heart-over-pancreatic-tumour-115875-23009908/

The wonderful world of Disney

2011-03-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

So it was that I left the rainy, cold Cote d’Azur for warm, sunny Paris. After five long days of relentless torrential downpours, it felt good to get off a plane in spring sunshine. It did feel wrong to be going sans kids to the world’s most famous playground but I soon dispensed with any guilt on arrival at the Disneyland Paris hotel.

You gotta love the Japanese...the lady in front of me was clicking away at the motorway exit signs for Disneyland and filming the motorway ahead on the hotel shuttle from the airport. Can you imagine what she was like once she actually got there?

We arrived at a pink palace which smells of baby’s bottoms (clean ones) and talcum powder. Someone in the know told me that every Disney venue in the world has the same ‘eau de Disney’ aroma which I guess is meant to transport you back in time to your childhood. As you can see from the photo, I made friends very quickly.

Following a sumptuous lunch and conference introduction, we were taken on a tour of the park. For tour, read being cajoled onto rollercoasters that in normal circumstances I would not dream of stepping anywhere near. My last rollercoaster ride was in Australia and I humiliated myself by crying and throwing up (aged 20, not my coolest moment) so how I found myself on Space Mountain 2 and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril is anyone’s guess. I can only say it was in the interests of appearing professional and doing my job properly. I emerged from both rides hoarse from screaming and had angry red fingernail digs in the palms of both hands...it certainly broke the ice with the rest of the press pack and I think I made quite an impression on Paul from the Express and the girl from Sky magazine who were sitting in front of me.

One of the highlights of the trip was managing to eat three four-course meals in the space of 24 hours, not including breakfast. I could never go on a cruise as when it is all laid out delectably in front of you, it is impossible to pick the sensible salad option and sail past the dessert trolley. Drastic measures were called for so on Saturday morning, following a fresh dump of late season snow, I headed off toute seule for a morning skiing. There are definite advantages to going it alone, even if you do look like Billy no mates...the highlights are...

• Being able to ski all morning without being forced to stop for a ‘rest’ every half a run or peeling off at the bar for a refuel every hour. Some people would see this as a lowlight.
• Playing Phoenix there and back without being told to turn it down/off.
• Being able to dance at the wheel, which involves bouncing the shoulders and nodding the head and singing so loudly that you are in danger of drowning out the lyrics with NO-ONE telling you to shut up or grow up.
• Driving like a rally star around the gorgeous alpine roads that lead to Greolieres and marvelling at the views from the ridge at the top.
• Getting sprayed by white mist as you drive through the Gorge du Loup past the waterfall which is so amazing that people stop dead in the middle of the road to admire it (you only ever notice it on the way home.)
• Dumping the skis on the terrace to pull up a sun lounger having done three fantastic hours and still being home in time for lunch.

What a perfect end to the week.

Lost in translation

2011-03-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that I used to be the only French speaker in this family? Ergo, everyone was super impressed when I ordered coffee and pastries on ski trips to the Alps or asked where the toilets were in flawless French. Now I have children who correct my grammar while having a bloody good laugh at my expense.

I was about to send an email responding to our friends Eric and Corinne’s wedding invitation in the village next month. They took over our local pizzeria 18 months after it shut down and turned it into the perfect local restaurant – great pizzas, fantastic plat du jours, decent wine, amazing views from the terrace and a very warm welcome always. And very best of all, walking distance from home. I must have been overcome at the thought of going to a real French wedding, I have no other excuse for getting it so wrong.

Here’s what I thought I had written: ‘I am looking forward to your wedding. We will bring the girls to the ceremony and for the celebration drink at Michelangelo but then they will go home (subtext: leaving us to party late into the night.’) Literal translation: ‘I cannot wait to party at your wedding. The girls will come to the town hall and then the drink will flow at Michelangelo!’ I was obviously thinking aloud. Between tears of laughter as she read over my shoulder, Liv said, Oh mum, you sound like such a party animal....all I can say is old habits die hard.

This was on top of an attack of maternal guilt earlier. I had already told the girls I was going to Paris at the end of the month on a job and they were grrring through gritted teeth. After last summer’s visit, it is their favourite city in the world, although I’m sure New York in a couple of weeks will offer Paris some competition. Then today I was asked to do another job in Disneyland Paris next week. We have never done Disneyland Paris together, or Disneyland Florida (that was another job, or journos holiday as they put it so disparagingly) so the fact that their 40-something mum is going to hang out with Minnie and Mickey when they have never been is a bit of an issue. Clearly I will have to seek out famous animals for autographs.

I have never lived down the fact that I went to Lapland twice to meet Santa (purely in the interests of work of course) while the girls were left languishing at home. We spent the following Christmas in Lapland en famille out of guilt that I had met the ‘real’ Santa not once but twice, while they had to make do with stolen glimpses of an impostor on Christmas Eve.

Before I am reported to social services for neglect I should point out that before they reached 10, they had clocked up serious air miles in Mauritius, San Francisco, Canada, the Virgin Islands and various Caribbean destinations, to the point where they preferred camping trips in Dorset and the New Forest to long jaunts from Heathrow.

On the other hand, their mother never tires of jumping on a plane. This month is shaping up to be a good one...Paris, Paris, New York and Miami hot on each others’ tails. Work, work, pleasure (NY is for Liv’s 16th birthday) then work. It’s a lovely feeling to offer your 16yo the choice of how to celebrate and she eschews the big crazy party with all her mates for a family city break (although if I were her I would have tried for both. She has a lot to learn.)

Working in some of the most glamorous cities on the planet can hardly be described as work in the true sense of the word. Especially when you are staying at the W in South Beach and The Element, a new eco friendly Starwood hotel in Times Square. After a chilly winter, I’m looking forward to Miami particularly with Elle Macpherson and the latest batch of BNTM finalists. I hear the surf is pretty good too, but of course it will be observed from the balcony whilst writing up interviews rather than tested in the flesh....

Today’s pic is of the pool this afternoon in spring sunshine although it wasn’t quite bikini climes. Nonetheless it had the desired effect when I posted it on Facebook earlier....lots angry from Tunbridge Wells postings. We were just getting into the spring vibe on Sunday when Tony and Shan came for lunch....it was so hot we ate on the terrace and only came in at sunset when it got a bit shivery. Since then there’s been a bite in the air which is not really cricket for almost mid March. I am trying to fly in the face of it (dresses, gladiators, goose bumps) but it’s not easy.

Half term rules

2011-02-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

It has its downsides...kids laying in bed until way past noon in their PJs fixated to the internet in bedrooms resembling a war zone, gazillions of kids’ friends round dominating the sofas and TV, the fridge being emptied on a daily basis due to permanent munching from certain younger members of the family, and one much older one, but the upside of school holidays when you work from home is that you feel like you are on holiday too. Don’t know how I will cope when the girls leave home...

We had the pleasure of Clare, Nick and lovely Miss Ruby visiting from Parker Towers in Twickenham for a few days so we headed off for some skiing in gorgeous conditions last Monday. Clare eschewed the pistes for a deckchair at the 504, and actually had the nerve to tell me she was exhausted from all the fresh air as we drove home that evening. That evil little drag TK Cheiron had its way with new visitors as usual, chucking Ruby off halfway up, which meant Nick had to leap off mid-way too. Hasty arrangements were made to come down two different routes and pick them up en route and rather hilariously, Handyman inadvertently chose the black run while I took the gentle red with the girls.

Naturally, no-one managed to find each other, which meant a regrouping coffee break after our second run. Regular readers of this column will know that handyman and skiing are not a natural fit. He once said on the chair lift on a beautiful sunny, New Year’s Day with no crowds and fresh powder everywhere: ‘Now, in a perfect world, I would be lying on a sun lounger on the beach in Barbados, not freezing to death on this lift.’ He was deadly serious. And he never chooses to ski a black, ever. So it will come as no great shock to hear that I found him slumped in a deckchair, nursing a coffee and complaining that his knees had just been shot to pieces by the moguls.

I suspect it was all an elaborate ruse to enable lengthy recuperation at the restaurant for virtually the rest of the day, gamely dressed up as ‘keeping our non-skiing guest company.’ You can see from the photo above that those in the know at Greolieres had advance warning of Iain's brave rescue mission.

The following day was a walking-the-dogs-on-the-beach day, which was just a ruse for lunching at the fabulous Brocherie II in la Napoule, where a stupendous five course menu marin accompanied by a few bottles of Chateau Maime on the terrace watching the yachts bob in the harbour can easily see you from lunch into very late afternoon indeed. Wednesday was spent in Saint-Paul de Vence admiring the beautiful views from the Colombe d’Or and tucking into a mid-afternoon snack of home-made crepes. Fair to say we all ate our own bodyweight in five days so the weekend has been spent trying to regain some sort of normal routine which doesn’t involve eating every two hours.

Tonight being the Oscars, it felt right to go and see The King’s Speech in Cannes this afternoon – a truly great film that deserves to sweep the board later in LA. Great films are harder to make now – if it’s not a sequel or a comic strip, funding is notoriously difficult to secure so the fact that this low budget Brit effort, which cost a modest £10million to make, has already taken close to $100 million at the US box office is remarkable. I interviewed Colin when he played Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, and Helena when she starred in Henry VIII, and both were very normal, unassuming, down to earth individuals in a business where possessing one of those qualities is a rarity, let alone all three. Go Colin, go Helena and go, go, go Geoffrey.

Highlights of my week

2011-02-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

These are the questions currently burning through my grey matter (hate that word grey, you will see why in a minute.)

1. Why is it that when I really concentrate hard on speaking French, it backfires on me in a spectacularly embarrassing way?

2. Why is it that when you try and do a good turn for someone, it comes back to bite you on the bum?

3. Why am I getting grey hairs?

Yesterday I went to pick up Issy from a birthday sleepover in Grasse. Many of the mums I have got to know in the last two and a half years speak no English at all, which is great for me, forcing me to practise my rusty A level French which has, in my humble view, come on in leaps and bounds since I moved here. It’s not so great however for the 11-year-old fluent French speaker stood at my side. Sometimes I practise what to say in certain situations in my head and it comes out beautifully. So much so that the other person assumes I have a far greater grasp than is strictly true and rattles back at me so fast that I am literally lost in translation.

I find when in doubt saying d’accord a lot, nodding sympathetically and laughing every so often usually saves the day and gets me out of anything I don’t really understand pretty effectively, except when someone asks me a question (at which point I just look like a stumbling village idiot) or says something fairly serious. So as Christine told me yesterday that Issy had been doubled up with stomach ache that morning, it didn’t look good when I nodded and laughed. I did realise my mistake some 10 seconds later once I’d hurriedly translated mal a ventre, but it wasn’t quick enough to prevent the accusation of being an evil, unfeeling mum being levelled as soon as we got in the car.

Then today, out walking the dogs in the village, I spotted the cat lady sitting at her window and had a lovely long chat with her which quite simply flowed. I used words I didn’t even know I knew and cat lady didn’t nod back and say d’accord so I have to assume she understood me. I also seem to be brilliantly fluent with at least two glasses of wine inside me which is a very good argument against any sort of detox. Not that I am considering anything of the kind.

I’m over being a good Samaritan too after an invisible cast iron post too it upon itself to smash into the car bumper last week. Liv spotted two of her mates on the bus in front of us at Opio, who face a long walk in the dark when they get off in our village so I told her to text them and tell them we would meet them below the perfume factory and give them a lift home. Sadly, the movement sensors weren’t working on the car on this particular occasion so I didn’t have any prior warning of the low fire hydrant until I clumped it in reverse, splitting the bumper on the back of our already very bashed up jeep. Still, at least the boys didn’t have to walk back in the dark. See above for the beauty I used to drive, sans any bumps and grazes, before I moved to France. I was so sad at leaving it behind that I have a whole photo file dedicated to it, and still visit it occasionally on Mel's drive when I'm back in the UK.

Perhaps more annoying than all of this is the discovery of the odd (OK, rather more prevalent than I would like to admit) grey hair making an appearance cunningly disguised as a highlight. Given that my roots are now two inches long, it’s rather obvious that the light reflecting strands at my roots are not the honey blonde I covet but a rather dangerous steely colour. They tend to show up most when I’m driving and checking my rear view mirror, then annoyingly disappear by the time I’ve legged it to the bathroom mirror to dispense with them. Is it true that for every one you pull out, another three grow back? If so, I should have a shock streak by next weekend. I have a feeling I might need more than rear sensors to prevent any further car incidents...and if you see the driver of a black jeep paying rather too much attention to the rear view mirror and not enough to the windscreen, do yourself a favour and give her a very wide berth.

Un petit histoire about our French roots

2011-02-09T12:54:00.000-08:00

Something funny happened at the apartment today, and it made me realise just how much we will miss it once it's sold. Then I thought, really it has been so instrumental in our move to France that I should share a bit of the history with you and perhaps finish off with the funny bit.

In 2003, feeling a bit flush and as usual, the money burning a hole in our pockets, we decided the time was right to buy a holiday home. We had looked at Marbella four years earlier but the horrific multi-lane motorway that passes within inches of the coastline and which necessitates walking to the beach through underground tunnels not dissimilar to the Bullring at Waterloo put us off. Then we bought a beautiful 400year old Grade 2 listed cottage in Herts which needed major renovation so all second home plans were shelved indefinitely.

Eight years ago, we resumed our search and ended up putting an offer in on a beautiful but bijou and very overpriced fisherman's cottage in Padstow (or Padstein, as Rick's burgeoning business empire has led to it being renamed.) By the time we drove from Cornwall to our friend's house in Devon, and realised that the entire house would comfortably fit in their kitchen, we had withdrawn our offer and it was back to the drawing board.

We had a simple conversation...where we would chose to go at least half a dozen times a year and never get bored (or have to endure insufferable rainy weather?) The answer was the South of France, a shorter hop by plane than the five hour drive to the West Country and within three months, we were the proud owners of a beautiful off-plan budget-busting apartment with spectacular views, as you can see above, of the bay of Cannes and the Esterel hills.

We spent so many holidays there in and out of season, made friends both French and English, and not once did we ever feel ready to go home. Not even after spending a very rainy cold Christmas and Boxing Day holed up watching French TV and taking it in turns to oversee the girls riding their new scooters around the underground car park. And the best bit, the bit we hadn't even known about as we signed on the dotted line, was that when it rains in Mandelieu in winter, it's likely to be snowing in the ski resorts a 90-minute drive away, so no reason to ever feel depressed about rain again.

Fast forward seven crazy years, and the apartment and the fun we had there was in no small way responsible for us selling up and upping sticks to move here permanently in 2008. A decision none of us have ever regretted, although the girls do now make the mistake of thinking that the streets of London are paved with gold rather than dog poo, litter and fag butts.

Now that the time has come to sell, mainly because we live half an hour away therefore making holidays there a bit redundant, we have decided to max it out whenever possible and spent last weekend there, walking the dogs on the beach, admiring the view and enjoying the fact that there is no internet so we actually have to make conversation and go out instead of working.

Unfortunately the hot water tank was on the blink and after the bath I so looked forward to ended up being a lukewarm puddle, we made a rendezvous with Savelys for this afternoon. The guy arrived and said it was probably best to service the boiler and give it a good clean. I was busy writing a feature when he mentioned that he had found a DVD on top of the boiler. He left it on the side face down and dusty while I carried on working obliviously.

An hour later, the problem was cured and I signed off the work and said goodbye. As I was clearing up the dust I noticed the DVD sitting there, and flicked it over expecting it to be one of Issy's Legally Blonde movies. I was 50% right....it was Des Blacks et Des Blondes and in case you are in any doubt about the content, there was a busty blonde pouting on the front wearing very little in the way of clothes. And it wasn't Reece Witherspoon.

I rang Handyman in a state of shock crossed with hysterical laughter..I am so glad I didn't realise while the engineer was still there, imagine trying to react to that in French! He feigned surprise and begged me to bring it home...naturally it ended up in the bin...and the only reason he is off the hook is because the title was in French (although I guess the dialogue is the last thing on anyone's mind.)

My lovely friend Jess sent me a message yesterday telling me about her great friend who has just moved to Nice for the next few years, and who knows no-one here. I rememember when I arrived here and didn't speak to a soul outside of our house for the first three months. It's so horrible and you think you'll never make friends so I urged her to pass on my details so we can meet for a coffee. Her name is Mrs Goblet (actually it is much more glamorous than that but Goblet is definitely in there) and I somehow think we are going to get on famously. Ellie, if you're reading this, get in touch!

Soho style

2011-01-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

And so to London for a bit of business, some light shopping (very light Iain, I promise although Liberty was a very dangerous five minute walk away) and a very chi chi place to rest my head in the Soho Hotel. Now I have stayed at some fantastic (and a few not so fantastic) hotels in my time, and this one is right up there with the very best.

More about that later...on arrival, BA got me in half an hour early, a joy on a flight that is supposed to land at 9.25pm. However, noticing that there was no driver with my name on the board, I hung around for five minutes then hopped on the tube. I was at Boston Manor when my mobile rang, it’s your driver at Terminal 5 Miss Hockney, where are you? Obviously BA is never early, let alone half an hour early on a flight as short as the Nice hop. The morale of the story is an early flight is not always to be celebrated if it means you end up on the tube instead of in the back of a nice comfy chauffeur-driven Mercedes. The upside was walking through Chinatown and seeing all the fantastic colurful lanterns festooned along Gerrard Street ready for Chinese New Year next week as my picture above shows.

Arriving at 11pm, I gave my name at reception to be told that someone had just checked into my room and had ordered room service! (I found out that this was my celebrity interviewee who shall remain nameless to spare his blushes and was totally mortified the next day when he realised.) At this point things then took a rather gorgeous upturn...my hastily reassigned room was the size of an apartment, with every luxury and mod con you can think of, a super kingsize bed, stunning furnishings and a presentation box of two Miller Harris Soho Hotel lip balms (that’s the girls’ presents sorted then.) There was even an aromatherapy spray to cover your pillow and ensure a deep, uninterrupted sleep. Carrie, the manager, really has everything covered.

The interview went swimmingly the next day, although Lembit Opik was loitering in the foyer looking rather furtive (maybe he had spotted me and was worried about that peculiar tabloid habit of phone hacking) and designer Jeff Banks (from my fave 80s TV treat The Clothes Show, remember?) was sitting at the table next to mine in the restaurant (what is it about these celebs who need to be in my orb?) On the way out, I bumped into my old editor at The Sun, Kelvin Mackenzie, and we had a lovely chat about the phone hacking scandal and life in France, which he has a particular soft spot for having once owned a house in Valbonne. Then my PR pal Lisa spotted me and grabbed me for a chat while she waited for a meeting with the head honchos at ITV1’s Law and Order. It was a veritable media village, like the one I used to inhabit, rather than the medieval village I now reside in.

The night continued in the same wonderful vein, with cocktails at the hotel bar, dinner at Quo Vadis a mere 50 steps across the road and then bizarrely, just as I was planning on being sensible for once and turning in for the night after a nightcap at the bar, I was whisked off to Bungalow 8 for rather too many glasses of Perrier-Jouet and some very interesting shots. Suffice it to say that the aforementioned early night went straight out of the window and the next day as I dropped my bags at the desk to wait for my car, feeling rather more fragile than usual (sadly the bags under my eyes had to remain with me) the lovely twinkly concierge Jamie couldn’t hide his smirk as he asked: ‘Good night last night? A few drinks?’ Oh the shame....

So if you are heading to London anytime soon and money is no object, or someone else is paying, do yourself a favour and book the Soho...you don’t even have to leave the lobby to have a good time. And the breakfast is to die for.

I am now watching Michel Roux’s In Service, based at the Pommery champagne house a few hundred miles from here, and wondering whether I can possibly swing a little press trip to the chateau for a tasting sometime....

What January blues?

2011-01-23T13:47:00.001-08:00

What a mental couple of weeks. Whoever thinks January is dull and boring needs to move into our house....it has been non stop since we got home at New Year. Last week was la Plagne, on a gorgeous Disney job interviewing snowboarders and freestyle skiers in the middle of the Alps.

Before I get loads of hate mail, I should point out that it did entail a 16 hour round trip by train (with breathtaking scenery from my First Class carriage)and a rather hair raising ride up the mountain followed by a rather nerve-jangling slip backwards down the hill for 15 minutes in a fierce snowstorm. The trip also necessitated me standing in very bright sunshine at the top of a snow park watching lots of talented teens do 360s, back flips and other death defying feats while nursing a hot chocolate. It was sunny but so cold that I had to fit in the odd ski down to Belle Plagne alongside the experts (well, ok, quite a long way behind them) to get the circulation back in my fingers and toes. Just so you know that the life of a former Fleet Street hackette involves more than just watching the celebrity world go by....

Came home to warmish sunshine and lots of social engagements which is never a bad thing either in January (did someone mention detox?) including some rather strenuous but sunny tennis and a very convivial supper at Helen and Neil's.

Last week was Livvy's stage - and she chose to work with mama as a trainee journo. I'd like to say she chose the soft option but as the first part of this blog proves, my life is anything but. Not for her a 3.30am start at the local boulangerie to bake baguettes and croissants or a stint at a hotel cleaning bedrooms and toilets. After establishing that her hours would be 9 - 4pm with an hour for lunch (an hour!) she would surface at about 8.50am in her pjs, selectively not hearing my instructions that she needed to be at her desk, PC at the ready, at 9am sharp. One morning when I asked her to do some research for me, she asked if she could do it from her bed.....at which point I realised that a. I might have made a monumental mistake not forcing her to work in the real world and b. that I'm obviously not a very fearful boss.

Once we had established that working for me involved getting dressed and not leaving her bedroom in its usual turmoil, she was actually pretty sharp, and did wonders with a feature I gave her to write as well as some research on a Hollywood teen star. On Friday, I asked her what she thought of her week. 'Hmmm, you have a pretty nice life mum,' was her verdict. So I had to point out that it has taken 20 years of hard slog to get to this rather lovely, privileged position.

Just watching the news while I write this and Andy Coulson's resignation is still the story du jour. We worked together at The Sun when we were both showbiz reporters and you'd struggle to find a better, more thorough and committed operator than Andy. Can't help feeling he has been made the scapegoat for an awful lot of Fleet Street misdemeanours....and having resigned once already over this scandal at the News of the World, it all seems a bit double jeopardy to me.

And so to the saddest news of the week which is the Lambs leaving for pastures new (no pun intended.) We have had three farewell lunches this week...see above...two of which stretched into darkness (and not just in our hearts either.) Some fab laughs, photos and memories that will endure.... So many people have left to go back to the UK that it feels a little like being the last few survivors on the Titanic - Will and Madsy and the four little Lambs, like Sara and Adrian, will be much missed.
But after almost three years in la belle France, I have found that real friendships withstand distance and time quite readily. There are friends in London that I see more of now than I did when I lived a few miles up the road and it was all too easy to cancel or rearrange longstanding plans. No-one does that now that we're 1,000 miles away! The pool, wine fridge and 300 days of sunshine obviously have nothing to do with it.

London beckons once more so off to pack and get my beauty sleep .......

London's calling

2011-01-03T06:05:00.001-08:00

Well it's January, that gorgeous time of the year when you know you're still three months from spring, night falls at 4pm, you have no money AT ALL and the last thing you want to do is join a gym. Seems like a bad idea to be making resolutions on top of it all and depriving yourself of the only things likely to get you through the next few weeks (those being chiefly chocolate, carbs and wine.) So I am making no resolutions at all this year. Especially as there is a family pack of chocolate eclairs that I'm still working my way through as well as a few leftover bottles from a little drinks party a few weeks ago. The only reason they are lying untouched is because we have been in London for Christmas and New Year.

The highlights were a white Christmas (well an icy one,) London's New Year fireworks and the parties, of which there were many. All the friends we stayed with have been to stay here with us and wanted to make us feel really welcome, so they all threw parties in our honour on arrival. However when you have all your worldly belongings, two kids and two dogs in the back of the Jeep and you are moving on average once every 24 hours to a new destination, any interest in parties starts to wane and is replaced by a desperate yearning to get to sleep before 2am, watch at least one Chistmas TV special and not retire to bed on one bottle of Chablis minimum.

The highlights were two uniformed police officers arriving at Clare and Nick's soiree at 3am to tell us to turn the music down, only to be offered a glass of port and a plate of cake crumbs by a slightly inebriated hostess, which they politely declined. One of them was barely out of his teens but still recognised Joy Division, which restored my faith in the men in blue and the youth of today in one fell swoop. Most impressive of all was that a bunch of 40-somethings can still party hard and loud enough to upset the neighbours and I am wearing that as a badge of honour. I did think they were strippers at first but thankfully kept that thought to myself.

Equally impressive was Belinda and Grant's pre-NY eve karaoke party at which Grant, who most days can be caught at the House of Commons talking a lot of sense in his role as Housing Minister, gave what can only be described as a faultless rendition of the best rap song ever, Rappers Delight. It's nine minutes long and he gave the Sugarhill Gang a run for their money without missing a beat. Respect. Grant, I am listening to it now stone cold sober and I still don't know how you did it. It's enough to make me want to vote Tory. Much Champagne was imbibed and a certain handyman, who had made me promise not to drag him anywhere near the mike, was the first up on the floor waving his pink wand in his hand, and the last to leave. Hmmm, he doth protest too much.

The Barcombe village drinks party was also enlivened by the strength of Sarah's home-made prosecco, pomegranate, gin and elderflower cocktails. A lovely drink providing you do not need to get up for a week. Many poor souls had to cook their turkey a mere 36 hours later. And last but not least, Norma and Tony's NY eve party in London, where Katie's iPod playlist ensured that everyone was up on the dancefloor all night and it seemed like a good idea to carry on until 4.30am, at which point I realised that we were leaving for Calais a few hours later. At least I didn't have to drive (Iain had to justify his secret sloping off for a 1am bedtime somehow, the lightweight.)

I will gloss over the hideous journey from France to Lewes (21 hours, most of which was spent queueing for a ferry after the Eurotunnel joined the shameful ranks of Eurostar and many UK airports in being unable to handle passengers due to an electricity failure.) And the 14 hour journey home on NY Day (seemed like such a good idea at the time but no, NEVER AGAIN) which has negated any need for a silly NY resolution like avoiding alcohol. Christmas shopping in Brighton two days before Christmas day when most people have spent a week snowed in was also not a good idea for future ref. And thinking it would be fun to take the dogs (180 euros in vets fees and train tickets) only to spend two weeks being covered with grimy footprints every time we let them out of the car for a pee.

Thanks to everyone who gave us food and shelter as we trundled around the snowbound UK looking like the Clampits and getting stuck daily in motorway gridlock. I have worked out that we spent as long in the car as we did out of it. So Bar sur Loup it is next Christmas.

Next week it's La Plagne to interview the best young snowboarders and skiers in Europe for Disney. Now that's what you call snow.

Close encounters

2010-12-16T04:59:00.001-08:00

There is no end to the distractions of working from home. The girls are at school and Iain is at work, which should mean peace and tranquillity and no excuse for writers block. Not so. I have just discovered Oscar, the mentally deranged pug, loudly chewing. Given that he inhales every meal whole in 15 seconds flat and then proceeds to race around the kitchen hoovering up any stray biscuits that happen to bounce out of his or Tallulah's bowl with lightning speed, I go over to investigate knowing only that it cannot be food he is eating.

He has stolen Issy's favourite dog-eared toy puppy that she has treasured since babyhood from her bedroom and has pulled out both beady eyes to indulge in a light snack. Having lost the tussle to continue (digging beads out of a pug's slobbery mouth is only marginally better than picking up poo) he is now consoling himself by licking the upholstery on the chaise longue.

He rates high on the cute factor, but there's no doubt he is one bone short of a doggy bag, or as I heard it called today, a Chewy Vuitton. We are taking him and Tallulah to London for Christmas (oh happy days on a 14 hour car journey) and Clare has begged us to bring Hotel for Dogs along as it is his favourite film. He joins in with the action scenes, standing at the side of the TV waiting to chase all the hounds when they run off camera and occasionally headbutting the screen in his excitement. Ruby and Charlie are desperate to video him in full audience participation mode and start a new YouTube sensation. Spot the difference above...one thinks he has a career looming in movies, the other has no eye, dear.

Highlight of the week was a close encounters experience at Helen and James's annual Christmas carol service on Tuesday night. Following a tuneful rendition at their little chapel, complete with authentic snow flurries and a fantastic feast of curry and mulled wine for around 70 people, the kids decided to light chinese lanterns and let them float into the night.

As we left later that evening, we were amazed to see a cluster of them still alight, hundreds of feet up in the valley (the lanterns, not the kids.) We were slightly puzzled by the number of local gendarmes and pompiers gathering in the village with their own blue lights flashing as they set up a roadblock but thought nothing more until Wednesday morning when we heard radio reports of a UFO sighting in Bar sur Loup! Some of the villagers not at the festivities had reported strange supernatural lights and fearing an alien invasion, called the police, who were following up all leads with gusto.

Riviera Radio and Nice Matin gave the story further credibility, with Nice Matin quoting a terrified local who described ‘a stationary orange light about ten times bigger than a star hovering just below the cloud line. It lasted for seven to eight seconds then a second light arrived before disappearing. Three other lights then appeared.’ Yes, that would be the lanterns....

With C-day looming, I have further distracted myself by shopping for presents on the internet as I am still struggling to commune with the idea that the big day is really not far away. I thought I'd read the letters to Santa that I forced both girls to write to give me some ideas. Livvy's was extremely helpful, with full url web address links for the gifts she wanted, complete with colour codes and prices. So much for the old fashioned spirit of Christmas reigning supreme. Issy's was less specific and I think she must have forgotten which of Santa's elves would be reading her letter when she sat down to write the paragraph about how immaculately behaved she has been all year and will continue to be next year!

Bonnes fetes to everyone.....

Feeling hot hot hot

2010-12-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

So, on a day when I have many jobs to do, I have managed to achieve precisely very little. Every other Monday is the same scenario and for this, I have the lovely Issy to blame. Her two week school agenda means she starts at 10.20am and finishes at 3.10pm. Hardly worth her going in (she agrees but has yet to persuade me completely) so I find I get home from Grasse just before 11am and then have to leave again at 2.45pm to pick her up as the buses are too irregular to trust outside peak hours (or indeed at all when Tam Tam do their usual and just forget to turn up or stop in Bar sur Loup.)

So today, instead of rushing back to write up an interview with Robert Redford for The French Paper (lovely craggy man with a wicked sense of humour) I found myself wasting time Christmas shopping at Fragonard and Galimard in Grasse as I have just realised that with less than two weeks to go, I haven't yet bought a single present for anyone. Then I tried to download a picture from Cannes Christmas market yesterday of a dog looking totally peed off in a handbag - it just pipped the chihuaha in the fake leopard print jacket to the post. Dressing a dog up as a cat is a no no in my view. Sadly my new Blackberry torch that has replaced my clapped out Storm is refusing to send it so you will just have to use your imagination...

Then I decided to make a shepherds pie with a difference for supper tonight. Iain usually cooks all the meat in this house as I haven't eaten it for over 20 years. Forget alligator eyes or kangaroo's bits, mince and mashed potatoes are the two things I would struggle to eat if I was on I'm a Celebrity....at a famous London Italian restaurant many years ago, I disgraced myself by spitting a mouthful of lumpy mash into my linen napkin very indiscreetly before dashing madly for the loo, so averse am I to any kind of potato lump. My mum blames the Smash we were force fed at primary school, apparently I have never been the same since.

Trouble is, the handyman cannot help himself loading everything from spag bol to shepherds pie with enough chillis to blow your tastebuds (and everything else) out of the water. Anything that doesn't have at least three whole chillis in is deemed 'bland' or 'a bit tasteless' which is rather infuriating when you have laboured over a subtly flavoured fish pie or a spaghetti vongole, where the absence of chilli is purely deliberate. The fact that my Italian neighbour Rosine has just given us a year's supply of fresh chillis from her garden merely compounds the problem, with the poor girls having to drink two litres of water with every meal Iain cooks now.

So I wasted 90 minutes making a flavoursome and entirely heat-free shepherds pie before realising that there were only four tiny potatoes left in the fridge. Knowing that this new carb-lite version of an English classic combined with the lack of 'flavour' would be enough to cause a cretin person (I meant to type 'certain' but that must have been a Freudian slip) to throw a minor strop, I decided to mash the leftover veggies from yesterday's roast with the potatoes to bulk them out. A cunning plan and one which I hope will work as the last time I did this for a fish pie for Sunday lunch with friends, I added rather more olive oil than necessary and blended it for so long that it looked like cat sick when I served it up. All in the pursuit of no lumps. The best compliment that day came from Serge, who diplomatically remarked that it tasted so much better than it looked!

Enough about my cooking prowess, writing about food has reminded me that it is now almost lunchtime which means that there is definitely no point reliving the lovely chat with Mr Redford today as by the time I have made and eaten my lunch, it will leave just an hour until the school run. I remember in the way distant past BC when I used to get so carried away writing and fulfilling deadlines that I would still be tapping away on my PC in a completely dark house, in the days before small voices would disturb me begging for supper.

The only thing that makes me feel slightly better about my lack of dedication today is the memory of my gorgeously talented journo pal (CM you know who you are) who did precisely one and a half day's work a week on her weekly national newspaper column. This involved reading all the week's papers in bed on a Wednesday afternoon and writing opinionated and highly entertaining topical copy all day Thursday, after which she would have five and a half days of complete non-taxing bed rest before having to do it all over again. She made the mistake of entertaining us with this tale of career dedication one night over a very boozy dinner as her horrified husband did the mental maths and promptly sacked the cleaner, the au pair and the gardener. I think it was the same night I fessed up to driving the car the wrong way down the A13 shortly after passing my driving test...a fact I had kept to myself for many years before that dinner party. It was almost worth nearly killing myself and a dozen other horrified motorists to watch the faces round the table that night! Although none of those faces could begin to match the horror of the ones on the A13 as they hurtled towards me at 70mph in the fast lane, just as I slammed the car into reverse and sped backwards onto the roundabout to continue on my way, this time on the correct carriageway.

In other news....the car is working again (hurrah) following €1000 euros of umming and aahing by various mechanics and a few minor repairs at two garages last week. So Christmas in London is back on (double hurrah.) And our first meeting of Premier Mardi, for working women to network and exchange ideas (not gossip or tittle tattle, and there was no eating of cake either) went swimmingly.

I will leave you with the entertaining faux pas I witnessed on my erstwhile boss Piers's talk show last night. A very revealing interview with Elton John, where he spoke frankly about his near death experiences with drugs and his habit of downing a bottle a day of Johnnie Walker suddenly cut to the ad break and the show's sponsor...Grants whisky!

Tomorrow is another day.

Bah humbug

2010-12-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

Can it really be less than three weeks til Christmas? I am usually in full on festive mode by now, making mulled wine, sending Christmas cards and buying presents but the Scrooge in me has taken over and I am in denial this year, particularly as the car has given up the ghost and so, two weeks before we depart foggy, rainy France for snowy, freezing London we still don't know how we are going to get there.

The original plan was to drive with kids, dogs and Christmas pressies, smugly bypassing any wildcat airline strikes, closed airports and snowbound runways and stopping off as and when we need to (with Oscar the car-hating, nauseous pug in tow that will be about every 10 minutes.)

However, even the chance of booking the car into a garage before Christmas is proving to be about as likely as witnessing the second coming. I was very efficient, French even, in my tactics this morning. On the phone at dead on 8.30am to request an appointment at their earliest convenience. The receptionist took my name and number and told me a technician would ring me back. Two hours passed, nothing. Then my phone rang with an unfamilar number as I sat in Cafe Latin in Valbonne with a friend so I started into my spiel about the car being stuck permanently in second gear, only to discover it was actually Fenelon, asking where Livvy was! Not sure who was more surprised, me or Msr Motet!

I rang the garage again at 11.30, explaining that I would quite like to be able to make an appointment before the end of 2010 to be told they had my message and my number and yes, someone would be ringing me back to arrange an appointment. Needless to say, nothing. I'd find it disappointing if I wasn't so familiar with this scenario.

While the weather has been doing its worst here, I have been busy beavering away on my website www.karenhockneymedia.com. Have had some great feedback already from friends and colleagues and the guys at Brightbox did a fab job of making it look slick and professional (if only they could perform the same magic on me!)

Spoke to the lovely Dermot O'Leary last week, who has never changed despite now being one of the hottest hosts on TV. He's hosting the National TV Awards next month and talked about why he won't wait as long as Simon Cowell to tie the knot, how his personal trainer kicks his butt to kick him in shape and why he would do pretty much anything for the job of US X Factor host. Coming soon in Closer and Hello.....

Finally, the photo at the top is destined to remind everyone in Blighty that snow can be quite lovely really...first day of ski season last Saturday in Greolieres with views down to the coast, fresh snow, sunshine and a Snickers and a grand creme to die for....

Monte Carlo or bust

2010-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

I think I might be starting to lose my credibility as a cool mum (my friends all agree with me that I am, the girls obviously disagree as is their prerogative during hormonally imbalanced teen and tween dom. The truth will out.)

Evidence of this worrying situation came to light over supper this evening when I mooted my great idea for Liv's 16th birthday next spring. 'Why don't you invite some of your friends over to camp and Max and Jeff can set up their band equipment in the garden and you can all pretend you are at Glastonbury?' was my suggestion. Iain's contribution was: 'Yeah, great idea, and we can clean up loads of old joints and beer bottles all over the garden the next day.' Liv stopped eating and looked utterly horrified. 'Have I actually heard you say that or am I in a TOTAL nightmare? That is the kind of thing you would only do if you were seven or 47 mum. Not 16.' Point taken, but on the plus side, it looks like I'm a mere few years away from throwing Bar sur Loup's first music festival.

Occasionally you can have a really amusing conversation with a 15-going-on-30 year old, entirely dependent on what side of bed they got out of. If the sun is shining, they have money in their pockets, a lift sorted and there are builders tea bags(rather than my preferred Earl Grey) in the cupboard, the chances rise considerably.

Last week Liv went with a friend to a make up workshop in Monaco. It was kind of like a Swiss finishing school for young ladies rolled into one afternoon at the Fairmont Plaza, and a great idea on how to demonstrate to a bunch of teenagers that less (make up) really is more. A point I have tried to hammer home with very limited success for the last two years. Part of the afternoon was devoted to making small talk with strangers (an under rated skill if you've ever had to walk into a party where you know no-one, as I have frequently for work, and somehow spend three hours not only having a passable time but getting some kind of story out of it.)

Anyway, after the make up session, each girl was told to ask an open ended question of the girl sitting next to them. Liv was seated next to a 12-year-old Russian girl who lives in Monaco. She marked her card in the lift on the way up when she revealed that she was not removing her sunglasses because she hadn't had a chance to put her make up on that morning. Her question was:'Have you seen the new season Dior collection yet?' While Liv tried to think of an open ended answer rather than:'Of course not, I am only 15' the team leader told her not to worry and to make up an answer because no-one here will have seen that yet. To which the Dasha Zhukova wannabe responded: 'Well, I only asked because the colours and designs are so amazing this season and my closet is already full of it!' When Liv elaborated that her wardrobe was full of Zara, H&M and Converse, the poor girl looked completely lost. As am I at this story but this is just another completely normal day in the wonderful wacky Cote d'Azur.

A Monday meltdown

2010-11-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

France is not in my good books today. Whenever any of my buddies (chiefly Tony or Will) start complaining about life in France, the bureaucracy, the driving skills etc etc I am the first to leap to the defence of my adopted country.

But not today. Now that summer has properly skidaddled out of here, we decided on a cosy night out at the cinema. Consulting Angloinfo, I noted that The Town was showing and being a massive Jon Hamm fan and having read all the brilliant reviews, we bolted down supper in record time, jumped in the car and hurtled off to Roquefort, as usual cutting it so fine that we arrived just as the film was about to start. Except it wasn't.

Having spent ten minutes searching for a parking space (a certain person wanted to be under a streetlight in deserted RLP because he was worried that our battered, scruffy jeep might look like a good prospect to a passing opportunist car ringer) we hurried to the entrance to find it in total darkness and all locked up.

Cussing in the freezing cold on the trudge back to the car, we consoled ourselves with the thought of a cosy stop off at a bar en route home...then we remembered that this is the Cote d'Azur, there are no cosy bars in this neck of the woods, just very expensive hotel bars or slightly shabby brightly lit atmosphere-less stop offs for a swift after work tipple. But no pubs with a log fire, some decent wines by the glass, a dimly lit ambience and a comfy sofa or two....no, nothing like that at all.

So our night out culminated in a trip to the garage to fill the car up (76 euros) before arriving home to the guffaws of the girls who said: 'But surely you know by now that everything here is closed on a Monday?' After two and a half years, I really should remember that Mondays and indeed every lunchtime is a no-go, no-trade total shutdown. I have checked Angloinfo again, and it clearly states that The Town was showing last Wednesday and Saturday, but definitely NOT Monday night. I am sure this has been sneakily ammended in the last hour.

The picture above, by the way, is of idyllic Bar sur Loup, without aforementioned bar....

Onto the curious case of the pet insurance fiasco. When we first arrived here with our menagerie of animals, we decided in our infinite wisdom to take out an insurance policy covering all the furry beloveds in case of accident or illness (this was pre-empted by Archie Smith, Norma and Tony's cute but acutely allergic Westie who has now had in the region of £40k worth of vets bills covered by Pet Plan.) How sensible we thought we were. In the spirit of cutting back this autumn, we decided that shelling out in excess of €1000 a year on the rudely healthy little rugrats was not strictly necessary so Iain emailed Generali to politely cancel our policy.

Cue a concerned phone call the next day from a Generali minion politely informing us that we can't cancel the insurance. If we refuse to pay, they will continue to take it from our bank account anyway, because we renewed the policy in August and so have to wait until August 2011 to cancel something that is not mandatory in any case. Is the world going mad? Ok, so what if all the animals die then? Well, in that case you need to produce a death certificate for each animal certified by a vet in order to cancel the policy. Cue much hilarity from Will, whose suggestion that we start a dead animal collection service locally was not greeted with total derision. As nan in Catherine Tate might say: 'What a %£*?ing liberty!' Except liberty is the one thing in short supply.

My mood has been lightened somewhat following a flurry of emails from C in London, who entertained and shocked me in equal measure with the story of how her just turned 16yo has been grounded for a month after being dropped off for a girlie sleepover in her PJs on Saturday night, only to change into her gladrags and head out to a Soho nightclub with all her friends, before catching the 5am nightbus home to sleepover friend's empty house (the parents, of course, had gone away for the weekend.) Having shared the story with Liv, she could only gasp: 'Wow, that is legendary - but I know I would have been grounded for life if I'd done that!' She is not wrong, so perhaps living in a pub-less, bar-less, cinema-less rural idyll is the least of my problems.

Back to reality

2010-11-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

Well readers, I know you have been used to jetting around lately in virtual reality with me to exotic destinations like Toronto, New York, Hawaii and Japan, so if like me you are feeling a bit travelled out, here is a picture to make you smile (especially those readers in the generally soggy, generally freezing UK)...the rain in Bar sur Loup, specifically, on my terrace.

It's day three of relentless, stair-rod style downpours and I am amazed to reveal that I haven't left the house now since Saturday afternoon. Even Oscar and Tallulah, who usually hurtle to the door every time I stand up, are refusing point blank to venture outside. The logs have been burning, the X Factor has been blaring and astonishingly, I didn't leave the sofa from 2pm yesterday, cosied up watching back to back Halloween films, which reminded me of how great it is to now have children who have no interest in making me dress as a old hag and go trick and treating, annoying the neighbours and frightening old people.

Having spent half term down at the apartment in Mandelieu, playing volleyball and beaching it in warm sunshine with our London mates who all took the first plane out of the UK for some respite from the frost that has already set in, we arrived chez nous at BSL in need of some R&R that didn't involve copious amounts of rose.

So my weekend was spent ruthlessly culling way too many clothes from over stuffed wardrobes, and discovering that I don't need to buy another pair of shoes, handbag, hat, pashmina or outfit for at least five years. In the spirit of being eco and tightfisted, this is a good move and made me feel quietly smug when I recalled all the beautiful but totally unnecessary purchases made by Norma and Sarah last Thursday as they worshipped at the alta of Rue d'Antibes, and Maje and American Vintage in particular.

I even resisted the temptations of High St Ken last week, God only knows how. (I have been waking up feeling a bit weird lately, perhaps Iain has performed a frontal lobotomy on me without me realising.) The lovely peeps at Disney booked me into the Royal Garden Hotel ready for my interviews with their teen stars Allstar Weekend and Selena Gomez. This meant two days of lounging around in five star luxury, with chaufeeur driven Mercedes ferrying me around, and post-Tokyo, the nigh on impossible challenge of STAYING AWAY FROM THE SHOPS which were stumbling distance away from my room.

I'm pleased to report, reader, that I almost managed this. (Does a summer jumpsuit from Urban Outfitters count? I'm saying not, particularly as I can't wear it for at least eight months.) The trip was also brightened by a number of other factors....

* Spotting Eric Clapton mooching around in the lobby as I checked in, chatting on his mobile and looking sartorially cool in a this-is-what-I-just-found-on-the-floor rock star kind of way.

* Running around the Serpentine on a bright sunny but FREEZING morning and remembering all the reasons why I still really love London (but just don't want to live there anymore.)

* Meeting PR extraordinaire mates Jo and Judy at E&O, our favourite haunt in the whole world and the scene of many memorable evenings, for a feast of food, fine wine and gossip, lots of it. Then spotting Rose Byrne, who is brilliant in Damages, sitting at the table next to us. When will these celebs stop stalking me?

*Meeting the aforementioned teen stars and finding out that it's still possible to be superfamous, or on the brink of superstardom, yet polite, funny and charming to said interviewer.

*Leaving a frost covered Heathrow on BA bound for sunny 18 degrees in the shade Nice, and enjoying lunch at Las Cabanas in Theoule with the handyman I married 14 years ago to the day.

What I'm saying is three days of rain cannot dim my world (unless it turns into five or six.)

Japan

2010-10-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone needs to visit Tokyo once in their lives. After a 12 hour flight, landing at 9.30am is never a great plan when you are jumping forward eight hours but somehow the amazing sights, sounds and not least the FABULOUS food kept us out until 1am the following morning.

Norma, Lisa and Virginia hit the shops at the first opportunity as soon as we checked into the hotel and we trailed along in their wake, watching the fashionistas walk into a store and know within about two minutes whether there was anything worth following up for next year's collections.

After about five stores, Sarah and I needed a bit more than fashion to keep us going so we peeled off to head for Harajuku, Tokyo's version of Camden/Carnaby Street, with boys dressed in cargo shorts, leggings and boots (sounds so wrong yet it works but only if you're diehard trendy, under 25 and Japanese so don't try this at home.)
We finished off at a restaurant called Ninja where you go through a London Dungeon type underground cave system to sit in your own private locked booth, cross legged on the floor for the most fantastic sushi, sashimi and miso black cod...E&O eat your heart out.

One of the highlights of the trip was Kyoto. The bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto takes 2 hrs 20 and was just phenomenal, it hurtles along at such speed you can almost feel the G force. Clean, spacious, with reclining seats and spectacular views. We decided the perfect way to see the city was by bike so we hired some by the station and headed off in the direction of the shrines and temples, east of the city hugging the mountains. The traditional Japanese architecture is evident, with elaborate overhung carved rooves on the tea houses and winding steep narrow streets. Best spot was two gay Brits who were made up as geishas for the day and rode around in a carriage, as well as a real geisha, still a fairly unusual sight during the day. It really was a feast for the senses.

We wound our way into the city after all the culture and parked our bikes at the front of a colourful shopping mall. I noticed what looked like parking tickets on all the other parked bikes and a friendly warden came over and started pointing at the tickets and shaking his head with a big smile. We came to the conclusion that he was telling us all the bikes had been issued parking tickets already so we were probably safe so we merrily took our chances and left them there. As we were wandering through the shops, it occurred to me that the last time I was on a day trip with the Smiths, Norma and I were towed away in Ventimiglia to the tune of €400! Tony and Sarah were chilled but I suddenly had a panic attack about the bikes being towed and we legged it back to find that every other bike had been clamped! Ours were the only three left untouched...oh happy days.

We ate the best sushi at the station, simple, fresh and cheap. I'd move to Japan for that alone. I noticed that much as Tokyo is probably one of the world's most crowded cities, everyone respects personal space. At the crossings, people stand well away from each other, no-one jostles or pushes forward and flu-style surgical masks are worn by commuters and cyclists on a daily basis. Even at 11pm the metro was full of commuters still making their way home from work....one memorable sight was a girl on the metro dressed entirely in pink; tutu, legwarmers, Mary Janes, and even pink ear muffs like a real life Barbie. Some of the fashion is bizarre but it is without doubt the most daring fashion forward place I've ever been to, which explains why the Swedish buying team from H&M were also staying at our hotel, on the lookout for fresh ideas.

So, if you are planning a trip to Japan anytime soon, top tips are:

* Shibuya district for an Oxford Street style bustle, amazing shops and mental fashion. Parco is definitely worth a look.

* Womb - concealed down a backstreet, you'd never find this place unless you know where to look but it's worth the hunt as it's one of the best clubs I've ever been to, with brilliant music, a mainly Japanese clientele and a very late licence.

* Adam and Eve onsen, in Ropponghi. A traditional bath house, with hot springs, plunge ppols and steam rooms, the masseuses are no-nonsense and clad in black bras and knickers, and cover you with oil and slap you around on the beds like you've never been slapped before, all the while chatting away to each other. They use crushed cucumbers for the facial and then shampoo and condition your hair before dousing you with moisturising milk. You leave feeling like you are floating on air. Women have to be naked, men need to wear shorts (Tony got a bit confused on this one, hence much hilarity from us. Luckily he was in the boys room next door.)

* The bullet train - just amazing.

* Ebisu and Meguro by the canal, great for vintage stores, cafes and bars.

* The Prada building in Aoyama, built like a beehive it is floor after floor of design heaven but be warned, twice the price of London.

Mad Men and Englishwomen

2010-10-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

There are times when being a jet setter journalist is a lot of fun. Jaunts to LA, tick, Hawaii, tick, Maldives (landing in a sea plane, then relaxing between shoots in an overwater bungalow) tick. Then there are times when it is mind-blowingly, stressfully not fun, ergo last night stuck on the drive unable to open the electric gate due to stair-rod style horrible rain (a daily reality in the UK right now but still blissfully rare here.)

I get ready for a night that promises to be fun at Mipcom in Cannes, which involves registering for the festival, watching a screening of one of the latest Mad Men episodes so far unseen on UK television (need I say more) oh and a Q&A with the supremely talented, good-looking and yes genuinely nice Jon Hamm, aka Don Draper. Followed by cocktails at the Martinez. Ho hum, sooo worth venturing out in the gladrags on a rainy Monday night for.

Manage to make it up the rapids-style drive to the car, a not inconsiderable feat given the unsensibly high black boots I was wearing. Press the gate beep, nothing. Press again, still nothing. Call Issy on my mobile at the house to ask her to press the intercom gate buzzer, STILL NOTHING. Under normal circumstances I would have been a bit fed up, then thought about the advantages of not driving to Cannes on a wet and windy Monday night and been quite upbeat about my fate. But not when the hottest male TV and film star of the moment is waiting in Cannes.

Cue the hot handyman and jack of all trades (which implies master of none, and yet he can do it all, plumbing, electrical, even chimney sweeping!) Iain is none too impressed to be summoned from his warm dry PC to look at the gate in pouring rain but he graciously did it anyway before telling me there was NO WAY I was leaving the drive that night. Something in my crestfallen face and whingeing tone along the lines of ‘how I am I supposed to do my job and earn money if I can’t leave the house? I CANNOT miss the star of Mad Men’ must have had an effect because he then spent 45 minutes trying different ways to restart the electrical short before dismantling the gate mechanics so we could open it manually, me by now in my wellies trying to be the electrician’s mate and watching the hair I’d straightened earlier frizz into something approaching an exploding mattress.

No matter....reader, I got off the drive while Iain swam down it for a hot shower and then drove like a demon so as not to keep DD aka JH waiting. In the flesh, he is charming, funny, relaxed and even more handsome than he is on screen. If that's possible. If you are wondering what I’m on about, tune into Mad Men on BBC4 tomorrow night and all will be revealed.

Tomorrow, lunch with Robert Redford, Jon Hamm and a host of other celebs in Cannes. That is one big tick. To be continued.

Hawaii

2010-09-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

Aloha! I'm boring the pants off myself saying that, but it's a great word, it means hello, goodbye, welcome, I love you and any manner of other nice greetings so really, it's the only Hawaiian word you need.

A trip has to be really good for me to say yes to spending a total of three days travelling across the world and back for four days actually on the ground but when the destination is Hawaii for Bravo's remake of Hawaii Five O, what else could you possibly say except aloha!

We flew United, and I really want to write nice things about them as their staff are quite sweet, polite, older than average steward crews, whch makes me like them more for being non-ageist, plus they bumped us up to a slightly higher class (the one that sits mid-way between economy or misery class and business, so basically, more legroom but no flat bed or flashy meals.)

One of the joys of flying is that you can't use your mobile (unless you're on Emirates, which will probably offer the first holidays to the moon as they are so avant garde and ahead of the competition) so it's licence to read uninterrupted and catch up on all the movies you've missed. Unless you're flying United. An antiquated miniscule screen with more plastic trim than screen, on the 11 hr LA leg, it offers a choice of 8 old-ish films on rotation so if you fall asleep or need the loo, you might miss a crucial scene.

Then horrors, after three hours at LAX in transit, on the next leg of 5hrs 50 mins, there was one drop down screen showing Mr and Mrs Jones, a complete piece of drivel which makes me worry that David Duchovny is one of my favourite actors. My advice - buy every mag and at least three new books in Smiths and you will be fine. No offence United, but you have the monopoly on London - Hawaii and a 19 hour journey would be so much more bearable with a decent Virgin-style on demand entertainment system.

Hawaii itself is just fantastic, words can't do it justice. Oahu is the most commercial island, with Honolulu and Waikiki, so I was expecting touristy and built up, but outside of those areas, it was amazingly unspolit. I can see why Jurassic Park was filmed there; the volcanic mountains are a sight to behold, and Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz left just before we arrived, having wrapped the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean at gorgeous Cockroach Cove.

Diamond Head and North Shore are the places for serious surfers (maybe in another 10 years I will be headed there) but Waikiki is great for beginner/me-style surfing so whenever I had a free couple of hours (no readers, it was not every day, contrary to Iain's belief that every work trip is merely a journo's holiday) I would hire a board for a couple of hours and head off there while my fellow journos hit the shopping. It's really saying something to admit that in four days, I didn't buy one solitary item of clothing, shoes, hat, bikini, CD, DVD, scarf, coat etc etc. The warm Pacific means no wet suits (yay) but also means I'm now sporting an attractive collection of friction burns on my knees, toes, under arms and cleavage! It was so cool though that I can't care too much. Standing up on that board in Waikiki was worth a thousand BCBG Maxazria T shirts.

Went to the beach premiere (see pic) to watch the pilot and then onto Nobu for a sushi and champagne fuelled party with the cast and crew. Nuff said. OK, it was AMAZING. And Kahala Resort where we were staying (thanks to our clued up pr Jakki) was the height of luxury. Saw Liam Neeson getting in the lift (and was tempted to give chase) and it's Cameron Diaz's fave hotel when she is on the island (only slightly sad that I missed her and her pneumatic beach bod.)

So now I'm back. Iain and the girls have become so adept at coping without me this summer that after the initial hugs and kisses followed by 'what have you bought me?' I slip into the background again, only to be told a day later to 'calm down, the house ran perfectly well without you and your telling offs and constant 'tidy your room' orders!' And that's just from Iain....At least Oscar is still not over the excitement of having me back, bless his chubby triple chin.

New York

2010-09-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Okay so this is the moment when I made a lasting impression on the lovely Jonas Brothers. Otherwise known as ‘How to break the ice in one fell swoop’, especially when your celebrity subjects are a tad suspicious of an ex-tabloid hack from the UK – we are on a par with e coli as far as our lovely American clebs are concerned.

Five minutes into the interview and we were talking about a picture of the boys making an appearance on the Ellen chat show in the States...
Joe - That was our third or fourth time on Ellen. We were in Florida we did a performance for her and we were able to ride on tons of roller coasters which was a lot of fun. It was hot though, really hot, and we had very, very long hair.
Kevin – My hair looks like it’s consuming my face.
Joe – You look like a mad scientist! Ellen is such a sweetheart and we loved being on her show.
Me – That’s not Owen Wilson there is it?
Kevin – That’s Ellen deGeneres!
Me – Oh my God, don’t tell her I said that will you? It’s just the blurriness of the photo! I’m about to get sent home on the next plane!
Kevin – That’s ok! That’s ok!
Joe – I don’t think she’s reading it, thankfully you own what you write!
Kevin – That is hilarious!
Me – Moving swiftly on, that is our little secret....

I swear to God in her brogues, slacks and with her short but floppy blonde hair she was a dead ringer fro owen. Can I just say the boys were lovely, they laughed so hard (at me) then signed a CD for the girls, and even allowed me to bust in on their red carpet moment and told me I was their favourite journalist of all time! Not that I’m swayed at all by flattery….

Anyway, here are the little finds I discovered this time around in lovely, 90 degree NYC….

Sushi Damo, West 58th St – fantastic sushi, amazing salads with a secret Japanese dressing that the chef didn’t want to share with me, and amazing spicy rolls. So good we spent three lunches there!

Bes , 11th Ave and West 22nd St in Chelsea – cool little bar serving food til late, a great stop for any Londoners missing the pub and consequently full of ex-pat Brits.

The Mandarin Oriental, Columbus Circle near Central Park - Amazing city views and a gentleman’s club feel, they also serve food til 11, or midnight if you are very hungry and persuasive after a red carpet premiere, like us.

Mercer Kitchen at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo– the warm shrimp salad was fab and the scallops with spinach stuffed ravioli and crushed peas was a party in my mouth.

I am writing this two weeks after my return, so manic has life been since, but I do remember trying to pack my room against the clock and constantly ringing the front desk for a slightly later check out (three times, they were quite long suffering about this.)

Stayed at the Hudson Hotel, which has great communal areas and a breakfast bar with thrones at the tables but doesn’t seem to wanna spend much on lighting, hence the bruises all over my legs from walking into furniture and also getting off at the wrong floor on a regular basis as a result of being distracted by the piped but very good and loud dance music in the lifts.

They also don’t like you moving chairs at the outside bar/terrace, you have to be a table of four or spend the entire evening sitting apart, or risk the wrath of the humourless bar staff. To summarise, it’s a cool location and has a very hip image but DON’T STAY HERE.

Toronto

2010-08-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Toronto has never been on my list of must see places to visit. Vancouver yes, for its wide open west coast beauty but Toronto flies under the radar yet it is one of the coolest small cities I have been to as well as the friendliest.

From the taxi drivers to pedestrians who wil leap to your aid if they so much as see you looking at a map, to the polite restaurant staff, the Toronto locals cannot do enough for you.

Nikita was fun, the star Maggie Q has the face of an angel but makes Lara Croft look like a wimp and fights like a wildcat. As always, there was lots of sitting around on set waiting for interviews but Jess and I alleviated the boredom by trying on Nikita’s very bad wigs and sunnies!

If you’re ever passing through Toronto, here are my top tips for a brilliant visit...

By the Way on Bloor St West for brunch. Great lattes, fresh squeezed OJ and a three course breakfast on a plate. Mine was a gut busting omelette with feta spinach and mushrooms, accompanied by delish fried potatoes and melon and fruit oh and a toasted bagel. As we say chez moi...fat ass!

Le Select on Wellington St West for classic French food every bit as good if not better than the Cote d’Azur – and certainly cheaper – the bouillabaisse was authentic and divine.

Lee Gardens on Spadina Ave. Don't be put off by the slightly shabby decor, it’s always packed and the wilted snow pea leaves in garlic were a triumph, so much so that I ate the whole very large bowl!

Drakes Hotel on Queen Street West for the beach style roof terrace serving brunch until 4pm and home made lemonade.

Lucien on Wellington Street West serves authentic local ingredients cooked with a French twist. The octopus chorizo was novel and the pacific halibut and crushed snowpeas were, as Mr Winner might say, historic.

Brassai off King Street West is a cool bar, always busy at weekends and Johnny the London barman will make you a wicked mojito at the outside bar if he hears your British accent.

Kensington Ave, Augusta Ave and Queen Street West for the best vintage shopping EVER. Courage My Love, Fashionably Yours, 69 Vintage, Model Citizen where I bought Iain a fab limited edition Grace Jones print (had it framed in New York, forgetting I need to get it on the plane!) Bungalow and Heel Boy are just a few that made me feel so very welcome that I couldn’t leave without a carrier bag and Jonathan and Olivia on Ossington does designer capsule collections.

Could barely shut my suitcase when I left London and next stop after this is New York....

Paris

2010-08-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

It's 11.15pm, I have blogged once tonight (which is a rarity I know), am dead on my feet after 2am homecoming from the Big Chill this morning and have a massive list of things to do before I leave for Toronto on Wednesday, swiftly followed by New York for work. Aargh. But I cannot pack up before writing about Paris, which broke up the journey to the UK.
Service...top, food...cheaper and better than the Riviera and markets ... brilliant for vintage, high fashion and antiques. We should be moving there sometime soon.
I wrote myself a memo with the names of all the best places we visited but have now lost it so will have to do this from memory.
We stayed in a fab apartment in St Germain at le Prince Regent Residence et Spa, beautifully furnished in an old bourgeouis building with a little courtyard just five minutes walk from Cafe Flore and Les Deux Magots. Went straight out for dinner after an epic journey and very late arrival but the civilised thing about Paris is they understand that you might want to eat later than 9.30pm and actually take your money and custom with a smile.
We dropped off the luggage and ran to the first restaurant we spotted, across the road, les Caves du Polidor, which was all chandeliers, tiled floors and rustic tables oozing Parisien atmosphere without the too obvious tourist touch. Our waitress was Mr Bean's elderly toothless mum, she kept whacking Iain in the back of the neck, first with a bread basket and then the table mats. We were cracking up just as she performed her piece de resistance and knocked over a wine glass, stared at it as it rolled across the table and then walked away without picking it up! But the food made up for it, proper hearty chicken casseroles and mashed potatoes which are just what you need after numerous stale baguettes en route.
Breakfast at le Danton was followed by a stroll around the market at Clignancourt.
It's the biggest flea market in Paris and the girls were cooing over all the great fash finds there. Then Montmartre for some caricatures and views across the city from the Sacre Coeur, a float along the River Seine to the Eiffel Tower and finally Notre Dame where Livvy spotted Mr Fashion himself Gok Wan.
Dinner was at the Au Saint Benoit off Boulevard St Germain, and if you don't go anywhere else, go here for supper. It's intimate, friendly and the service and food are up with the best I've had anywhere in France. We rounded off with cocktails at a bar where two guys performed death defying acrobatic feats in mid air.
The Pub St Germain is a fab find for lunch or dinner too, with four floors of seriously cool decor, red velvet sofas and dramatic purple walls, virtually hidden away down a little cobbled alley and a manager who is on the ball and ensures that everything is swift, friendly and up to scratch. I know, this is Paris I'm talking about. It gets a bad press but maybe we got lucky.
We arrived in London to house sit for a friend only for me to discover that my pride n joy Houlihan leggings which I have worn just ONCE had been left at the hotel. After going into slight meltdown, I called the manager Remi, who promised to post them to me in the UK immediately. Two days later, they arrived. So Paris, au revoir, coming back very soon.

Glamping - lights, music and toilet paper!

2010-08-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Now there's camping and there's glamping. Until recently, well last weekend, I was a camper. Camping is that quaint outdoor pursuit that I love, on paper, until the rain starts to tip tap on the canvas before you have even finished pitching the tent, and rarely subsides until you have packed everything up again and decamped back to full plumbing and hot showers.
I've camped in England with varying degrees of success - last time we left early because of relentless downpours and the girls didn't speak to me all the way home and told me I had ruined their best holiday EVER. Forget Caribbean beaches and Alpine lakes, they love not seeing a toothbrush or the inside of a shower cubicle for days on end. What I remember about that particular trip was sitting in the laundry room at our New Forest site with my Manc friend Clare, who is a tough cookie, trying to warm up next to the tumble dryers.
Italy was fun last year but the opposite extreme, so hot that it was almost impossible to sleep.
So with the Big Chill beckoning, and a dry Glastonbury for the first time in years, I felt strangely confident as we packed up all our camping gear the day we left France. The fact that it took up three quarters of the boot, and that was without our months-worth of luggage, hair straighteners, beauty products...three females equals a lot of stuff....was not a worry for me, although Iain had to drive 1000 miles without a rear view.
Then two things happened. We saw the weather forecast for last weekend...showers...and noticed an advert for Yurtel on the BC website...yurts with double beds, proper quilts, electric lights, lamps, even carpet for God's sake. Oh and no forgetting an eyemask and ear plugs for the discerning festival goer who likes to sleep at some point. How did we miss this, opined Iain, who tries to avoid every camping trip with excuses like work, bike trips and frozen shoulders. He also mentioned something about being able to read in bed if the music got too much for him. So with less than 24 hours to go, we booked one and spent the next hour unpacking all aforementioned gear in sunny Herts before setting off.
The fact that we had a. all bought wellies, b. booked a luxe alternative and c. even thought to borrow the waterproofs that had been forgotten in our haste to pack meant of course that it didn't rain at all, well apart from one sharp downpour on Friday, which just meant beating a hasty retreat into the Thali tent for a fabulous Indian.
But if you think that's extravagant, the Lotterys can beat it. N&T had booked a hotel 8 miles away, then decided to join us Yurting, but didn't want to lose the full English breakfast and en suite that even the yurtel couldn't provide so kept their rooms on, sleeping on site and rushing off each morning for three hours to 'freshen up'. Needless to say, Issy became a Lottery for the duration of the trip.
My highlights? Mystery Jets' brilliant set on the Clash stage on Friday night, they thanked the crowd for sticking with them rather than watching Massive Attack on the big momma stage but they needn't have bothered because they were SO much better, and The Magic Numbers yesterday, who have made a few of my favourite tracks ever. Plan B was also magnetic live, not what I expected at all, and went down a storm. Lily Allen proved that pregnancy doesn't have to stop you having a good time and Paloma Faith and Newton Faulkner were also good value. Plus loads of little unknown bands, including Hundred in the Hands, who are really super talented.
Iain's highlights? The dozens of world food stalls serving everything from Lebanese wraps to Goan fish curry and everything in between. His mission was to try as many as possible and reader, he didn't fail.
Issy's highlights? Setting up a three day residence at the dodgem stand, she and Poppy must've spent every pound of their not inconsiderable pocket money whizzing round at speed bashing as many people as they could.
Liv and Lyd checked out the talent at the festival too, most of which had nothing to do with music, so everyone was happy. But the joy of arriving back to a toilet that doesn't resemble the one in Slumdog Millionaire cannot be denied.

A black day

2010-07-31T08:38:00.000-07:00

Today I am writing the blog I didn't want to write. My beautiful, funny, clever friend Lisa died on Tuesday after a long and courageous battle against ovarian cancer. She was 52 and she leaves a husband and four gorgeous children.
Having a friend who is so ill when you are 1,000 miles away is very hard but we wrote letters and emails frequently (somehow she always managed to make me laugh no matter how bleak she felt) and talked on the phone and in that way, our friendship was just as strong as it was when I lived in England. I last saw Lisa at Christmas, when she cooked us scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast and uncorked a bottle of Champagne at 10am to celebrate us all being together at her house again. I planned to go and see her last Wednesday and when we last spoke, she was so looking forward to it, as was I. It seems unreal that I will never see her again.
The day of her funeral was terribly sad, as well as bizarrely uplifting. The rabbi told stories of her many car scrapes - her poor mini cooper was always in the wars - the way she used to chat on the mobile while driving and would turn to chat to whoever was in the back seat while speeding along, oblivious to anything else, and too many other zany moments to mention, and we couldn't help but laugh through our tears.
My favourite story was one Livvy told me this week, about when she and Beaux were in the car with Matt and Lisa one day. Matt said, shall we cause a scene, and Lisa said go on then. So he got out of the car and started throwing a wobbly in the middle of a busy roundabout, screaming and shouting at Lisa while she was hanging out of the car window and the girls were ordered to pretend to cry in the back. One or two motorists got out of their cars to come and see if they could help, only to be given their marching orders. Then Matt got back in the car and he, Lisa and the girls drove off screeching with laughter!
She is the kind of friend who would turn up for dinner with a bottle of wine she had already opened at home, or a lovely box of chocolates that she had already eaten a few of. She also had a vintage wardrobe that gave me green eye and which she generously let me rifle through for that special occasion when you didn't want to buy a dress if one of her D&G or Betsy Johnson creations fitted the bill instead. A total one off who will never be forgotten.
As we all stood at the burial thinking of her during prayers, the sun broke through the thick cloud and shone in a tiny blue oasis for a couple of minutes before disappearing....it really felt like she was there too, watching down on all of us.
Afterwards, we listened to Led Zeppelin and some of her other favourite bands, drank wine and swapped stories and laughter and tears.
Today I spent the whole afternoon in my PJs watching the boxed set of Glee ... somehow I just know she would approve.

Part Two

2010-07-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Forgive me readers, for it has been a long time since my last blog (well, apart from yesterday’s) and while painting this afternoon, I remembered loads of stuff that I forgot to put in, so here I am again. Actually, writing a book on paint drying would be infinitely preferable to what I am doing now, painting over lots of new concrete all over the outside of the house in 90 degrees of heat. The paint keeps drying in the pot so I am slapping it on quicker than I should and dodging the lumps which keep falling off as I am still in sweaty tennis gear (too hot to change) rather than painting clothes and standing on the velvet chaise stool instead of a ladder, which just makes it all more of a challenge.

The highlight has been hearing the pesky tiger mozzies approach with undisguised glee, only to find themselves stuck to fresh paint and watching them die a slow sticky death, which is still too good for them....no, I am not a Buddhist.

As all my lovely UK mates and colleagues think my life is a permanent holiday, consisting mainly of shopping, partying and lying by the pool drinking rose, I am expecting no sympathy on the painting front. It took a lot to dig out the paint again after the last time I wielded a brush two weeks ago. Iain, who has been flat out for weeks, said, can you paint the doors upstairs, it will only take half a day? Naively, I agreed, and spent four days on a half a day job. Feeling faint from fumes, I had to keep retreating to the fridge, the pool and my pc at regular intervals which is maybe why it took me eight times as long to do the job!

Went to a brilliant party last week at the Cannes Lions, perhaps the party of the year so far (well, along with Grace Jones at Le Baron.) It was Massive Music’s beach party to celebrate their 10th birthday at the Palais Stephanie beach in Cannes. Usually parties take ages to get going but their DJs were so hot on the decks that everyone was up on the floor by 10.15 and the place rocked all night. The highlight was a 10yo guitarist who came on to perform solo and who knocked everyone sideways with his talent and cool factor.

The only downside...having to buy tokens to pay, yes reader, pay for your drinks. I have never yet been to a party here where you have to pay at the bar, the pr machine knows that all journalists, media types and freeloading industry experts love a free bar. The Laurent Perrier and Belvedere flowed through Film Festival but Sarah says the whole ad business has had to cut right back on spending and the most dramatic saving they can ever make is forcing us all to pay for tomorrow’s hangover. It was so good that nobody cared, which proves that throwing a party is not rocket science - if you have great music, enough people and a fab setting, you really cannot go wrong.

This afternoons’ boredom was punctuated only by hearing Issy bursting chewing gum bubbles while lying on her bed in her shady boudoir watching American movies (how easy it is to be 11) so I reflected on the last two years here. Occasionally people contact me to ask about moving abroad, how we found schools, settling in, houses and areas, as it is an emotional and financial minefield when you first arrive in a new country. I realised that probably the most valuable bit of advice I could give is the piece I never offer. Which is, be very wary of taking people at face value. I have made a lot of gorgeous friends since moving here, which I never expected, but I have also met two or three people who misrepresented themselves and their motives, and truly had hidden agendas, which you only discover much further down the line.

I have never been a cynical person – one of my journo mates always used to say: ‘Ask Karen if you want to hear the Hello version, talk to me if you want the blunt truth!’ I’m still not cynical but much warier of making new friendships now. For some, starting a new chapter here means just that, a change of scene, lifestyle and better quality of life. For others, it is an escape for altogether different reasons.

BTW heard back from Amanda on the talented Leroy, he now has an in with a music producer who will spend a day in the studio with him in London. This guy has worked with Celine Dion, Cher, Enrique Iglesias and many more....but haven't heard back from Leroy. Maybe he thinks I am a demented stalker or fan! Or maybe I have discovered the only YouTube musician who doesn't dream of a recording contract. So frustrating.....

Nice has talent

2010-07-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

Talent is a much overused word but just occasionally someone comes along oozing with it and you can't help taking notice. I was working earlier on a feature (Jessica Szohr from Gossip Girl, who didn't have much gossip at all) when Livvy told me to come and have a look at someone on YouTube. Usually it involves watching a dog do tricks or a gang of wedding guests performing Thriller, none of which are particularly scintillating. I politely feign interest for about 30 seconds before switching off.

Today was different. Leroy (not his real name) is an 18yo Spanish guy who goes to ISN and has made his own channel on YouTube where he performs cover versions from The Script, Chris Brown, Beyonce, Kings of Leon and so on. He plays guitar and sings and I spent ten minutes watching him. He is nothing short of brilliant, the whole package, and one of his songs, Jason Mraz's Lucky which he sings simultaneously with a girl he has never met before via webcam is phenomenal. I sent him an email wishing him luck and pasted the link to my friend Amanda who works with Simon Cowell and is married to Chris, a great music boss and producer in the UK. She came straight back to me saying: 'He's fabulous, have sent it to the producer and God.' (That's Simon.)

So watch this space to see what happens next. Or click on www.youtube.com/superleroyvv and see what all the fuss is about. He is going places.

Onto Issy's party last week. She's now 11 going on 25. She has a new Blackberry, which is her first ever phone and smarter than mine. I have the worst phone out of the entire family, but as I can barely use three functions on it..calling people, sending an email and texting...it doesn't really matter. She sends me things like 'Hi mum, I'm up.' Sweet. But never seems to have it on her when I try and call her. Somehow she has already used up her monthly forfait in the space of 10 days.

She and seven friends camped in the garden on her birthday. They were still awake at 1am telling each other ghost stories and I was woken up at 6am by lots of shrieking and giggling. Thank God there are no neighbours to hear them. Cue lots of jaded faces by noon when they all reluctantly trooped home after gorging on chocolate brownie cake, lemon cake and an amazing chocolate heart inscribed by Issy's friend Manon.When I asked if she made it herself she said; 'Non, c'etait mon patissier.'

Her parents have just bought the Hostellerie du Chateau in the village, a gorgeous old hotel and restaurant which we have loved since before we moved here but which has suffered from being off the beaten track and never been properly marketed. That's changing now and word is they are going for a Michelin star, having owned restaurants in Dijon and Aix-en-Provence. Issy is full of stories about how she calls a special number from her room to order strawberries in chantilly and nutella at 11pm and gets them delivered by room service!

Last week Manon came for lunch during school and I gave them turkey sandwiches, crisps and some raw carrot sticks. She raved to Issy about how amazing the food was, saying: 'I never get food like this, I usually get risotto or boeuf bourgignon for lunch!' When Issy went there a few days ago for lunch, they had a table for two in the restaurant (where supper is 59 euros a head for the set menu!) and enjoyed a three course meal, starting with feuillete of mozzarella and tomatoes, then fillet of beef followed by a fresh berry dessert. Thank God she didn't have to pay the bill!

A Gleeful week

2010-06-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

The last two months have been my busiest since moving to France. It all kicked off with Malaysia and Elle Mac then came the Cannes Film Festival and last week was the Monaco TV Festival. Even the train journey, hugging the coast from Nice to Monte-Carlo, is enjoyable, particularly if you sit on the right and soak up the views. Am halfway through The God of Small Things but couldn’t bring myself to read when I could look out of the window and daydream instead.

I interviewed the lovely Julie Walters, above, who is always such good value. She was making me laugh about getting older, why she is proud to be grey and why she won’t even go there on cosmetic surgery or botox, hurray for that. She looks phenomenal, mainly because she is completely natural and funny and convinced me that 60 might not be so bad after all.

But the highlight of the festival has to be meeting Jane Lynch, aka Sue Sylvester in Glee. You have got to love a woman whose favourite quip on screen is: ‘I’m going to get a diaper for your chin because it looks like a baby’s ass!’ I LOVE that show and I love Sue/Jane so I didn’t shut up and thankfully nor did she. Coming to Hello magazine on a newsstand near you very soon – in fact this week!

Going back to being busy after a long honeymoon with France, it is really good to be firing on all cylinders again. I forgot how much I enjoy being busy. I definitely needed a period of go-slow to adjust to a new country, language and way of life and however much the girls are independent and to a large extent off my hands now, I think they have appreciated me being around a lot more.

I used to be so jealous of my ladies-that-lunch friends in Brookie Park with their tennis, manicures and of course the long Friday lunches. They were always jealous of me, rushing off to interviews, spending half my life in airports and meeting extraordinary people in far flung corners of the earth..and maybe not so jealous of the hours spent sitting hunched over my PC in my office til God knows what time writing it all up and the hours on the phone and email setting everything up. The grass is always greener but having had ample time to do that pool thing, lunch and tennis, I finally realised what I secretly knew all along – that life isn’t for me. Well, in small doses but with plenty of work tucked around the edges. Iain is secretly relieved too!

The only downside is I have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to potter around in the garden. After two years here (hard to believe) I found a cherry tree in the garden the other day. I had a suspicion it was a cherry tree last year when I kept finding squashed red berries all over the windscreen of the car but none of us were brave enough to risk being poisoned by a possibly toxic yet innocuous looking berry when we didn’t even know how to call an ambulance. So I asked Rosine next door and she laughed her head off when I told her that we had all been too nervous to eat one. I picked loads and they are lovely, all the tastier for being straight from the garden with no fertiliser, pesticide or any other muck on them.

Had several calls in the last few days following the floods in the Var that have tragically killed over 20 people this week. The storms have been terrible and everyone is worried that we have been washed down the hillside but the advantage of buying a house that has been underpinned is that it ain’t going anywhere! We’ve had torrential rain in the last few days, interspersed with hot,hot sunshine (which just means the grass grows like mad and Iain has to strim twice as often.) Very peculiar for June.

As if to invite even more rain into our lives, I have just booked tickets to the Big Chill at Eastnor Castle in August. Lily Allen, Plan B, Gilles Peterson, Massive Attack and MIA are playing amongst others and it will be the girls’ first music festival. Makes up for me not doing Glastonbury and we are all dead excited! We are camping while Norma and Tony stay in a four star hotel down the road. I have tried to explain to N&T that room service and an en suite is not what festivals are about when you can have a portaloo and a warm beer instead but they are having none of it, citing ‘bad backs.’ Have a feeling we will have all four girls in with us while they have a ‘romantic weekend’ a deux. Which is fine. I am packing shorts, wellies, bikinis, hoodies and a cooler full of wine so we will be prepared whatever happens.

The only downer has been the news this week that Liv has to redouble (to non-French students, that means retake the last year.) She is utterly devastated. We wrote an appel last night and have to go to Nice next Thursday – Issy’s birthday unfortunately – to fight our corner. I don’t think it is a bad thing and even she is coming round to the idea that she will at least fly through the next year instead of struggling but like her competitive mum, she hates losing and really wants to stay with her peer group and her best friends who all mean the world to her. I think Lily is as devastated as she is. It’s heartbreaking to hear your firstborn weeping down the phone unable to even speak. So, we will appeal and give it our best shot and if that fails, she has to stay back. She has one friend in the year below who is thrilled at having his mate back in the same class and I have to believe that it might not be so terrible for her, especially as she is 15 going on 25 right now!

Just as I was content to settle into a period of house renovation, early nights and family suppers after the social whirl of the last two months, Sarah calls to say that it is Cannes Lions advertising festival next week, and she is coming over with Bex and has put us on the guest lists for all the coolest parties. My Dr Sebagh Youth Serum will be tested to the core once again and I have told Iain I have no choice but to fit in two parties a night as it will be the perfect networking opportunity...sadly his response was unprintable dear reader, but it was along the lines of ‘You poor love, of course I’m happy to cook for the children, walk the dogs and hold the fort here while you make new business contacts at the Majestic, Palais Stephanie and all those other boring beach parties!’

Cyber lesbian stalker alert!

2010-06-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Thought that might grab your attention....but it's not a News of the World headline, it's actually true! It all started on the night (or rather the morning after) the Monaco Grand Prix. Regular readers of this blog will remember that last year was memorable for the fact that Iain got a bit 'confused' on his way home after a couple of glasses at the Cafe de Paris, missed his train, sloped off to the Rascasse instead and ended up on a bench at Monaco station til Monday morning. He arrived home in the previous day's clothes (obviously) and got a roasting from Livvy for daring to walk through Grasse station at a time when some of her college friends could have spotted him and seen his resemblance to said highly embarrassed daughter.

Could it get any worse? I didn't think so....this year, he invited three London mates to join in the fun. The plan was to 'watch' the race at Cafe de Paris, then 'meander' back towards Grasse for a curry before arriving home about 11 ish. He didn't specify which day though. Fast forward to Monday morning, no text or phone call and no three drunken musketeers in various states of inebriation.

On the way back from the school run, I texted to say 'Where are you?' Ten minutes later, Iain replies 'Who is this?' Not the response I expected, so struggling to sound cool I send back 'It's me you idiot...the wife you never bother to call...' Then back comes 'I think you have a wrong number.' I reel back through my contacts to find I have an unexplained mobile number next to Iain (his real number is under Iain France, rather helpfully.) So I hastily send back 'Sorry, thought you were my husband!' only to get back: 'I don't mind being your husband...I am female though!' I end up having a little chat with Fran, who works as a carer, has a girlfriend in the police force and thinks it's hilarious that I am texting her at 7am in London to demand where the hell she is!

This was two weeks ago. A few days ago, I was lying by the pool with a chilled glass of rose (this has to be done on a regular basis for the next four months) and up pings 'Iain' again, asking 'So did he ever get home?' We had another little exchange about men (she has four kids so I'm guessing she liked them once) and a little laugh at their expense and I told Iain that if he doesn't shape up, Fran is waiting for me!
At least he didn't end up on a bench this time, quite the reverse, Tony booked a room at the Hotel de Paris which they all snuck into and crashed out on the floor until Monday.....

Have had my running coach on the phone this evening asking why I haven't been running with the club for ages. Well, between working on the house, writing up Elle Macpherson, covering the Cannes Film Festival and entertaining six sets of visitors in the last six weeks, all that is missing is a run every other evening. It's so hot right now that running any more than 8k fills me with horror, let alone goose stepping round Pre du Lac car park, another 'training' exercise which certainly makes you stand out from the crowd.

Other news....we heard last week that Issy got into Fenelon. She is so smart but it was particularly tough this year and very over subscribed and we're so happy she will meet lots of international friends as well as the French friends she already has. After two years spent speaking just French all day every day at school, it will be a relief for her to have mates she can chat to in English once again.

Last week I was walking up to school with the dogs when I received an email from Disney asking if I fancy interviewing the Jonas Brothers in the States this summer during their tour. If you are over 15, you won't have a clue what I'm on about but Issy reliably informed me that they are HOT and massive thanks to their first film Camp Rock. So obviously I said yes. I love that a little walk through Bar sur Loup can end up as a trip somewhere fab thanks to the wonder of BlackBerry.

The glitz and glamour

2010-05-20T12:22:00.001-07:00

First night in since the Film Festival started, the sofa has never ever felt this comfortable. Last night, I was getting ready to go out at midnight for a party with Paris Hilton at the VIP Room, and that is the kind of thing I used to do in the good old Ibiza days, when you could lie in bed til 2pm, in other words pre-kids.

Seems to have been a slightly lower key festival this year but not without its highlights. Robin Hood was a romp, despite Russell Crowe's erratic accent which wandered from Scotland to Newcastle and across the Irish sea. And Cate Blanchett looks just as flawless and beautiful in the flesh as she does on screen. Wall Street's sequel is very different to the original although Gordon Gekko is just as mean. And Tamara Drewe is a classic little low budget British offering that has hit written over it, with the excellent Gemma Arterton and a great supporting cast. It really made me miss England (but then it was shot in lush Dorset, not Soho.)

The three best things about screenings in Cannes are: you get to walk up the red carpet in jeans, you don't have to endure any boring adverts and the film starts at precisely the minute is says it will (the French wait for no-one.)

The parties have been rather lush too. Kicked off with a girls weekend which involved Baoli (I treated this as a warm up for the late nights to come), the Colombe d'Or, where Billy Zane was at the next table, Cosy Box and the beach on Sunday for recovery purposes.

Started Monday evening at a cocktail party on a yacht in Cannes Harbour, before heading back to Cosy Box for dinner til late but Tuesday was the party evening to end all others. The de Grisogono dinner at Hotel du Cap was AWESOME, chatted to Myleene Klass and Lionel Richie, who was full of beans and ready to party All Night Long (his pun not mine!) Naomi Campbell, Meg Ryan, Flavio Briatiore, Paris (she was everywhere), Margerita Missoni, it was wall to wall A list. Cheryl Cole did a mini-concert on the terrace which was ace then Will.I.am took to the decks and everyone was up dancing outside despite the fact that it was a bit nippy. A very cool party. Indeed.

Sadly had to leave to get to another party at le Baron, but watching Grace Jones storm the place with an electrifying set was worth it. She's 62 and looks phenomenal, had the whole place rocking in minutes, and couldn't even be upstaged by some rather cheeky flirting with a couple of A listers who are not together...interesting, cannot say more but all will be revealed in the US mag I was working for next week!

Last night, Milly and I rocked at VIP Room where Jalouse and Paris were hosting the night. The DJs were so much better than last year, they played a fantastic mix of Frank's New York New York over the top of Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling, it shouldn't have worked but it did. And a wicked remix of Roxanne too. It was so worth the sixth 5am bedtime of the past seven days.

So it is that I am sitting here with a bowl of white chocolate ice cream (with real pieces of chocolate in, uhum) not caring that I now look 150, because I've had a blast. And despite the best efforts of Dr Sebagh's Youth Serum (which is seriously effective), the good doctor cannot yet walk on water and restore me to pre-party health and glow without a few 8-hours-a-night-nights, the first of which is fast approaching. Hurrah for that.

Cannes can

2010-05-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

The good news is the Cannes Film Festival starts tomorrow...the bad news is it looks like this week at least will be a washout. The rain hasn't let up for ten days, much of the Cannes seafront has been destroyed by freak waves which have been battering the beachfront restaurants and the pressure is on to clean it all up before tomorrow's opening ceremony. As I write this, a huge grey cloud is engulfing us for about the 100th time today. Booorrrrinng, never thought I would be complaining about the weather here.

One of the joys of Film Festival is wandering around in the sunshine, grabbing a coffee and a chat outside at one of the cafes or even fitting in a little beach lunch between screenings and press conferences. Think that scenario is looking unlikely for the first few days at least.

Never mind....have been invited to some fab parties, one of which is on the beach next week, with Mel B, Victoria Hervey and Paris Hilton, and Carl Cox in the DJ booth, so really hoping the sun will have its hat on by then. It won't be the same with wind and rain lashing down.

Robin Hood opens tomorrow so at least I will start off in a warm dry screening theatre. Word is that Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett will be here for tomorrow night's premiere .... my other top choices are Tamara Drewe with the brilliant Gemma Arterton, the sequel to Wall Street, with Michael Douglas reprising villainous Gordon Gekko (and Carey Mulligan playing his daughter), Fair Game with the brilliant Sean Penn, who NEVER puts in a bad performance, and Naomi Watts and Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. The title alone makes it a must-see without the fabulous cast list.

It's always good to have a few buddies to party with...Lissa is here from LA working in Cannes and Sarah and her entire office are descending for Baoli, le Colombe d'Or and whatever else comes up. Last year was hard going, I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this year's festival so much more, weather notwithstanding.

Gary and Phil just left after four days here with Michelle, Adam and their lovely baby Evie. We didn't let the rain ruin our fun, dinner at Ecole des Filles, market day at Valbonne, lunch at Gourdon (in a cloud so no views then) are all the things we don't usually have time to do. Think they were praying for the ash cloud to hang around so they could spend a few more days here. And on the plus side, when everyone leaves, how lovely is it to slob out on the whole sofa (not just a quarter of it), drinking tea, (not wine) and reading all of last weeks papers?

One very brave and inspirational woman

2010-04-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here wondering how to write what I want to write next without seeming trite or cliched. There is no easy way to do it.
A great friend of mine has just found out, after four years of valiantly battling against cancer, that she is losing her fight. The doctors cannot do anymore, despite yet another round of radical chemotherapy and radiotherapy,and the outlook is bleak short of a miracle.
L is a woman who has packed more into her half century than many do in a lifetime, a true party animal who doesn't actually drink but still has the best time, entertains and is a dynamic mother of four. On her 50th birthday, she invited her closest girlfriends over for lunch. We arrived to be greeted by semi-naked male models in bow ties and not much else wandering around with trays of champagne. Then the belly dancers arrived and we all had to get over ourselves and join in for an impromptu dance class, followed by more champagne, stupendous fish pie, and a long, unusual and utterly memorable afternoon full of laughter which ended only when we all reluctantly headed off for the school run. It was one of the most stylish, fun and hysterical lunches I have ever had the pleasure of being invited to, and it summed up the hostess perfectly.
Over the last two years, we have seen each other intermittently, always planning a weekend down here which somehow hasn't happened, due to treatment, house renovations and other irritations which always seem to get in the way. And even during her bleakest, most desperate times, L has still somehow found the time and energy to send a lovely long thoughtful message asking how life is, full of funny anecdotes about her hugely talented kids (who could out-perform the cast of Glee) and generally make you feel she is thinking of you.
She refused to miss my 40th birthday party even though she had only just been diagnosed and had started treatment a few short weeks before, and came along to dinner full of humour and life, entertaining my old school friends who had no idea of what she was going through. None of this can do her justice really.....you kind of have to know her to appreciate her but I hope this gets across a tiny little smidgeon of just how special she is.

Malaysian moments

2010-04-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been an eventful Easter. First stop was Kuala Lumpur to meet Elle Macpherson and watch the filming of the final shows of Britain’s Next Top Model which returns this summer. I’ve flown with some great airlines before but Emirates really does put them all to shame. Amazing food, huge great personal TV screens which start the moment you get on the plane rather than half an hour into the flight, cabin crew that speak 12 different languages, and that was just in economy. It made BA look like Ryanair.

The downside was that they managed to leave top PR supremo Justin’s luggage in Dubai, meaning that after 24 hours travelling he had nothing when we arrived in KL and given that we had a royal gala reception with loads of foreign dignitaries the next day, it was not a great situation. He was calm under pressure (I would have been catatonic without my clothes and products) and his case finally turned up the next morning.

Kuala Lumpur is like any big city, quite American in feel with five star hotels, designer stores and malls in the centre but ten minutes drive from our hotel, we were in lush tropical countryside with jungle foliage and stunning views everywhere you looked. The people are fantastically friendly and hospitable. One of the highlights was meeting Jimmy Choo, who as well as designing shoes and couture also acts as Malaysia's ambassador for tourism. I managed to tell him how much I loved his shoes, no points for originality there, but sadly reader, he did not offer me a pair gratis.

The food was another plus. Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Indian and Thai food compete with Malay cuisine and although I draw the line at nasi goreng for breakfast, it was lovely to have such choice after two years of living in France and having to search really hard for good Eastern fare. Weirdly, they all stop serving at about 10pm which meant dragging our jet lagged bodies out early and going to bed just when you felt full of beans.

The best bit though was Dr Fish. Marty the producer told us about the spas you go to where hundreds of tiny fish nibble your feet in a lagoon (see above, if you can bear it.) It sounded mental so with all nine interviews done, we rushed off to try it before our flight home. If you are squeamish about feet, stop reading now. If not, here’s the deal. You sit at the waters’ edge and dangle your feet in the water and shoals of fish dive onto your feet and literally start nibbling at them, eating the hard skin with relish! My poor runners feet are not the prettiest (so glad I didn’t show them to Jimmy, although I was sorely tempted) but these fish were obviously peckish and not too fussy. I was yelping and giggling so hard that a Malaysian family started filming me with their camera. Their little girl kept asking, ‘Why you laughing lady?’ like it was the most normal thing in the world to be the main course for Malaysia’s marine life. Just make sure you don’t order whitebait afterwards!

Four days in, and it was time to come back. After the luggage debacle I decided to try my luck at the airport and tell the staff how disappointed we were with our outward journey. Bingo, Justin and I were upgraded...thank you Emirates! Suffice it to say that a flat bed, plasma TV screen half the size of my one at home and selection of over 100 movies made for a very pleasurable first leg, although by the time I reached Nice, 24 hours later, I was fit to drop.

The weather here has finally decided to cheer up so once i got back, we headed to Mandelieu for a few days by the beach. The girls have had all their UK friends over which means peace and quiet, uninterrupted conversations, a glass or two of rose with picnic lunches and the odd game of beach volleyball. Bliss. Really feels like I have had a holiday.

Have also been running in the Esterel every morning and there is no better start to the day than looking across the bay of Cannes towards the Isles de Lerins. The dogs have had loads of exercise although poor Oscar doesn’t know what’s hit him. This is a dog who rolls his eyes, sighs loudly and then pretends to be asleep whenever he hears the word walkies. He puffed like a steam train the first two mornings but by yesterday, I didn’t have to wait for him to have a breather and he now looks like he has lost a pound or two (which will offset all the sneaky treats the kids have been feeding him under the table.)

Iain had to leave early to go to a trade fair in Frankfurt but spent longer there than planned when the volcano stopped flights. He ended up spending 14 hours travelling back yesterday by train via Switzerland and Italy to get home. Had a flurry of texts all day as he kept me posted on how hungry/thirsty/fed up he was, making me feel quite guilty as I poured my first glass of wine and tucked into moelleux chocolat! But he wasn’t as stuffed as N and T, who had to hire a car, drive to Calais and get the ferry, picking up a friend en route who couldn’t get on board as a foot passenger, finally arriving home 30 hours late and £2,000 worse off!

Meanwhile M & F have decided to wait it out as their flight tomorrow morning is cancelled. It’s either hire a car, book the train – one way at £1500 for the family - or take your chances on flights being rescheduled next week and enjoy a bit longer in the warm sunshine. It does feel wrong that while the blitz spirit prevails among thousands of stranded travellers, hotels and transport companies are hiking their prices to capitalise on everyone else’s misery. For once, I’m so glad not to be travelling.....

2010-03-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

I know that time just whizzes by as you get older but how did I become the mother of a 15 year old? I remember those chubby cheeks and that mop of Scandanavian white blonde hair and that angelic smile like it was last week, instead of which I now have a tall, moody teen who can be quite a good laugh when she wants to be with dyed-brown-but-rapidly-turning-red hair who is 36 hours away from 15.
It got me thinking about what I was like way back when..... I should be relieved that the worst she seems to do is go to parties, drink the odd beer and hang out in Valbonne on a Friday night eating pizza by the skate park with her friends.
That's tame compared to bunking into pubs (Hudsons in Kentish Town, where thanks to my heels and two friends who were four years older but actually looked younger than me, I never seemed to have a problem getting in or just as importantly, getting served at the bar.)Then there were the parties....my mum and dad were so liberal and laidback that they actually went out for the evening and stayed at my grandparents house so I could throw a party for my 15th birthday at home....their only uncool moment was driving by at midnight to make sure the house wasn't burning down or being marauded by gatecrashers. They even allowed me enough time the next day to clear up before arriving home. I cannot imagine doing that for my girls, unthinkable.
Then there was the henna incident...my look du jour was a shaggy henna-ed perm which I thought was the bees knees but looking back at old photos, it was so WRONG!
Last weekend was bittersweet as we partied to celebrate and mourn the Mayos moving back to England after seven years here. The wine and curries flowed, speeches were made and tears were shed and no-one can believe that next week they are off for good. We talked about what we miss about the UK ...my top three are M&S, having a phone conversation without hand gestures and long pauses as I struggle to make myself understood and goes without saying, people. And that's it, so on that basis, think I am good for a few more years here yet.
Cannes is approaching and having just received my accreditation, I am looking forward to another glam fest of parties, screenings and interviews. Malaysia also beckons with Elle Macpherson....watch this space!

How time flies....

2010-03-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

...when you're having fun. This is my first chance to sit down and write something other than an email or a feature for weeks.

I am officially sick of winter now....we have lit so many log fires, which is lovely (especially now we have a chimney that actually takes the smoke away) but we've had sleet, freezing temps and snow in the village for the first time in years last month (luckily we were snug in Antigua!) Great for skiing tho, we went last week with friends for the day while the girls were at school and laughed so hard skiing off piste in two feet of fresh powder that we were down in drifts more than up on skis! We have had quite a few days on the slopes lately but I need some heat on my bones now!

Carried on celebrating Iain's birthday in Antigua last month, our little gang of 15 had a lovely time. Weather was stunning, beaches gorgeous (and empty) people lovely, I would very much recommend it, much nicer than Barbados. The reggae and steel band at Shirley Heights was brilliant fun and lunch at Carlisle Bay was fab too. Still have a little glow, but have been wrapped up like Arctic Annie since I got home so little chance to show it off. We had a laugh, rum punches on the beach, ate way too much and have tried to be sensible now I’m home but the cold weather makes salads very unappetising!

With the weather still so wintry, we have decided to crack on with the house and are DIY-ing like mad upstairs. I didn't know I was so handy with a paintbrush! It's a mini facelift shall we say, with the final fix happening later this year hopefully. I am soooo sick of mismatched tiles in every room upstairs and dodgy bathroom suites! The girls' rooms are priority, I feel bad that the last rooms they had any say in were at Carpenters Cottage, eight years ago when we renovated, and they were too young to say much then. So they are first on the list. Our guest suite leaves a little to be desired as yet but Iain has repainted it and it already looks and smells so much nicer!

Issy had her interview for Fenelon last week. All conducted in French with the head of the international section....I nearly fell off my chair, she is so fluent now, says alors a lot and sounds like she was born in Nice! It’s very academic and four times oversubscribed and she has to sit an entrance exam and have another interview but fingers crossed she will get in, we don’t find out til May/June.

Livvy is 15 in three weeks, God help us. We have been reading in French every night sinc Mme Savary said that she has to 'embrace' French life and culture. She clearly took those words to heart as she now has a French boyfriend, Theo, who speaks no English! Who'd have thought it? Checked him out on Facebook (much to her horror) and he looks nice. She has good taste, like her mom! I told her to brng him over for lunch or dinner sometime but she made choking sounds then left the room!

She is a proper teenager, rebellious, full of back chat and even dyed her hair brown a month ago. Brown? I did explain how much I pay to try and create her colour on my hair but she wasn’t listening. She was fun in Antigua, without Facebook and her mobile phone, which we banished for the holiday. She, Lydia and Luke spent two days driving around in a golf buggy on the domaine, with their iPod blaring, scaring all the locals and giving lifts to old ladies at the supermarket just so they could hare around. I had one lift with Liv driving at 30 mph (you are supposed to be 21 to drive them so they got banned by the rental guy on the second day for being so crazy) and that was enough for me!

Spoke to a party panner friend today about a feature I am writing for The French Paper on this year's Cannes Film Festival. She told me she is planning some great parties with major league celebs and films and I'm on the list! It's days like today when I really love my job. Particularly when you are on your hands and knees in your sweaty running gear (I was too cold to change or shower - gross I know) painting the floor of the loo and you get an email about a job with Elle Macpherson in Malaysia! Bring it on.....although I will not be wearing a bikini on a sunbed next to The Body, for sure.......

Nice day for a run

2010-02-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

The day of the Nice - Monaco Course du Soleil, 21 kilometres of stunning coastline, sandwiched between the cliffs and the sea. It's the oldest semi in the world and probably the prettiest too. After a changeable few days and torrential rain, thankfully the sun was shining, so no excuse not to leap out of bed at 6.15am (well, stumble) to meet the others ready for a 9am start at the old port in Nice.

I did start wishing that I hadn't decided to do Thai for eight on Friday night, much as it was fun, or drink three glasses of white wine last night. I tried to make up for it by going to bed at 10 but not sure if an early night cancels out alcohol.

As we walked across the port to the start line with the sun rising in the distance, my fellow runner Marc said: 'You only have to look at the sunrise to know you are on the Cote d'Azur.' It certainly knocked spots of the half marathons I've done in Watford and Nottingham!

We headed off, around 1200 runners snaking along the Basse Corniche, which must rate as one of the most breathtakingly beautiful roads in the world, made famous by James Bond and Grace Kelly movies. It's embarassing to admit that despite holidaying down here since 2003 and living here for almost two years, there are so many picturesque spots that we still haven't explored. The pretty quaint main street of St Jean Cap Ferrat stood out, as did the nearby beaches bordered by cliff paths rather than roads. Once bikini weather arrives, there will be no excuse not to go.

Highlights included watching the four musketeers run while hanging onto their feathered hats, winding through the beautiful towns of Villefranche, Beaulieu, Eze and St Jean and being able to look at the early morning winter sunshine glisten on the flat calm sea whenever the going got tough. And despite the earliness of the hour on a Sunday morning, groups of spectators urging the runners on with 'bravo' and 'courage'.

The downsides - the steps up from Villefranche and the prolonged hills which I have come to expect training down here but will never ever get used to. The last three kilometres to the finish at the Stade in Monaco is downhill and despite pains in my left knee and butt (I still haven't recovered from a taxing rocky 2hr adventure to Gourdon)I gritted my teeth and went for it.

Official time - 1 hr 56 mins and 10 seconds, 50 seconds faster than the Cannes semi last year, which was flat, so in real terms, victory! I take back what I said earlier, thanks must go to Neil, Helen, Sylvia, Hans, Jacob, Christine and Iain for keeping me up late and laughing on Friday night and last night's half drunk Chablis still in the fridge.

Have demolished wasabi nuts, roast chicken, and too much Cadburys (this is the real reason for running) and about to pack for Antigua if I can get myself up the stairs. There's always tomorrow though - the challenge of getting off the sofa tonight might be beyond me.

Half a century young

2010-01-27T08:41:00.000-08:00

So much for a detox in January. Everyone I know has given up drinking, socialising, and generally going for it but it was never going to happen with a weekend away in Aix closely followed by Iain's 50th....gulp I didn't think I knew any 50-year-olds, and now I am married to one!
Clare, Paula and Mark arrived on Thursday and we celebrated with supper at Ecole des Filles, and had a complete blast. The best bit was watching Paula and Clare walk backwards down our road home because it's so steep they couldn't walk normally in heels...well that was their excuse!
We went to the coast on Friday lunchtime then had a few drinks here in the evening which led to a 6am bedtime.....am amazed we all stayed the distance. Highlights were Matt spinning me around the floor, doing the limbo under Iain's inflatable zimmer frame and the cake Keren made him (see above.)
Have just signed up for the 21k semi from Nice to Monaco on February 7th...it's the best discipline for a few early nights and lots of water consumption that I know. My toes still haven't recovered from the pasting they took in the London Marathon, so why I'm running another big race I don't know because my feet look like stumps these days.
At Christmas, Matt in London tried to talk me into running a marathon along the Great Wall of China later this year....seem to remember being quite non-committal but he keeps mentioning it like it's a done deal. Eeek.

Aix rules

2010-01-18T12:31:00.000-08:00

If ever there was a perfect way to banish the January blues, Aix en Provence is the way to do it. They call it Petit Paris and it's easy to see why - amazing, stylish one-off shops and boutiques, beautiful wide open boulevards and restaurants and bars galore. Down here, service can be a bit lacking and often the food is average rather than special, unless you head somewhere you know well.

In Aix, you can go to the simplest bistro or the swankiest restaurant and the service and quality of food is superb. Many restaurants have resident DJs at the weekend and the music is chilled out Ibiza sounds rather than hideous French pop.

Best bits:

Hotel Cezanne - right in the heart of the old town, a stones throw from the Cours Mirabeau, it's the only boutique hotel in town and gets it right with service, ambience and creature comforts. You can mix your own drinks in the lobby and take them to the room...need I say more?

La Rotonde - possibly the coolest restaurant in town, fab menu, they seem to know if you are French or English before you even walk through the door (possibly not a good thing,) great music and lively even in the middle of January.

Yoji - the waitresses dress as dolls, the sushi and sashimi are to die for but they have barbecues on the table to cook your raw fish on, fondue style, which is weird in a Japanese restaurant.

Belle Epoque - laidback lunch and dinner place with velvet chairs, much-needed full blast patio heaters and completely fab OTT chandeliers. Great salads, amazing cod and sublime house wine, in fact the Aix wines deserve a mention all of their own.

Estello - next to La Rotonde, cosy, intimate and friendly, serving a fab risotto de St Jacques on a bed of leeks...so good I had it twice!

Atelier Paul Cezanne - Will have to do this next time as opening times are limited in winter but it's a great excuse to go back soon.

Much as I love my kids, it was so lovely to wander around, walk for miles, explore all the backstreets, stop when we were hungry, watch the world go by over coffee and eat really late without being moaned at/begged to go to Claire's Accessories.

Iain's birthday on Thursday, only fly in the ointment is that Nick is still in Haiti and doesn't look like he will be back in time to fly out here with Clare, Mark and Paula on Thursday, which is completely gutting. There is no communication from there, no mobile phone signals or texts even getting through so it is a dire situation (will try and keep a rein on my horribly black sense of humour here.)

C'mon baby light my fire!

2009-12-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

Happy crimbo everybody. More exciting than Christmas, new year and even the January sales is the fact that finally, after 18 months of futile efforts, we can finally light an open fire and not have to call the pompiers.

Will came and fitted a commercial incandescent fan to the top of the chimney yesterday and tonight, we lit a fire. I fully expected plumes of smoke to fill the room as usual and resigned myself to a choking fit tonight and getting out the white paint again tomorrow for a couple of hours of redecoration. Iain had more faith, went for it and couldn't contain his excitement when the smoke actually curled its beautiful way up the chimney. It doesn't take much to make me happy, I would say this is the highlight of my week in a week when there have been quite a few, including:

* shopping in Selfridges, Liberty and Top Shop (still nowhere coming even close to those big three here) and catching up with family and friends in the UK for drinks, dinner, laughs, Christmas pressies etc

* My gorgeous bro in laws Gary and Phil arriving two days before Christmas amidst the snowy chaos at Luton (they had to run from the car park to the airport dragging their hand baggage through a mile of grey slush at 6am in order to catch their plane) lol I was still in bed blissfully unaware of how close they came to missing their flight

* Christmas Eve at the Mayos where (too) much Champagne was imbued all afternoon, necessitating a 6pm nap, followed by a second wind of fish pie, san pelly (for me, lightweight) and some frenzied disco dancing to Gaz's iPod til late which reminded me of our days burning up the dance floor at the Phoenix in London and too many Mykonos nighclubs

* Gorgeous pressies including a superduper camera, a stopwatch that does everything bar run for me and a weekend at a boutique hotel in Aix en Provence shopping in the sales...but I love watching everyone else open theirs even more (it's the giver in me)

* Christmas day sipping aperos on the terrace in such warm sunshine that Gaz felt the need to sit T-shirtless before sitting down to lunch cooked by Iain followed by charades and The Grinch.

* Boxing day lunch (cooked by Iain again, he is reading over my shoulder and insisted I namecheck him AGAIN but I did put the Christmas pud in the microwave and unwrap the After Eights.) Lunch lasted five hours with Karen followed by more Studio 54 style dancing from the five of us in and out of the garden, as three dismayed girls looked on in horror at the shapes being thrown. Most of the photos have now been destroyed, as Iain reckons he'd have a really good unfit mother court suit if he ever needed it.

* Watching Now Voyager and It's a Wonderful Life with the rest of the After Eights, a glass of Baileys and a big box of tissues. The boys were stoic while I wept buckets.

The lowlight

*Waving goodbye to G&P on Sunday eve, it's the first time I've seen them in a year, way too long, and makes me realise how much I miss them. Lily declared that she wants a gay uncle too (actually, every girl should have one) so she and Liv are planning a trip to Spain to stay at their house next summer. I might have to join them.

We miss you boys, come back soon when we can lay by the pool instead.

HAPPY NEW YEAR tout le monde xxx

Santa no more

2009-12-07T05:43:00.000-08:00

Can anyone spot a resemblance between the two men pictured? All will become clear further down.

In the words of the Four Seasons, O what a night! Have just spent a few days in London having meetings and obviously, having some social gatherings in the name of Christmas, the finale being my annual reunion with my best Fleet Street girlfriends Clare, Sarah, Ange and Sally. I really hope we are as loud, un-pc and bolshy 10/20/30years from now.....

These are the bits I remember...

- Trying to pick the cheapest vino Sheekeys had to offer when a bottle of Champagne arrives at the table courtesy of Iain (what a lovely gesture!) Husbands be warned, we are all cheap dates when it comes to sending a bottle to the table.

- The unfortunate lovey dovey couple sitting next to us who thought they were in for a bit of cultural conversation and sweet nothings only to discover they were seated next a raucously indiscreet bunch of Fleet Street's finest ..... but who quickly realised they had the hottest table in the room as they stopped talking to each other so they could listen in on our increasingly steamy and uncensored conversation instead.

- Sally refusing to let anyone else get a word in edgways (or was that me) as she pulled off her best interview technique of steering the juiciest conversation onwards and upwards and never losing focus. This is what comes of staying sober...no wonder she earns more than the rest of us combined.

-Finding ourselves in a pub in Dean Street at a table with three nutters who had been on a bender all day long and were unable to speak or focus. Even scarier, they were women. We were so scared of being glassed that we were rooted to the spot until we could drain our glasses and leave.

- Hitting the hotel bar only for Sarah to peak after 15 bottles of wine and Secret Santa and start nodding off in the corner....NB to Sarah - you are only getting away with it because your children are under five, next year, you will be forced to come out for the duration of the night/morning/lunch in dark glasses the next day.

- Clare insisting on an early hours visit to Gerrys, even though it was raining cats and dogs, it was 2am and we really should have all just done the decent thing and gone to bed. Interestingly tho, as soon as bed was mentioned, Ange was RARING to go, sprinting out of the hotel and insisting that we should trot along for old times sake.

- Clare falling alseep in the rickshaw taking us to Gerrys, and refusing to wake up on arrival. She was out cold for 20 minutes despite being shaken and shouted at. She insists she had his best interests at heart because he earnt a far bigger fare out of the extra time it took to wake her.

- Arriving at Gerrys and bunking in again under an assumed name(thank you Caroline S for making every Soho night out unforgettable even though you aren't actually with us) only for Clare to shout up a vodka and promptly crash out on me without taking so much as a sip of her drink (what was that about cheap dates?) Ange and Karen have to mount a paramedic drive to get her out again.

- Falling asleep in the hotel lobby (guess who?) while I order a cab as yes, Clare encore une fois, refuses to crash on Ange and Sarah's hotel room floor.

- Having a stand up ruck at 5am outside her house with our driver who wants £70 for a £30 journey (I knew we were in trouble when a top of the range AMG Mercedes pulled up, and it was our cab.)

- Clare offering to trade my suitcase, with all my Christmas shopping and fab new (unnecessary) purchases in exchange for the cab fare.

- Me screaming as he loads my case into the boot, and Clare screeching 'Kazza, you'd be sooooo crap at poker!' as she urges him to drive off with my suitcase. We beat him down to £50 but it took half an hour in the rain with my suitcase as the bait. Clare's verdict? 'We'd have got him down to £30 if you hadn't been such a pussy about your case.'

- Opening the door to the spare room at 6.30am after two cups of tea and an inquest into the night, to find Nosferatu in my bed (see picture.) A Hallowe'en mask stuffed with Clare's pjs was on the pillow, and her husband Nick thought it was funny to pad out the body under the duvet. I laughed til I had a heart attack. Funnily enough, it did bear a startling resemblance to Nick (he's the one in the first picture.)

Have cancelled Christmas as I can't take any more excitement. Talking of which, Santa has been cancelled in our house forever and I am devastated. Issy was talking about what she wants for Christmas and I said, Well, put it all in your letter to Santa. She shot me a withering look and said in a loaded tone: ‘Mum, I know that Santa is the same person as the tooth fairy because the writing is the same....it’s DADDY!’ Me: ‘Are you sure about that?’ (Actually it’s me who always writes the Santa note thanking her for the mince pie and carrot for Rudolph, after I have knocked back Santa’s brandy.)

I felt completely knocked for six and Iain must have looked gutted too because she then piped up: ‘I know you’re both upset, I’m really sorry! I’ve been meaning to tell you for ages that I don’t believe in Santa anymore but I didn't know how to tell you!!!!’

So this is how Christmas will be different this year....

- No more having to buy different wrapping paper for ‘Santa’s’ pressies. When the girls were young, I once made the mistake of using the same paper and had a whole lot of explaining about why Santa got his paper from WH Smiths just like us.

- No more squirrelling presents away for weeks and sneaking them down in the early hours of Christmas morning to put by the fireplace.

- No more making talcum powder snowy footprints by the fireplace (always loved that bit.)

- No more eating the mince pie, drinking the brandy (I loved that bit more) and writing in squiggly handwriting.

- No more dawn raids on Christmas morning as Issy charges in to say, ‘Has he been?’ (I’m crying as I write this, gonna miss that bit most of all.)

Galloping round Grasse

2009-11-29T03:58:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here with a cup of tea, some chocolate and my pjs on, having just got home from the Grasse 10k run. It's a great race which I did last year for the first time in 51 mins 59 secs (sadly obsessed that I remember, I know.)

Anyway, after some serious training sessions and a run of the course last week in 51 minutes (this was after a very late wine-fuelled night with Karen and JP) I had high hopes of beating my time this year. I have made a pact with myself that when my times start getting slower, I will have to stop competing as what is the point in doing worse rather than better?

Kicking the partying the night before might help but I have always had a healthy respect for runners who like to party til the small hours before getting up for a run. My old friend Shane Starling, who worked for Men's Health, is the perfect example of a hardcore party animal who'd stay out all night on our London Marathon warm weather training trips in Spain and Lanzarote while all the serious runners would be in bed by 9pm after a plate of pasta. Then he'd get up, frequently after an hour or two of sleep on a sunbed by the pool, and knock everyone else into a cocked hat on a 15k volcano run fuelled on vodka and adrenaline. Shane, I salute you.

It was with Shane in mind that I went out for dinner last night to Sara and Adrian's, which I couldn't resist even though I should've had an early wine-free night before the race. Sara cooked an amazing Thai meal and two and a half bottles of Chablis later (the boys were on red) I was beginning to think the race might not be such a good idea.

Awoke this morning to torrential rain, the first for almost two months, and it was so tempting to roll over in bed and go back to sleep but we dragged ourselves up and out to the centre of Grasse old town, where hundreds of runners were arriving. It might have been damp and miserable but spirits were high. They were playing Jump by Van Halen as everyone gathered at the start and call me a sap if you like but I can't help getting emotional at the start of a race....I always cry at the beginning of the London Marathon, whether I'm running it or watching it on TV. All non-runners/couch potaties can skip the next bit as it won't interest you one jot.

The gun went off at 10.34am and everyone took off. I decided on a new strategy. Have been quite stressed of late so I emptied my mind of everything and ran as fast as I could to catch the 50 minute pacer. Once I had overtaken her at 7k, I concentrated on maintaining my speed and went for it in the last kilometre. My mum, a fantastic county runner in her day, always told me to never look back (a good mantra for life too) and I was so obsessed with crossing the line that I forgot to look at the stopclock at the finish line so I am completely in the dark about my time, except I THINK I did it in under 50 mins. 49 something will do nicely.

I know you are as excited as me about finding out my time (!!!!) so I will be back later to put everyone out of their misery.........

omg 47 mins 07 secs

whoo whoo

Wine glorous wine

2009-11-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

Haven't blogged for ages, no excuse apart from I have been busy and sometimes as my blogger extraordinaire bro-in-law Gaz says, you just aren't in the mood. So, the rule is, only do it when you are feeling funny and/or have a bit of news, otherwise it is boring for EVERYONE, me included. Here's me and Issy after lunch in Villefranche today...we went to Le Cosmo on the harbour with Iain, truly amazing pacific rim cuisine as well as traditional French, fantastic service and hot sunshine in late November (the only bit I can't guarantee.)

Last week I did an interview for The French Paper with Stephen Williams. I realise this doesn't sound that scintillating but stay with me. What Stephen doesn't know about wine, one of my all-time favourite subjects, frankly isn't worth knowing. I think the email from Rachel, the associate editor, asking if I would be interested in meeting one of the world's leading authorities on vintage wine at the Grand-Hotel in St Jean Cap Ferrat, is possibly one of the most inviting I have ever received. (Okay, apart from the Bora Bora job, and meeting Nelson Mandela in Cape Town. And Rio....will stop now.)
The hotel is amazing in every sense. Superb attentive service (I was the only guest but let's not split hairs,) a fabulously decadent facelift which preserves the character of the hotel while giving it a very clean-lines effect and staff that enjoy their jobs and are proud to be in the service industry, which is becoming way too much of a rarity. The general manager Michel Galopin was charming and utterly understated. Stephen arrived with his lovely PR Julie and we toured the Salon des Collections, where some of the world's most valuable wines are stored. There is around £2m worth of wine in this cosy little private dining room, including the world's most expensive white, Chateau d'Yquem, dating back to 1797.

We sat down to chat and the waiter brought over a bottle of 2002 Chateau d'Yquem, a delicious Sauternes that retails at a cool €820 a bottle. I had a personal masterclass in wine tasting from Stephen on everything from smelling it to swilling it around in the glass to finally sipping it. It was glorious. If only every interview was this civilised. Later I stood up a bit too quickly (nothing to do with the wine, reader) and cut my knee on the table, at which point the waiter appeared with yet another glass, purely for medicinal purposes, while his colleague produced a swab and plaster. Now that really is service.

Started yoga two weeks ago with Faye, who is a yoga teacher, funnily enough, and lovely Fiona. We do it at my house after the school run and I wasn't sure how I would find it, although with all the running and tennis I really need something that is a bit more flexible and relaxing in my life. Fi is an old hand while I am completely new to it but the 90 minute session flies by, with me usually falling asleep during the 'relaxation' bit at the end and then feeling spaced out for the rest of the morning. Lovely and competely legal.

Have been watching the floods in the Lake District, which makes the weather here seem all the more bizarre. This time last year, the first falls of snow were covering the Alpes Maritimes and our local resort Greolieres had its best season for 25 years. This year, no snow to speak of yet but 21 degrees and hot sunshine every day. We swam on the beach last Wednesday and will probably do the same this week, it is totally mad and while I'm desperate to see snow, really cannot find it in my heart to complain about still being able to put on a bikini in late November. I seem to remember this is why I left Hertfordshire.

We went to the remembrance day service at Bar sur Loup cemetary on November 11th. It's a bank holiday here - I cannot understand why it isn't in the UK - and the girls know that we (ergo they) have to go. This year, even Lily came too, and given that she and Liv would far rather be at Cap 3000 or in Cannes shopping, chatting to boys and eating at Subway, I was quite impressed. Even more so when everyone sang La Marseillaise and Issy quietly joined in word perfect.

Finally (this is my funny bit) Issy came home today to say that her class had been given the 'period talk' at school. She was horrified (but not as horrified as when I said I would put it in my blog.) With a 14 yo sister, clearly she knows most of it already, and said as soon as it started, the boys were giggling, everyone was blushing and no-one knew where to look. By the time the teacher moved onto pubic hair, the entire class was in a state of shock horror. I would so have loved to be a fly on the wall. After she finished telling me, I said, well if there's any more you need to know, ask away. Cue a very withering look and deafening silence.

Paris...it sizzles

2009-11-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

Paris was a blast. Thought I was being clever booking the train and it worked perfectly until I was on the way back. Had booked first class and was busy working on my laptop and feeling extremely smug about how much I was getting done thanks to my little personal plug point at my side when I was unceremoniously kicked off at Marseille due to a technical fault, then missed my connection back to Nice by an hour and finally crawled in at just before 1am. I will try REALLY hard not to moan about easyJet in future.

Highlights in Paris - hanging out at the Lido, watching rehearsals with Amanda in feathery costumes and swapping great gossip with her lovely husband Chris, stopping traffic on the Champs Elysees as we did an impromptu photo shoot in front of the Arc de Triomphe, watching the show that night (it was amazing, camp, kitsch and utterly over the top, like being transported back to the 50s) as the manager told me to order what I liked and they would carry me home (reader, be assured that wasn't necessary,) and gazing at the lit-up-like-a-christmas-tree Eiffel Tower on the way back to the hotel. Only thing I would say is Paris is not a place to be on your own, better when you are with someone, but didn't allow that to cramp my style.

Mooched around the Rue St Honore the next day, checked out the Hotel Costes, truly a cool place to stay, and Colette, which is every bit as good as the hype except the designers featured are Lanvin, Dior, Chanel and therefore suitable for window shopping but defo not buying. Found a great book called I Love Your Style by Amanda Brooks who used to work for Vogue. Full of amazing photos from the past 40 years of style icons, classic, vintage and boho fashion. Perfect reading material for Sunday morning in bed with a cup of tea.

Came home to an empty house as Iain and the girls were in London. Cleaned like a demon (wish I could lose my OCD complex) while playing the Police and the Jam at full volume which would not be acceptable if we were en famille, then ate in the dark (well candlelight) because that is how I like it, while everyone one else likes bright lights illuminating every corner. Funny how rebellion can take on different forms. Having the house to myself for two days was completely lovely although I think it's lovely only because it isn't a permanent situation. Usually I am the one who is away so I never get the chance to clean up and actually see it last. What a novelty to get up the next day and not trip over dirty clothes, towels and duvets strewn across the floor, or find toilets unflushed and countless mugs of cold tea and beakers of rank juice going mouldy. It was joy..but makes me wonder what am I turning into?

Village life

2009-10-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

The clocks have gone back so autumn is officially here but on the beach at Juan les Pins today, it still felt like summer. Now that the summer dog ban is finished, Tallulah and Oscar can come to the beach, so they spent the whole day tearing around, rolling in the sand, paddling in the sea and sidling up to restaurant tables looking for scraps. Oscar followed me along the shoreline as I swam but wasn't brave enough to come into the water, as it was a bit fresh.

Have spent the last two weeks writing and pitching for commissions on the LA interviews. Have lots of meetings fixed up in London in early December with PR friends who have lots of projects coming up, including one with a friend who is now in charge of Comic Relief press, which will be a great one to cover next spring. Am also covering Glastonbury for Hello next summer - it's the 40th anniversary so the line up is sure to be even more amazing than usual - the girls are overjoyed at the idea of being there, even more so at the thought of VIP treatment and rubbing shoulders with the acts.

So it's all go at Chemin du Laquet, but sadly the same can't be said for Bar sur Loup in general. In recent weeks, there have been whispers in the village about 'le village, c'est mort' meaning that quite literally, the village is dying. It sounds dramatic but in recent weeks, our fave restaurant/hotel the Hostellerie du Chateau, closed for good as it is not making any money, as did the butcher. The boulangerie is up for sale, while our local Boulangerie Maia has been closed since spring after the baker was diagnosed with cancer. He has tried to find someone to take over but had no luck. And our little pizzeria, Michelangelo, hasn't opened at all this year. The Hostellerie is where we stayed when we were househunting and Michelangelo was our regular haunt so it is really sad to see places close because of a dwindling economy. Sometimes you feel like you are in a bubble here but the crunch is affecting everyone.

Off to Paris tomorrow to meet up with Amanda Holden, who is learning to be a showgirl at the Lido for a new ITV series called Fantasy Lives. She told me last week it's the hardest thing she's ever done and reckons it might look really easy when the show airs, so she asked me to come and watch her in action and tell everyone it's not as easy as it looks! I had to think for about 5 seconds before saying yes. She did mention something about me joining in but am pretending I didn't hear that bit! It's about 11 years since I last went to Paris and even the thought of a 6.30am train tomorrow morning can't kill the excitement. Staying til Tuesday evening and determined to fit in a visit to Colette, the most amazing store in Paris, and its new offshoot Merci.

We also talked about Simon Cowell's party a few weeks ago - her highlights were his brother's speech, which bluntly 'outed' Simon in the most hysterical fashion (half the partygoers were crying with laughter, Amanda included, while the other half, who have yet to work with Simon, were straightfaced for fear of blowing their chances.) The other highlight was a woman dressed up as a dancing vagina, I kid you not. Simon told his elderly mum it was a giant mouse! Think Paris will be a hoot, she is such good value because unlike a lot of showbiz stars, she has a wicked sense of humour and is gloriously indiscreet.

LA part two

2009-10-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Went surfing to Malibu on my birthday with Jude. It made up for not seeing the girls and Iain, which felt very weird. Now Watergate Bay, where beginners can stand up is one thing, Malibu is another. Put it this way, I did not do a Cameron Diaz and effortlessly sweep in on every wave, I spent most of my time paddling out to catch waves that kept eluding me. Caught a few in the end, but got nervous when one female surfer paddled over to say she just wanted to tell me how brave I was! It was plainly obvious to all the experts I was completely out of my depth. No worries, I surfed (very badly) at Malibu, and if you lose the brackets, that's all that matters! We had cocktails on the beach and then headed back for a fab supper.

Our big night out was at The Abbey, LA's most famous gay bar, and whether you're gay or straight, you cannot fail to have a good time. Most of the barmen are very good looking, straight, married guys (work that out) and it reminded me of the mad times we used to have clubbing with Gary, my lovely bro-in-law.

Came home Sunday night and still battling jet lag - as an eight hours a night girl, it is so dull to wake up at 3am feeling wide awake - and back in the groove of doing the less glamorous bit of writing everything up.

The only thing to get really excited about this week was the prospect of an open fire now the nights are getting chilly. It's a way of avoiding the five times an hour power cuts we were getting last winter and nothing beats an open fire. As I write, it's been going an hour, the room is filling with smoke and I can barely see, so not exactly a triumph but determined to get that *&**%ing chimney working. Have discovered that flames are good, but as soon as they die down, the smoke starts to flow in, so it's a constant relay of chucking more on everytime it starts to settle down - the perfect antidote to a cosy night lazing by the fire!

2009-10-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there is nothing better in the world than room service. Arrived in LA on Friday and have been busy working and going out to fab restaurants. Interviews so far include Sam Neill (charming) Sally Field (very sweet) Rob Lowe, Felicity Huffman (very witty) and today, Courteney Cox (having heard horror stories, was surprised to find she was really quite funny and a good chat and in excellent shape at 45, which is comforting for someone who is not a million miles away from that herself.)
I'm staying at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, a truly decadent hotel where they hold yoga classes by the pool, give you suites big enough to throw a party in and generally go the extra mile to make you feel special. After eating sushi at Koi, which is one of the best Japanese restaurants in LA, and dinner last night here at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, it was a thrill to realise that actually, I didn't have to go out tonight. So I went to the gym, soaked in a bath so big that a small child could swim lengths in it and ordered, yes, more sushi, from room service. Perfection.
On Sunday night some friends of friends took me to see Kylie in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It is an amazing venue, an amphitheatre set in parkland so as it gets dark, it looks even more magical. We were right at the front and Kylie was a little pocket fairy in wacky costumes, belting out all her disco tunes and making the 75% gay crowd go delirious with excitement. The after-show party was equally fab, with pole dancers, drag queens and dancers on stilts entertaining everyone while Kylie sat in the VIP area with a few friends.
So far, have checked out a few shops between interviews (it has to happen) and these are my tips if you come to LA. Wasteland on Melrose is probably the best vintage store I have ever been to, they stock everything from Marc Jacobs to Missoni at basement prices, including Sass and Bide jeans for $45 (don't bother rushing, I bought them.) Everything I have ever bought there I still love, it's worth the airfare for that alone. Madison on Melrose is designer but with a sale offering 75% off, it was affordable too, so the studded black Pour la Victoire heels found a worthy home.
It's my birthday tomorrow and it is going to be very weird waking up alone. I have the girls homemade cards in my suitcase which will make me cry, but Judy has arranged cocktails and dinner at the Mondrian tomorrow evening, which will be really good fun. If we get a chance we are heading to Malibu after work so I can do some surfing and she can do some laughing.

2009-09-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's official...Issy is a proper Frenchy now. She sang La Marseillaise yesterday in the village square with all her classmates at a commemoration for Amiral de Grasse, a famous French admiral who was born in the village 200-odd years ago. It was amazing to hear her sing the French national anthem in perfect French, especially when she doesn't even know God Save The Queen! She has been practising all week and despite the fact that we had heavy heads thanks to a very late night, we were blown away.
I'm off to LA on a lovely job this week but it has extended from 8 days to almost three weeks, meaning I will be away for my birthday, so we had a few friends over for sushi and champers on Saturday. The highlights....making a speech barefoot on the bench as everyone sang happy birthday, falling over with Faye (thankfully by that time I was so 'relaxed' that neither of us hurt ourselves) and just catching up with all our lovely mates. Iain had been out the previous night in Cannes with all his old city mates plus Mat and Milly so to say he was fragile would be understating it somewhat.
He came home Saturday afternoon, really wanting to go to bed, but instead had to be the host wth the most and actually filled people's glasses up and was very effective, much more so than usual when he is too busy knocking back the vino to worry about silly things like making sure everyone else has a drink. Then he cut all the sushi that Issy and I spent Friday night making, and laid it all out beautifully. I'd like to say that he also cleared up while I went to bed but that would be a lie. When the last stragglers left at 3.30, he just mumbled 'gotta go bed, let's leave it til morning' always a mistake but I could see his point.
Had my second tennis lesson today. Liv is fuming that my coach is the best looking man that possibly either of us have ever seen, which certainly makes it a more enjoyable experience on a Monday morning. It was a toss up between the tall, dark and extremely handsome 25-year-old and the grey haired but very sweet closer to my age 50-year-old. Reader, who would you choose?
My efforts to be cool are failing miserably though. Last week, I fell over trying to return a shot and cut my knee and ended up a bloody, sweaty mess. And this week, I managed to top that by whacking him in the shoulder with my raquet as I tried to practise the shot he was demonstrating. He said he is going to wear a crash helmet for my next lesson and I don't think he's joking.

Surf bore

2009-09-21T00:48:00.000-07:00

Going to an old people's home to see my 92-year-old Nanny Kit, who has Alzheimers and is virtually immobile was always going to be a sad experience. It's the first time I've seen her since April, when I visited her in hospital in London after a fall at home left her bruised and disorientated. What I didn't expect was the laughter and sheer hilarity that a random bunch of old people can generate. Justin and mum have dubbed it One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest at Lennox House because there is always some utterly mad scenario going on which has the visitors in stitches.

Last time I saw Nanny Kit, she looked very old, very frail and very much like she had given up on life. She was barely eating, she hated being visited by carers four times a day at home and seemed to have nothing to make her smile. I braced myself for the worst so to see her with her hair freshly permed, her nails painted, looking yes a bit thin but happy was beyond brilliant.

She has made a good friend in Lily, an octogenarian with two teeth, whose best buddy is a toy monkey called Jamie, which hangs off her walking frame and which she talks to non-stop. She also has three-way conversations between her girlhood self, her dad and Jamie...getting the picture? Lily got up to start dancing around the dayroom on her walkng frame as everyone else was having afternoon tea and cake, and Nanny Kit whispered to me, in a stage whisper that everyone else could hear, 'Oooh Karen, look at Lily, she's mad that one!' like she was only sane person in the room.

It's the best laugh I've had with Nan for about five years, and you couldn't feel sad for her, because she seems so much happier surrounded by people and staff who really care, than sat in her flat on her own 24/7.

Went surfing to Newquay the next day and after three years of trying desperately hard to stand up on the board for longer than 3 seconds, finally it all came together. Sarah and I spent our mornings struggling into wetsuits to be battered around by the waves, but the sun was shining and the surf made you feel alive, even after 4am nights and too much partying. On paper, it sounds like hell but it is the most fun you can have, and we would drag ourselves exhausted out of the water after three hours, desperately keen to carry on but just too damn knackered to continue. Norma thought we were both mental, and kept wondering how being rolled around the Atlantic could be more attractive than lying on a sun lounger with the papers, wandering off for the odd massage or swim in the heated outdoor pool.

My little world was rocked this morning when I saw Sara on the school run and she told me that she and Adrian are moving back to England. Adrian was the first person who spoke to me on the school run last year, when we were newbies and had no friends, and their Christmas Eve drinks party introduced us to the village community and put us in the mood for a great crimble. They both love a party, are always the last to leave (just like us!) and we quickly became friends, so it is a real blow to hear they are going, although hopefully their departure is not imminent.

2009-09-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

It's eight years since I last went to New York. This trip was a fly-in, fly-out job, one night at the W on Lexington (fab, especially all the Bliss spa minatures in the bathroom) one night on the red eye (not so fab, but Virgin premium made it a bit more bearable) and a total of 40 hours on six planes and in transit. I could have done New Zealand and back in the time it took to connect to London and NY, mainly because there were no available direct flights to London at such short notice due to the mass exodus back to the UK for the start of school so I had to fly Swiss Air via Zurich both ways. The best bit of all, after eight hours in the lounge at Heathrow post red eye, was being delayed into Zurich which meant a jet lagged dash from one gate to another to make the last flight to Nice. Fun.

Even so, it was worth it. We arrived Wednesday afternoon, dumped our luggage and went straight to Brooklyn to watch Phill Jupitus do the comedy circuit with loads of other New York stand ups. He was unknown to everyone but us, and pulled it off at two brilliant clubs, The Lovin' Cup in Williamsburg and The UCB, in Chelsea, which is one of NY's most respected comedy clubs. Lasted til 1am fuelled by mojitos and was gutted to find out we missed karaoke until 4am with Phill and his mates belting out numbers from Hairspray at a tranny bar. Another time.

Highlight No 2, shopping in SoHo after the interview on Thursday. Abercrombie's ridiculous up-their-own-bottom rule of making shoppers queue outside to be allowed in by two bouncers (I'm not kidding), only to struggle through the store, which is dimly lit and reverberates to really loud music, slightly dented the experience. Maybe I'm just getting old but I fail to see the joy in not knowing what colour hoodies and t shirts you have bought until you have paid and stumbled back out into the glaring sunshine. Suffice it to say I'm popular chez moi with the girls and Iain who got his longed for Converse (at $45 not €70, which almost makes it worth the trip alone.)
Here's me and Zoe, above, having a rest in SoHo, shopping is hard work!

Have fitted in some work and am off tomorrow to see my nan in London in her care home, which I know will be sad. She has aged so much since I last saw her according to Mum, so I'm bracing myself for that, but still so pleased to be seeing her. Then off to Newquay to make a fool of myself in the surf one more time - if i don't stand up for longer than 10 seconds on my board I might have to admit defeat and take up crochet instead. AS IF.

Where did summer go?

2009-08-30T02:43:00.000-07:00

Summer is almost over, the girls go back to school this week and we have had the best time. The last two months has been busy with lots of UK friends and family visiting, and although it has been amazing fun, we are all completely shattered and secretly looking forward to a normal back-to-school back-to-work September.

Spent a week at Lake Maggiore in Italy, see pictures above, Mac and Laura took a camper van and a speedboat so we spent our days wakeboarding, waterskiing and exploring villages like Arona and Stresa, shopping, eating and drinking. We were outnumbered by kids (7) aged between 15 and ten but they all hung out together and had the most brilliant time (especially Livvy, who had three teen boys to keep her company!)

We had a pitch right by the lake so every morning started with a swim and breakfast outside under the trees. I know that of all the holidays the girls have had at amazing places around the world, camping is their absolute favourite. I remember once packing up our stuff early after a wet weekend in Dorset and they refused to speak to me all the way home because they were so mad that I had cut short their best ever holiday. And even for a creature comfort freak like me, leaving after five days under canvas felt a bit premature, but it's a different deal altogether when you don't have to wade through mud in flip flops to reach the shower block.

The last ten days have been spent catching up with London friends, which means putting your tourist hat on and doing all the things you don't have time to do when live here. Shopping with the girls in St Tropez and lunch at Byblos, Baoli with Lydia and Livvy on their first grown up night out at a club, lazy suppers with friends, cocktails at a couple of new beach bars and tennis with Sarah have been my highlights. We have all agreed that this has been the best summer in the seven summers we have spent on the Cote d'Azur.

The month was rounded off in fabulous style last night at Tony and Shan's summer party. Eighty people sat at long candlelit trestle tables under the trees on their terrace and Shan produced a fantastic array of dishes, many of which were made from veggies grown in her garden. Gazpacho, garlic soup, tomato salsa, chicken kebabs, Thai chicken, pork and aubergine curries were followed by liqueur panna cottas and frozen grapefruit in bowls made of ice. It was a magical night.

Work hat is firmly on now, and am off to New York this week to watch Phill Jupitus take the stand-up circuit by storm and get his views on the differences between American and British comedy. Cannot wait.

Breaking and entering

2009-07-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

It's the holidays, cue a time when you get nothing productive done and have whining voices in your ear saying I'm hungry, what are we doing today and when can we stop for lunch so this week my plan of action was take them out as much as possible and make them so tired they can barely speak, all in the name of fun.
So, we tripped off to St Tropez on Tuesday to stay with a friend who is house sitting in a villa overlooking the bay for six weeks. We chatted by the pool, drank un petit Chablis and put the world to rights while the kids played, all good. It is so hot at the moment, at 6.30 last night it was showing 34 degrees on the car, which is too, too much (but I know how rubbish the UK summer is right now so not moaning, really.)
Arrived back last night and spent this morning in Antibes at the market with a friend who knows it so well that I ended up spending a fortune at all the rigt stalls (but a Triumph bikini, sundress, silk shift and red leather handbag made it feel better and all for the price of a half price Tara Jarmon silk skirt in Rue d'Antibes) before heading to the beach. The boys suggested tombstoning off the rocks at Cap d'Antibes, a phrase which conjures up the local A&E to me, but the girls were keen so off they went, leaving us to swim and chat on the beach in perfect peace.
When we got a text at 7 asking if we could come and meet them, they couldn't wait to tell us how they bunked into the pool at the Eden Roc, only the most expensive hotel on the Riviera (preferred choice of Brad, Angelina, Quentin etc) and how they spent 45 minutes in the infinity pool undetected. Scarily, they had the whole trespassing thing off to a fine art. Every time they swam past a resident, one of them would say, my suite is lovely, how is yours? They talked about the chocolates left on the pillows each night and even worked out which room numbers they would use if quizzed by the lifeguard! Issy spent an hour tonight facebooking all her friends with the hotel link so they can check it out - most of them live in Brookmans Park in currently very rainy Herts so am sure they will be thrilled to get her message.
The day got even better when I saw that my first feature, on our lovely mate Mat Barker and his boat The Blue Peter, was the cover story of The French Paper's Life section, and then arrived home to open my mail - a cheque from the DSS for overpayment of my NI in the UK for the past 11 years, two copies of Grazia (thanks Jeanie), and a letter from my accountant saying that the taxman owes me. Don't feel so bad about the market now.
The only downside of the past two weeks has been getting stung by a jellyfish. As I swam I felt something attack my thigh, no kidding I thought it was a shark the pain was so intense. By the time I got back to the beach, my leg was throbbing and the next day, it had swelled to twice its usual size, was bright red, itchy and about 100 degrees. Ten days on, I have a massive scar and it is still itching like the pox. I braved the sea today but must have looked like a paranoid schizo as every time something glistened or moved by me I was a bag of nerves. Have noticed people really staring at it if I wear shorts or a bikini, it is quite interesting how differently you are perceived with such an obvious physical imperfection.
Anyway, tennis tomorrow, am planning to hold my head high after the aquasplash swimsuit debacle, I have no shame. Perhaps I should just slash my tennis skirt across the butt to prove that I do indeed have a sense of humour.

A cheeky day out

2009-07-19T14:04:00.001-07:00

Over the years, I have found myself in some truly embarrassing situations. Being offered a genital massage in a posh Cape Town spa was pretty memorable (if only for the fact that the South African therapist actually said gentle!) That story still haunts me on nights out with my old Fleet Street buddies. Then there was the time I vomited in my hand in the back of a black cab before politely asking the driver to stop so I could chuck it in the kerb and continue the journey home....there are too many more humiliations to mention but last week's expedition to Aquasplash in Antibes comes pretty close to topping them all.

The girls were enrolled at tennis stage for the week and the highlight was a trip to Aquasplash. They begged me to come and join them and also begged me not to wear a bikini that might a. give me a wedgie on the slides or worse b. come off completely on a slide. Add to this the fact that the tennis coaches were taking the kids along (we are talking tanned, fit, uber good-looking 20-something trainers, say no more) so cue much trying on the night before to find suitable swimwear that wasn't too mutton and would save my blushes on the slides.

I settled for a black one piece and headed off for an afternoon of fun. Managed to say hello to aforementioned coaches while my hair was still intact, which was a good start I felt. I can't remember if it was slide one or two but I felt a sharp pain in my butt as I came down where something sharp dug me. I shrugged it off and carried on doing the rounds in the wave pool and water chutes. We decided to stay a bit later than planned but went over to say goodbye when everyone else was leaving. Suddenly Livvy, who was standing behind me, nudged me hard and whispered: 'Mum, you've got a hole in your costume and it's right on your BUM!' Yeah, right, stop winding me up. Issy stepped back and gasped: 'Mum don't turn round or everyone will see!' This is presuming no-one had spotted it already as it probably happened within minutes of arriving.

I stood there rooted to the spot, rigid with embarrassment, saying goodbye to all the hotties and the kids, then chucked my towel on the only spare sun lounger and leapt onto it without turning around, quite a feat of gymnastic excellence.

It was 32 degrees, so hot you could have fried an egg on my chest, but I couldn't go back in the water as the hole was actually a gaping great crevice right on the crack of my arse! The shame! I lay there thinking, please God let no-one have noticed, just as Stefan, the girl's very hunky coach, came back with a little boy who had lost one shoe. He was hunting around me looking for the other shoe and very probably wondering why I didn't get up to help like any normal parent would. I stayed, buttocks clenched, on my lounger, praying he would leave without rooting around too close to me! Why is it that whenever you want to look cool, something awful happens to drop you right in it?

Moving on, my neighbours here have been gifting me some lovely home produce. I was walking the dogs when I stopped for a chat with Michel, who lives down the road. He is married to the former headmistress of the village school Issy goes to and now he is retired, he is always working in his garden. He invited me to look at his new dry stone terrace and vegetable patch where he grows artichokes, aubergines, peppers, tomatoes, green beans and strawberries to name just a few. He grows everything organically and makes his own compost. I left with two beautiful flowering courgettes and a coeur du boeuf tomato the size of a grapefruit, which smelled divine. I ate the tomato for lunch - it tasted as good as it smelt - but didn't do the courgettes justice, slicing them into a madras curry instead of cooking them the way Michel advised, steamed and then drizzled with lemon and olive oil. Still, they tasted good.

Tonight I was walking the lasy few metres after an 8k run when I saw Rosine next door. I told her how good our olives are as she helped me harvest them last autumn and she invited me in to taste her home made vin d'oranger, made with the oranges I gave her from our garden. It was amazing, very sweet and tasty, but maybe not the drink you should be enjoying straight after a 45 minute run in the hills. We chatted for ages and then her husband Agostino fetched a bottle from the shed and insisted I take it home, chill it in the fridge and enjoy it as an apero, which I will but perhaps after a pint of water first.

It's a man's world

2009-07-16T02:06:00.001-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that the dogs are taking over my life. Whenever I go out, I have a guilt attack about not taking them with me, but when I do take them, they are a hazard. They jump around the car and Oscar has developed a worrying tendency of squeezing his chubby body under the driver's seat to nestle into my feet right by the accelerator. The first time he did it I nearly drove off the edge of the hillside as I thought it was a big hairy rat!

As if dealing with our two dogs isn't enough, I now have the pleasure of all the various waifs and strays in our neighbourhood coming to visit. It can only mean one thing - Tallulah's season is about to begin which is when our house and garden turns into the village's canine red light district. They scramble down the steep bank through the pine trees from the road and wander around our garden, peeing everywhere and searching out Tallulah, who loves the attention, the old slapper, while Oscar runs circles round them yapping like a demented lunatic and trying to start a fight because now he has been neutered, he can't have her and he is determined that no other dog will either.

This week I woke up to find a Jack Russell in my bedroom, the following day an alsatian was wandering on the terrace and for the last two days, Alchy, the huge rottweiler/boxer cross who lives down the road has been staking us out so Iain's first job when he gets off that bike is to put up a proper fence.

Much as we have had fun this last week while Iain has been away, with Bastille Day fireworks at Juan-les-Pins which were fantastic, and a lovely lunch and day on the beach at Vegaluna in Cannes, I have come to the conclusion that I wouldn't make a very good single parent. I picked up a flat pack TV unit last Friday and told the girls I was intending to assemble it when we got home with Iain's tool kit. When they had picked themselves up off the floor from laughing, they both offered to help me. Sadly, we couldn't even lift the box out of the car as it weighs 52 kilos so we have been driving around all week with the back seats folded down and a huge great box in the back, with the girls and dogs crushed in beside it. Job number two for Iain, he will be thrilled we have missed him so much!

Olives a-plenty

2009-07-13T04:59:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, my Italian neighbour Rosine spotted me as Issy and I walked to school. She rattled off to me in Italo-French for about five minutes and as we left, Issy said, Mum did you understand any of that? I heard the word olives but that was all I could decipher, so Issy explained that she was saying that the olives she helped me pick in our garden last autumn should now be ready to eat. It has taken me two weeks to get down to the shed to dig out the bonbonniere containing all our olives in a salted water and bay leaf solution and when I opened the lid to see a white crusty coating on top, I feared the worst, after all they have been in there since November.
I took a scoop out and we all tried one and they are delicious! The best thing is I have enough to last us all summer. It was lovely to serve up olives from our garden that night drizzled with a little garlic and lemon juice from the lemon tree. There is a Barbara Good in me just struggling to get out and grow everything from scratch but the reality is, it's very time consuming to be self sufficient. We have olives, lemons, oranges, plums, figs, and rosemary growing here so I think that will have to tick the home farm box.
We went up to Pre du Lac last weekend to watch the Tour de France go by, it's the first time in many years they have taken a route through this particular area and everyone was out to cheer them on. The speeds were fantastic and it was a blaze of colour as two packs - the advance pack of four and the rest - sped past but in about 45 seconds it was all over.
Iain is motorbiking through France, Italy and Austria this week and by happy coincidence, the girls are at tennis camp this week so the house is quiet, tidy and an oasis of zen-like calm, which is a rare occurence indeed.
With two months of school holidays stretching ahead, I thought I would plan some good stuff for the girls to keep them occupied. You would think with a pool in the garden and fantastic, guaranteed sunshine that that might be enough but they are more likely to play on their nintendo DS or watch daytime TV than swim or hang out in the garden. Whenever I suggest the beach, I get, 'Noooo the beach is so BORING unless we're with our friends.' So Iain and I spent two hours putting up the tent for them to camp out in. I thought the novelty might last a week, not so. They stayed in the house until 10.30pm when I ordered them to take down sleeping bags and they seemed reluctant to leave. They took power cables, a lamp and a laptop to watch a movie on - and were back in the house at 7am cooking breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. So much for the great outdoors.
The next day we did the Picasso museum at Antibes. It's housed in the amazing Grimaldi chateau where Picasso spent two months working, with phenomenal views across the sea. So we have also ticked the culture box too.
It is Bastille Day tomorrow and the fireworks are incredible all around France so we are heading down to Cannes to watch the display tomorrow evening. There is always something going on here, the same is true of London too but it seems so much easier to get everywhere here. A traffic jam lasts 20 minutes if you are really unlucky and then it's all over.

Life's a beach

2009-07-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

First of all, a photo of me and my best schoolfriend Jackie, who came to stay last weekend with her boyfriend Chris and son Louie. We had a fab weekend, catching up, eating and drinking and laughing. We've been friends for 30 years now and I love her!

I must admit, before we moved here, I used to dream of spending the odd weekday on the beach in early summer, away from the madding weekend and holiday crowds. It's that naughty I-should-be-working-but-I'm-playing-truant feeling that makes it all the more enjoyable. I know my friends back home have this image of me shooting down to the coast at every available opportunity to soak up the rays while they sweat and toil in London. With the girls both off school yesterday and my mum here for a week from the UK, I thought we should put the plan into action.

We arrived at Theoule, still my fave beach within easy reach, to find there were no parking spaces left so I stopped to offload the girls, mum and all the beach stuff (minus the bucket and spade and fishing nets) before trawling around for half an hour in 90 degrees looking for a space. By the time I walked to the beach, sweating and desperate for a swim, Livvy had stormed off in a huff after a massive shouting match on the beach with Issy, mum was threatening to go to Ibiza next time and Issy had a face like thunder. All caused by the girls sharing a parasol - Issy's idea of sharing was to set it up on the rocks four feet away from her sister so that she could hog the lot. Then the clincher - 'I wanted to phone you to bring my bucket and spade with you?' 'Well why didn't you take them out of the car when we unloaded?' 'Because I didn't want to carry them, I wanted you to carry them.'

Two minutes after I sit down comes the cry 'I'm starving, when are we going for lunch?' Well, just as soon as I have had a chance to sit down, catch my breath and enjoy 20 minutes sunshine perhaps. I get out last week's Grazia that my ma-in-law sweetly sends me only to hear 'Mum, you've read that magazine already, why can't we just go now, we're all STARVING!' No-one pipes up differently, so we pack up again and trot to the beach bar for lunch. Moodiness and hunger seem to go hand in hand in our house and thankfully the girls are in a better mood and even talking to each other after lunch so we head back to the beach whereupon I realise that we have to replace the parking ticket because the limit is 90 minutes in that part of town.

The girls reluctantly agree to go and do it together when I offer them 5 euros as a bribe but take off in such a rush that they forget to take the car keys with them. I ring Livvy's mobile, which I can hear going off in her bag beside me so wait for Issy to reappear red-faced and sweating 10 minutes later to grab the keys and sprint back. Ticket replaced, no parking fine imposed and girls back, I settle down for a relaxing nap in the sunshine but there are now black clouds rolling in and the first big fat spots of rain start to fall. So we pack up again, laden with mats, parasol, towels and beach bags and stagger back to the car to drive home. Next time, I am going on my own.

On a happy note, Issy got an amazing school report, full of bravos, and a line from her teacher talking about the magnificent progress she has made in the last year in French. And Livvy has been told she will move up to Troisieme in September at Fenelon, along with all her friends. There was a very real risk that she might not move up but redouble the year again - something that is very common in France - because she is still struggling with the language but her head of International was so impressed with her marks in English that she has let her move up. So it's extra French lessons through the summer hols each weekend to show her teachers that she really is trying. Much harder as a 14 year-old than a 10 year-old to master the language but she has worked hard this year and I have noticed she is much more motivated than she was in England.

Time for a moan

2009-06-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well it couldn't last could it? Have finally taken off my rose tinted spectacles and realised that shit happens, no matter where you live. Will try to keep moaning to a minimum but am feeling quite murderous at the moment.

It was to good to be true that the Parisian pest at Grand Duc would stay quiet for long....last weekend she flew at a couple who had just arrived to rent our apartment. They hadn't even entered the domaine to start their holiday yet she was screaming abuse at them and threatening them there would be hell to pay if she heard their baby cry.

She is mentally unhinged so I have lodged a formal complaint with the management company and her landlord. She is the most anti-social beast, she chats loudly on her mobile on the balcony at all times of the day and night and plays Barbra Streisand and - even worse - sings along to it, yet I have never said a word. Gloves are off. But the couple, understandably, were upset.

The next bit I don't understand. The woman client rang us late on Saturday night to say she was disgusted by the state of the apartment and they wanted to leave and have a refund. Er, doesn't quite work like that. Iain went over to placate them on Sunday and said the woman is a manic depressive with OCD, she said it was a health hazard for her baby to stay there any longer! She has taken pictures of our coffee pot, the corners of the room and the shower cubicle citing filth and dirt.

I would be laughing it it weren't for the fact that they have now buggered off with our keys, all our linen and travel cot to stay somewhere else, still demanding a refund or they will plaster the internet with pictures of our uninhabitable apartment. Just makes me even more determined to get that unspeakable cow next door out, even if I have to take a petition around. There's no way they would be doing this if she hadn't ruined their holiday within 30 seconds of arrival.

So, moving onto reasons for living (or not) in France. Shall we start with the bad news and move onto the good news?

Reasons NOT to live in France:

1. In a word, SFR. This mobile phone company (in fact, pretty much all mobile companies) treat you like a convicted felon. I waited a year before signing up for a French mobile and wish I hadn't bothered. The guy at the shop in Grasse sold me a BlackBerry Storm. It wasn't what I wanted but it was the only BlackBerry he had in stock. Should have heard the warning bells then. Three weeks down the line it stopped delivering emails. I went back to be told with an indifferent shrug that the software wasn't good, so did I want to go home and call the British helpline or download the new software with a print off from the shop in French? Well, not really but there was no other option so I did. Spent all afternoon trying the duff number (it didn't work) then in desperation, I somehow worked out the printed instructions and bingo, it started working again.

Fast forward two more weeks and texts suddenly stopped coming through. Back to Grasse encore une fois and my mate the friendly SFR bi-lingual shop assistant looked SO pleased to see me. Explained the situation, he looked very bored and kept saying I could always pay another 99 euros and take another model. Hello? Even in nightmare red tapesville UK, if your phone isn't working they at least try to sort it out without charging you for a new phone. He then said I should have brought it back in the first week if I wasn't happy. The fact that that was two weeks before it went wrong seemed to pass him by. By this point I was steaming, so he just walked off to serve someone else, leaving me with a more helpful but totally French speaking assistant who would have swapped it quite happily if he was on his own. Under much duress, happy pants finally got out a jiffy bag with a huge sigh and said he would send it to be fixed but it would have to go back to the manufacturers at least twice before they will replace it.

My friend has an iPhone and she said hers has come back from repair and now it won't charge. Have reached the conclusion that the French serveice industry doesn't really exist and as for the customer always being right, don't even go there.

Reasons for living in France:

1. Havent yet heard about bent, freeloading French politicians claiming extortionate expenses for moats, mortgages that have already been paid off (the French are a nation of renters not buyers) and porn movies from Blockbusters. The worst they seem to do is have the odd mistress but there is no law against that.

2. The train journey from Grasse to Monte-Carlo. When there are no wild cat strikes, it is scenic, fairly clean, on time (I've only taken a train four times since I arrived, all in the last two days, so I might moan about it sometime soon.) It was lovely ear-marking all the places I still want to visit - Cap d'Ail, Beaulieu, St Jean Cap Ferrat - when I get the time.

3. Arriving in Monaco, a twee toytown invented to make mass excess feel quite normal, where you are just as likely to see a Bentley, Ferrari or Lamborghini as a Mini Cooper (my personal fave, I still miss my cream and black one now lovingly cared for by Melanie.) What's not to like about a place where you can never ever feel under or over dressed? It's a bit like Geneva - quite clean and clinical - but with much better people watching and more kitsch factor.

4. The Monte-Carlo TV Festival, possibly the last place on earth where journalists are made to feel a bit special rather than like something the cat brought in. The free three course lunch every day with copious quantities of wine, Badoit, coffee etc obviously tipped the balance.

5. Meeting my second famous Brad of the last three weeks - that would be Brad Walsh rather than Brad Pitt, a lovely bloke who has never changed over the years and who entertained me with stories of all the famous A listers staying at his hotel. He has spent most of his stay here calling his mates at home in Watford to tell them who he is off to dinner with each night.

6. Being able to stop off en route to the train station at the Fairmont Plaza for a glass of pink Champagne on the roof terrace overlooking the Med. St Pancras' Champagne bar is lovely but it will never compete with that.

Here a year

2009-06-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

This time last year, we were packing up our lives in the UK to head to France for a new life. Hard to believe that on Tuesday, it's a year since we arrived. I still vividly remember pulling up on the lane by our house at dawn and climbing over the fence with the cats precariously balanced in their travel cage so we could get them into some shade and fresh air after a hot 14 hour drive through France.

Such a lot has happened in 12 months. Issy is virtually fluent in French while Iain still only knows the basics, the ground floor of our house is completely unrecognisable while the upstairs is still utter chaos and we have had our ups and downs settling in. Suddenly we have a teenager who has more of a social life than I do (hard to believe, I know,) borrows my clothes and shoes on the quiet and sees me as a never ending well of cash advances and a handy cabbie for the many parties and sleepovers she plans each weekend! It certainly hasn't been plain sailing - there have been tough times, disappointments and frustrations along the way but I have never doubted that we did the right thing at the right time.

Lately we have also got a bit more balance back in our lives after a pretty manic few months. The plan was to take life a little easier down here, enjoy the weather, the beautiful surroundings and explore the Riviera and its environs. Instead, life became even more crazy and full on than it was in the UK and after 20 odd years on that treadmill, it was time for a rethink.

It's funny, I think the perceived wisdom is that our life here is all about drinking rose, lying by the pool in the sunshine and wondering which village restaurant to try next. The truth is the shopping still needs to be done, so does the cleaning and then there is the little matter of work but today I actually ticked the 'rose by the pool' box all afternoon and it was rather lovely!

Yesterday I went racing in the Voile d'Antibes regatta with Mat and Milly on board their beautiful yacht The Blue Peter. The forecast storms never materialised but the wind was up and it was questionable whether the race would take place. We got the go ahead and I can't describe how exciting it was to be counting down to the start along with all the other classic yachts in Antibes harbour. We got off to a great start and the boat was flying. Mat's mates were all crewing and they are serious sailors so everyone was doing their bit as they had had a disappointing couple of days at the start of the regatta. For much of the time, I was clinging onto the boat and sliding from one side of the deck to the other trying to keep out of the way as they tacked and guided the yacht into the best position. Mat kept asking 'Are you ok, are you scared Karen?' but I can honestly say fear wasn't happening, it was just very very exciting, even when the waves washed over us, soaking us all to the skin. We were cruising at 13 knots and on course for a possible win when the coastguard sounded his horn and cancelled the race.

We were gutted, especially as we were not far off the finish but unbeknownst to us, two boats had been damaged in collisions due to the high winds, which were getting stronger, and one yacht was completely written off so it was just too dangerous to continue. The mood on board was jubilant nevertheless and we hit the owners marquee for a celebration drink. My white Abercrombie shorts will never be the same again and I was rocking the bag lady look, wandering around Antibes looking dishevelled with my hair matted with salt and sea water (one shop owner gave me a very strange look when I popped into his trendy boutique to try on a T shirt - luckily for him, I bought it!) but the adrenaline rush was amazing and it's a day I won't forget.

I might have embraced France wholeheartedly over the last year but The Apprentice final has just started so a bientot......

Brad Pitt - my new crush

2009-05-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Have just spent the last 12 days covering the Cannes Film Festival - what a blast. It's been round the clock, leaving home at 7am for screenings at the Palais des Festivals, then onto the press conferences for the films and then finally home to write it up before dressing up and hitting the party scene.
The first party was Nowhere Boy, the new Sam Taylor Wood film about John Lennon. It was at the trendy 3.14 beach club in Cannes and was brilliant - fab DJ, champagne and vodka cocktails (altho I was driving so no getting drunk or even a bit squiffy for me) and loads of star spotting - Kristin Scott Thomas, Paris Hilton, Peaches Geldof, Nicky Haslem, Martin Kemp, Colin Firth, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and so on. Everyone was on the dancefloor, singing along to Billy Jean and We Will Rock You and I can honestly say it was one of the best showbiz parties I have ever been to - usually celebs stand around chatting politely to other celebs and it's all a bit dull.
The highlight was Quentin Tarantino's new movie Inglourious Basterds, a very clever, violent and strangely humorous take on World War 2 which I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did. And then Brad Pitt turned up for the press conference looking gorgeous in a cream suit, cravat (strange choice for 80 degrees of sunshine) and sunnies. I was right at the front of the press crush and as he smiled and chatted to people, looking really relaxed and not at all on the edge of a relationship break-up, I caught his eye and waved and HE WAVED BACK! It wasn't like we were surrounded by fans - that wave was meant for me (especially as journos are usually a bit cooler than that and don't usually wave to stars like demented fans.) But hey, we are talking Brad Pitt here, all logic and usual behaviour went straight out the door. It was a moment.
Other parties included Victoria Hervey at Cosy Box, where she told me about her recent trip to Africa and Paris H (again!) at VIP Room, bopping til dawn.
Films I loved: Bright Star, about John Keats, which was superb, Looking For Eric, starring Eric Cantona, which is funny, poignant and has hit written all over it and Tarantino's latest offering. I wanted to like The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus because it's Heath Ledger's last movie and he was a great talent but found it confusing and hard work, despite the valiant efforts of Lily Cole and Andrew Garfield.
So, all over for another year and must say the thought of a few early nights is filling me with joy. (Expecting no sympathy btw.)

Launch at last!

2009-05-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

What a week. Wednesday arrived, the day of the launch and everything we have been working so hard for suddenly arrives. We are running on empty now but adrenaline kicks in and suddenly you find the reserves somewhere to keep going. The party was in Cannes, everyone tunred up and the night was a great success. I can't even remember how many people I spoke to but they all said how much they love the site and that means a lot.

Having said that he would drive me, Norma and Sarah (who flew out for one night only just to give their support - I love you girls) home, Iain proceeded to get completely blotto, so just as well that I drank half a glass of rose and one small vodka cocktail all night and was able to get us home. Sarah was in foetal position in the back of the car, muttering about what a great night she'd had for aproximately 30 seconds before she passed out! Sometimes I really enjoyed being sober, especially the morning after. If you want to read all about it, check out www.fr2day.com.

The girls headed off to the airport the next morning, one bright and bouncy the other jaded and full of Nurofen, while I headed off to the Cannes Film Festival for two weeks of madness. Have to say that being in the hub of the showbiz vibe was a real buzz, I have forgotten how much I miss that. Even though I had to leave today at 7am (in the pouring rain) to get to a screening at the Palais des Festivals, there was a spring in my step. I LOVE films, I used to review movies and go to premieres all the time when I was at The Sun and I can't tell you how brilliant it is to sit in a screening theatre and watch a film that the wider world has not yet seen, in Cannes of all places. Special. Bright Star is amazing, all I can say is go and see it, it is beautifully filmed and a real work of art. Early days but if it doesn't win, I hope it is usurped by something even greater.

Met a lovely journo at the very mad press conference afterwards, Lesley-Ann Jones, whose stuff I have been reading forever. We had a great chat about the mentality of the whole thing (staff who don't know where to direct you, a press conference room that holds a fraction of the journalists who are accredited, I could go on but I might be banned next year if I do.) She is doing a piece on the craziness of it all and was telling me about an Alsatian she saw on the Croisette in a bikini and a baby who had been spray tanned with St Tropez by its weirdo mother, who was quite proud of the fact. I know this place is a bit insane but stories like that make you shiver.

Parties are a big part of the season down here too. Have some great invites - Sam Taylor Wood's party with Harvey Weinstein, Elton and Jade on Sunday eve til late, then a screening at 8.30am Monday morning (so maybe I will sleep in the car,) Victoria Hervey's private dinner and party on Monday night and Paris Hilton and Solange Knowles along with MTV on Wednesday (this one made the girls cry with the unfairness of it all as I know nothing about Paris while they know every bit of trivia having just watched Paris Hilton's BBF on TV and are OBSESSED with her.) Oh and D&G's party on Friday. C'est la vie. Livvy did say, but mum, why would they want YOU there? I had to explain that they are occasional benefits to having spent 20 years in showbiz journalism.

Anyway peeps, need an early night so will be back very soon.

Portofino's so fine!

2009-05-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Just back from a wonderful weekend in Italy to celebrate Justin's 40th. He had no idea we were coming because as far as he was aware, I am covering the Cannes Film Festival at the moment (luckily J never questions anything so didn't realise it actually starts next week!)

We kept in touch with my cousin Michael by text and arrived at Sestri Levante, just down the coast from Portofino to find them wandering along the beach. We managed to creep right up on him and he nearly fell over with surprise. It was a really lovely moment and set the scene for the six of us having a fab weekend.

We explored Santa Margherita Ligure, Sestri Levante and Rapallo, which have a real charm about them. Lots of bright ice cream colours on all the buildings and a very olde worlde seaside feel to the towns. The highlight was Portofino - a place on my must-see list for years now and I wasn't disappointed. Very upscale on the shopping front -Louis Vuitton is the first shop you see as you step off the boat - and so pretty but also very friendly. The people watching is superb, we sat for ages sipping Prosecco on the port and umming and aaahing at all the bling!

One night we ended up at Da Beppe, a family run little restaurant in Santa Margherita, where the food just kept on coming at you. Octopus and potato salad, huge mussels, a whole seabass in Genovese sauce of parsley, garlic and olive oil, the list goes on.

The big family party opposite us must have had seven courses and at the end, a guitarist and singer struck up on their table and gave the most amazing impromptu performance of lots of old Italian songs as well as My Way (which got us all singing, much their amusement and they gave us a big round of applause at the end of it!)

The best bit is that door to door, it is just three hours away, which would have got us to Bournemouth in one direction or Skegness in the other a year ago in the UK! The girls were babysitting the outlaws ( a term of endearment Jean, honest!) and despite the fact that they were stranded at the house with no transport, peace reigned all weekend.