February 3rd 2009
I have just been initiated in the joys of Twitter, a new social networking site where everyone talks about what they are doing. A week ago, that sounded quite banal to me, but actually it's scarily addictive. Keep finding myself sidetracked while supposedly working to check out who is on, and who is following me, which is why I don't do social networking as it really gets in the way of working for living! One of my girls pointed out that you only need to change one letter to make Twitter a really rude word and the younger one immediately wet herself laughing while I struggled to keep a straight face. They're so well brought up. Actually that word leads to quite a few rude variations, not that I'm sharing that info with them.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Lovely Sunday
February 1st 2009
How lovely to tap in the word February, January is too depressing. Issy is sitting beside me, we've had a lovely chilled out Sunday, ate roast chicken (bought from rotisserie in Mandelieu so I don't even have to cook it, France can be very civilised), watched the movie Wild Hogs (a bit silly but quite funny) and just now she yawned. Tired? I asked. No, I'm just getting some more oxygen, she deadpanned (I kid you not).
Have just finished the most brill book, if you fancy a real belly laugh (and we all need one right now) go and buy How I Paid for College by Marc Acito. It is the funniest read since High Fidelity, one of those books you don't want to finish. Also discovered a very funny (well, depends on your sense of humour, mine is quite sick) blog today courtesy of the NY Times, daba.wordpress.com (dating a banker anonymous). It's unreal ...check it out. Worst thing is, I think these banker girlfriends are for real, moaning about how their facials are now only once every six weeks instead of once a month and how they don't get weekends in Bermuda since their banker BFs lost their bonuses. Truly another world.
On Friday we cracked open the champagne at Lucy and Wayne's to celebrate the launch of our new online lifestyle magazine Riviera2Day.com. We are going to cover all the hottest news, events, comings and goings, festivals, fashion, shopping, restaurants, bars, beaches and anything else you can think of on the Cote d'Azur. Lots of work to do and the site should be up in March, so all very exciting.
Meanwhile a picture of the finished bit of the house.... see above
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Parlez-vous Francais?
January 29th 2009
For weeks now I have been asking Issy if she wants to invite a schoolfriend over for tea. She is a confident, feisty little monkey but she is still struggling with friendships at school. All I want is for her to have two or three girls she can call friends who don't blow hot and cold all the time (I know this is common amongst nine-year-olds but the guilt at taking her away from her very happy school life in Hertfordshire has still not left me.)
Her response is always, let's wait until the summer when I can speak fluent French. Apart from reading out loud to me from her school books, I have never heard her talking French as she refuses point blank to repeat anything she has learned at school. This from the girl who will perform a fully choreographed dance routine to Girls Aloud's The Promise in front of anyone who will watch. Last week, one of her friends Laura walked to school with us so I took the bull by the horns and invited her for tea. I expected Issy to go mad at me but she seemed quite happy that I had taken the initiative.
Laura speaks no English at all so I told Issy that I would be on hand to translate anything she didn't understand and make sure Laura was happy. We got home and they both ran off upstairs for a while before coming down to make a cake together. They spent the afternoon chatting away, Issy speaking in perfectly accented French, while I tried my best not to eavesdrop and to hide my surprise at the fact that my daughter, who arrived seven months ago with no language skills whatsoever, can now hold her own confidently in French.
When Laura left, I said, I thought you said you can't speak French? She grinned and showed me her latest dictees, which were all marked 'bravo' with 19 or 20 out of 20.
For weeks now I have been asking Issy if she wants to invite a schoolfriend over for tea. She is a confident, feisty little monkey but she is still struggling with friendships at school. All I want is for her to have two or three girls she can call friends who don't blow hot and cold all the time (I know this is common amongst nine-year-olds but the guilt at taking her away from her very happy school life in Hertfordshire has still not left me.)
Her response is always, let's wait until the summer when I can speak fluent French. Apart from reading out loud to me from her school books, I have never heard her talking French as she refuses point blank to repeat anything she has learned at school. This from the girl who will perform a fully choreographed dance routine to Girls Aloud's The Promise in front of anyone who will watch. Last week, one of her friends Laura walked to school with us so I took the bull by the horns and invited her for tea. I expected Issy to go mad at me but she seemed quite happy that I had taken the initiative.
Laura speaks no English at all so I told Issy that I would be on hand to translate anything she didn't understand and make sure Laura was happy. We got home and they both ran off upstairs for a while before coming down to make a cake together. They spent the afternoon chatting away, Issy speaking in perfectly accented French, while I tried my best not to eavesdrop and to hide my surprise at the fact that my daughter, who arrived seven months ago with no language skills whatsoever, can now hold her own confidently in French.
When Laura left, I said, I thought you said you can't speak French? She grinned and showed me her latest dictees, which were all marked 'bravo' with 19 or 20 out of 20.
Monday, January 12, 2009
January gloom
January 12th 2009
In the last three months, life here has become 35% more expensive purely because the pound is so much weaker than the euro at the moment. A weekly shop for a family of four at the supermarket is 200 euros, suddenly that is £200 rather than £170. I'm just looking through my bill...a large bottle of Ariel, 13 euros, dishwasher liquid, 6.50, a tin of coconut milk, 4 euros, and 350g of lean mince meat (so the girls can make lasagne) 5.55. That is over a fiver for a packet of mince! Even wine, which used to be so much cheaper than the UK, is now 5-7 euros a bottle for something drinkable, while the really nice Chablis and Sancerres are the same price as in the UK. I'm trying to think if there is anything here that is cheaper.....nope, don't think so.
Usually I food shop with gay abandon, because no matter how gloomy the economy, good food (and wine) is what keeps you going when all else is dire misery. I'd rather not eat out for six months than penny pinch on my groceries but I have decided to be a bit less cavalier for a while. It took me twice as long to do the shop while I searched out the best buys and I still racked up 217 euros (including a cheeky bottle of reduced 11 euro Champagne, which I couldn't resist.) It's just like dieting - as soon as you say that word, you are doomed to fantasising about all the chocolate, curries and cakes you can't have and bingo, it's all over.
Bless my little garden, there are tons of ripe oranges waiting to be picked, so at least the OJ bill will be smaller. Issy and I squeezed 48 and made four glasses of fantastic, pulp-free free orange juice.
Went for my first club run on Saturday morning since November. I was dreading it as I have lost so much fitness since being off with a chest infection but it's mid January, the London Marathon is three mere months away and if I want to do it in under four and a half hours (which I do) then I have to get cracking. Antoine met me at the top of my hill, I was already puffing before I reached him, and we took off to the next village before looping back. That's 8 kilometres in total, which used to be a walk in the park for me. Twice I had to walk, I hated that, and Antoine kept shouting back at me, ca va Karen?
I said oui, mais je sens terrible, je sens comme je vais mourir (I feel terrible, I feel like I'm going to die). By the last kilometre, as we approached the village, bathed in early morning sunshine with snow-capped peaks in the distance, I felt amazing and told Antoine, maintenant, je sens fabuleuse. Then I realised that the verb I was using sentir, means to smell (obviously, at the end of 8k, that last sentence was completely untrue.)
In the last three months, life here has become 35% more expensive purely because the pound is so much weaker than the euro at the moment. A weekly shop for a family of four at the supermarket is 200 euros, suddenly that is £200 rather than £170. I'm just looking through my bill...a large bottle of Ariel, 13 euros, dishwasher liquid, 6.50, a tin of coconut milk, 4 euros, and 350g of lean mince meat (so the girls can make lasagne) 5.55. That is over a fiver for a packet of mince! Even wine, which used to be so much cheaper than the UK, is now 5-7 euros a bottle for something drinkable, while the really nice Chablis and Sancerres are the same price as in the UK. I'm trying to think if there is anything here that is cheaper.....nope, don't think so.
Usually I food shop with gay abandon, because no matter how gloomy the economy, good food (and wine) is what keeps you going when all else is dire misery. I'd rather not eat out for six months than penny pinch on my groceries but I have decided to be a bit less cavalier for a while. It took me twice as long to do the shop while I searched out the best buys and I still racked up 217 euros (including a cheeky bottle of reduced 11 euro Champagne, which I couldn't resist.) It's just like dieting - as soon as you say that word, you are doomed to fantasising about all the chocolate, curries and cakes you can't have and bingo, it's all over.
Bless my little garden, there are tons of ripe oranges waiting to be picked, so at least the OJ bill will be smaller. Issy and I squeezed 48 and made four glasses of fantastic, pulp-free free orange juice.
Went for my first club run on Saturday morning since November. I was dreading it as I have lost so much fitness since being off with a chest infection but it's mid January, the London Marathon is three mere months away and if I want to do it in under four and a half hours (which I do) then I have to get cracking. Antoine met me at the top of my hill, I was already puffing before I reached him, and we took off to the next village before looping back. That's 8 kilometres in total, which used to be a walk in the park for me. Twice I had to walk, I hated that, and Antoine kept shouting back at me, ca va Karen?
I said oui, mais je sens terrible, je sens comme je vais mourir (I feel terrible, I feel like I'm going to die). By the last kilometre, as we approached the village, bathed in early morning sunshine with snow-capped peaks in the distance, I felt amazing and told Antoine, maintenant, je sens fabuleuse. Then I realised that the verb I was using sentir, means to smell (obviously, at the end of 8k, that last sentence was completely untrue.)
Friday, January 9, 2009
Acceptance
January 9th 2009
I think we are being accepted into the bosom of Bar sur Loup life. Hot on the heels of a lovely Christmas Eve afternoon spent at Adrian's and an impromptu invite to another village drinks party at new year, I have just been invited on a girls night in next week and a girls ski weekend. So for all my protestations about not needing any more friends, quite happy picking olives by myself blah blah blah, I am secretly pleased that a little social whirl is starting to form. Anyone who knows me would say that me not going out, or making social plans or organising little parties to celebrate, well nothing actually, must mean I'm either having a breakdown, broke or I've lost the will to live.
Went to a fashion party in Cannes last night. It sounds glamorous doesn't it, fashion party, Cannes, I mean, how could that not be fun? The reality was arriving 15 fashionable minutes late to find two screens showing archive footage of the catwalk collections to an empty hotel bar, being charged 10 euros for a miniscule flute of Champagne, which I drank by myself as there was no-one to mingle with and trying to look like I was a busy career woman in demand by emailing Iain, various pals and my friend's 13-year-old daughter so that I didn't look like Billy No Mates. I came home, took off my not-trying-too-hard-but-bloody-expensive Isabel Marant dress and ate a reheated chicken curry with my girls, before watching Celebrity Big Brother....(highlight - Ulrika and Verne's tune-free rendition of Diana and Lionel's duet Endless Love.)
I think we are being accepted into the bosom of Bar sur Loup life. Hot on the heels of a lovely Christmas Eve afternoon spent at Adrian's and an impromptu invite to another village drinks party at new year, I have just been invited on a girls night in next week and a girls ski weekend. So for all my protestations about not needing any more friends, quite happy picking olives by myself blah blah blah, I am secretly pleased that a little social whirl is starting to form. Anyone who knows me would say that me not going out, or making social plans or organising little parties to celebrate, well nothing actually, must mean I'm either having a breakdown, broke or I've lost the will to live.
Went to a fashion party in Cannes last night. It sounds glamorous doesn't it, fashion party, Cannes, I mean, how could that not be fun? The reality was arriving 15 fashionable minutes late to find two screens showing archive footage of the catwalk collections to an empty hotel bar, being charged 10 euros for a miniscule flute of Champagne, which I drank by myself as there was no-one to mingle with and trying to look like I was a busy career woman in demand by emailing Iain, various pals and my friend's 13-year-old daughter so that I didn't look like Billy No Mates. I came home, took off my not-trying-too-hard-but-bloody-expensive Isabel Marant dress and ate a reheated chicken curry with my girls, before watching Celebrity Big Brother....(highlight - Ulrika and Verne's tune-free rendition of Diana and Lionel's duet Endless Love.)
Monday, January 5, 2009
on the town
January 5th 2009
As I'm now officially on a health kick - no more wine, slobbing about, finishing off the leftover chocs - and not going out again on a social for at least a month, thought you might like to share the highlights of my pre-Christmas bash in Soho with my best journo mates from way back in our Fleet Street days. We don't do it very often, you will see why when you read on...
* Rubbing shoulders (okay, breathing the same air) as Ralph Fiennes at Quo Vadis, who threw our table of giggly tabloid hacks a rather too long, lascivious look as he left,
* Two lecherous businessman mistaking us for a gang of high class escort girls and trying their hardest to get us to join their table
* Clare deciding you don't look a gift horse in the mouth and in her loudest most persuasive fashion, trying to get them to pay our £500 restaurant bill, or at least buy us a bottle of champagne. It wasn't for lack of trying but on this occasion her charm offensive, consisting of 'Oi Pete, get yer wallet out and we'll be over' and constant requests to the waiter to take it to their table instead of ours fell on deaf ears.* Having a loud row with the staff about paying the bill, whereupon said staff were accused of being patronising, aggressive and out of order for insisting that we do indeed, pay our bill in full
* Lurching off to Gerry's, that classy little Dean Street all night drinking club, and bumping into legendary pissed up Mirror man Don Mackay, who got us in and then proceeded to stick like glue and ruin any street cred for the rest of the night
* Clare waking her hubby Nick up in bed at 1.30am to put Don on so that Don could launch a drunken rant and verbally abuse Nick while we cackled with laughter in the background
* Keith Allen arriving and making a bee line for Clare's puppies that were amply displayed all evening and in hindsight, were the reason we attracted so much male attention
* Clare telling Keith Allen that he had sold out 'just like Bonnie Langford', which presumes that Bonnie Langford was once something more than a variety show and panto performer, and repeating that slanderous comment over and over to anyone within earshot, to Keith's horror
* Hanging out with Tony, the EastEnders paedo, Denise Welch, Spider from Corry and Kieron O'Brien from Survivors
* Clare telling my producer friend Jake that he looked just like Shane Richie
* Keith Allen dancing around to the bagpipes at 4am in Dean Street as Clare demanded 'so Kazza, where are we going next? We're not going home IT'S CHRISTMAS' before ringing Angela, so that she too could savour Keith dancing to bagpipes
* after forcing our cabbie to stop for fags at a garage, Clare trying to clamber into the wrong taxi parked in front of us, much to our driver's amusement.
As I'm now officially on a health kick - no more wine, slobbing about, finishing off the leftover chocs - and not going out again on a social for at least a month, thought you might like to share the highlights of my pre-Christmas bash in Soho with my best journo mates from way back in our Fleet Street days. We don't do it very often, you will see why when you read on...
* Rubbing shoulders (okay, breathing the same air) as Ralph Fiennes at Quo Vadis, who threw our table of giggly tabloid hacks a rather too long, lascivious look as he left,
* Two lecherous businessman mistaking us for a gang of high class escort girls and trying their hardest to get us to join their table
* Clare deciding you don't look a gift horse in the mouth and in her loudest most persuasive fashion, trying to get them to pay our £500 restaurant bill, or at least buy us a bottle of champagne. It wasn't for lack of trying but on this occasion her charm offensive, consisting of 'Oi Pete, get yer wallet out and we'll be over' and constant requests to the waiter to take it to their table instead of ours fell on deaf ears.* Having a loud row with the staff about paying the bill, whereupon said staff were accused of being patronising, aggressive and out of order for insisting that we do indeed, pay our bill in full
* Lurching off to Gerry's, that classy little Dean Street all night drinking club, and bumping into legendary pissed up Mirror man Don Mackay, who got us in and then proceeded to stick like glue and ruin any street cred for the rest of the night
* Clare waking her hubby Nick up in bed at 1.30am to put Don on so that Don could launch a drunken rant and verbally abuse Nick while we cackled with laughter in the background
* Keith Allen arriving and making a bee line for Clare's puppies that were amply displayed all evening and in hindsight, were the reason we attracted so much male attention
* Clare telling Keith Allen that he had sold out 'just like Bonnie Langford', which presumes that Bonnie Langford was once something more than a variety show and panto performer, and repeating that slanderous comment over and over to anyone within earshot, to Keith's horror
* Hanging out with Tony, the EastEnders paedo, Denise Welch, Spider from Corry and Kieron O'Brien from Survivors
* Clare telling my producer friend Jake that he looked just like Shane Richie
* Keith Allen dancing around to the bagpipes at 4am in Dean Street as Clare demanded 'so Kazza, where are we going next? We're not going home IT'S CHRISTMAS' before ringing Angela, so that she too could savour Keith dancing to bagpipes
* after forcing our cabbie to stop for fags at a garage, Clare trying to clamber into the wrong taxi parked in front of us, much to our driver's amusement.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Noel, a breakdown and a celebrity wedding
January 4th 2009
Happy new year campers. Well, where to start, it's been so long. Firstly, the house. Finally, finally the ground floor is finished, windows are in, floor is laid, kitchen is in and life is good. The final stages weren't without problems (breaking down in my friend Wayne's borrowed truck on the way back from the window shop and being stranded in the middle of the highway as cars sped past me was a lowlight. Luckily four burly gardeners helped push me out of danger while Wayne came down to rescue me as Iain was oblivious at Nice airport, sitting in the executive lounge eating peanuts waiting for his flight to the UK). There were more handle issues, as the funky red kitchen arrived with big silver handles rather than integral handles, do I sound obsessed by handles? A compromise was reached and we got 1000 euros back for the mistake, thank you Santa! At last we have light and a house that doesn't resemble a derelict shack.
Our first Christmas here has been lovely, if a bit rushed as we dashed to London to do a rellies present swap and catch up with everyone just as the kitchen fitter was finishing, then returned home a day and a half before Christmas to straighten everything out, unpack, buy a turkey, you know the score. We were invited to Christmas Eve drinks at a neighbours and stood in warm winter sunshine on their terrace, sipping mulled wine and chatting til early evening. By Christmas morning, after late night last minute wrapping of pressies and munching of Santa's mince pies (Issy is still a BIG believer, have not yet worked out whether this is because she thinks she won't get anything if she lets on she has wised up) I was cream crackered but at least we had the prospect of Christmas lunch at our friends Norma and Tony's half an hour away. Which was lovely.
I really love Christmas but so often it's ruined by bad behaviour (not just talking the kids here) feeling duty bound, guilty or just running around like a crazy thing for two or three days on end and then collapsing in a stupor once it's all over wondering why you bother. This year was chilled, with lots of champagne, laughter, charades and good friends. The guilt factor being that I wasn't with my extended family but I did see them a few days before. . .
Onto the celebrity wedding....Amanda Holden's to be exact, at Babington House near Bath. Guests included Mick Hucknall, F1 drivers David Coulthard and Jensen Button (too good looking for his own good), Piers Morgan ( my ex-boss at the Sun) and various actors from Coronation Street, Cutting It, Noddy Holder and little ole me! The bride looked fabulous and showed off her silver Ugg boots underneath the dress, as it was FREEZING, everyone danced and despite my plus one guest Sarah telling best man David Coulthard that his speech went on a bit and trying to change the music at the reception, it all went swimmingly. Interesting to be on othe other side for once as a guest and not a reporter.
New year is a time for retrospection as well as looking forward and these are my thoughts ....
* That I really miss my friends and family in the UK, guess that will never change
* That I don't miss the UK AT ALL, I couldn't wait to get on the plane back to Nice
* How lucky that we have already met so many people here, and while some will stay acquaintances, a few are already shaping up to be really good friends, the kind you can drink too much with, loosen your tongue and not worry about what you said the following day.
Well, I was supposed to be ironing and catching up on chores tonight as my lovely brother Justin and his family have just gone home after five days here with us. We partied with a houseful of friends to Barry M's Copacabana on New Year's Eve, the kids even danced with their parents (We think we're quite cool but they don't) then we skied our socks off and rounded it off in Monte Carlo today. The house is eerily quiet now they have left, saying goodbye is always the worst part as I never know when I'm next going to see them all.
Happy new year campers. Well, where to start, it's been so long. Firstly, the house. Finally, finally the ground floor is finished, windows are in, floor is laid, kitchen is in and life is good. The final stages weren't without problems (breaking down in my friend Wayne's borrowed truck on the way back from the window shop and being stranded in the middle of the highway as cars sped past me was a lowlight. Luckily four burly gardeners helped push me out of danger while Wayne came down to rescue me as Iain was oblivious at Nice airport, sitting in the executive lounge eating peanuts waiting for his flight to the UK). There were more handle issues, as the funky red kitchen arrived with big silver handles rather than integral handles, do I sound obsessed by handles? A compromise was reached and we got 1000 euros back for the mistake, thank you Santa! At last we have light and a house that doesn't resemble a derelict shack.
Our first Christmas here has been lovely, if a bit rushed as we dashed to London to do a rellies present swap and catch up with everyone just as the kitchen fitter was finishing, then returned home a day and a half before Christmas to straighten everything out, unpack, buy a turkey, you know the score. We were invited to Christmas Eve drinks at a neighbours and stood in warm winter sunshine on their terrace, sipping mulled wine and chatting til early evening. By Christmas morning, after late night last minute wrapping of pressies and munching of Santa's mince pies (Issy is still a BIG believer, have not yet worked out whether this is because she thinks she won't get anything if she lets on she has wised up) I was cream crackered but at least we had the prospect of Christmas lunch at our friends Norma and Tony's half an hour away. Which was lovely.
I really love Christmas but so often it's ruined by bad behaviour (not just talking the kids here) feeling duty bound, guilty or just running around like a crazy thing for two or three days on end and then collapsing in a stupor once it's all over wondering why you bother. This year was chilled, with lots of champagne, laughter, charades and good friends. The guilt factor being that I wasn't with my extended family but I did see them a few days before. . .
Onto the celebrity wedding....Amanda Holden's to be exact, at Babington House near Bath. Guests included Mick Hucknall, F1 drivers David Coulthard and Jensen Button (too good looking for his own good), Piers Morgan ( my ex-boss at the Sun) and various actors from Coronation Street, Cutting It, Noddy Holder and little ole me! The bride looked fabulous and showed off her silver Ugg boots underneath the dress, as it was FREEZING, everyone danced and despite my plus one guest Sarah telling best man David Coulthard that his speech went on a bit and trying to change the music at the reception, it all went swimmingly. Interesting to be on othe other side for once as a guest and not a reporter.
New year is a time for retrospection as well as looking forward and these are my thoughts ....
* That I really miss my friends and family in the UK, guess that will never change
* That I don't miss the UK AT ALL, I couldn't wait to get on the plane back to Nice
* How lucky that we have already met so many people here, and while some will stay acquaintances, a few are already shaping up to be really good friends, the kind you can drink too much with, loosen your tongue and not worry about what you said the following day.
Well, I was supposed to be ironing and catching up on chores tonight as my lovely brother Justin and his family have just gone home after five days here with us. We partied with a houseful of friends to Barry M's Copacabana on New Year's Eve, the kids even danced with their parents (We think we're quite cool but they don't) then we skied our socks off and rounded it off in Monte Carlo today. The house is eerily quiet now they have left, saying goodbye is always the worst part as I never know when I'm next going to see them all.
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