The joy of lunch

There is nothing quite like going out for lunch on a weekday. It ranks top of the list of decadent things to do with your time, except for perhaps sneaking off to a beach club midweek, which is another thing I never do, and is far more of a treat than dinner, because you really should be doing 20 other more important things. No matter how good your intentions, it's impossible to do anything vaguely pressing for at least an hour after, as you digest the fantastic food, delicious wine and scintillating conversation.

I just had a working lunch at the Hostellerie du Chateau I say 'working' lunch with the full knowledge that many of my dear but faintly cynical readers might suggest that a Friday lunch at the newly Michelin starred restaurant in Bar sur Loup with Shan and Fiona may not constitute working in the truest sense of the word, but trust me when I say it was, I was, we were.

Whether you are working or not, it is a memorable experience. The views, even on a mediocre March day like today, are spectacular and the food is remarkable with attention to the tiniest detail. The amuse bouche of spinach and sheeps cheese cannelloni in a delicate jus was sublime. The roasted leeks in creamy foam with herbs and fresh tomato was a party in the mouth and the catch of the day with carrots in ginger was a worthy follow up. A deconstructed tarte au citron meringue, with broken biscuit base, citron sorbet coated in something I can only describe as citron-y custard and stabbed with fine sticks of fresh meringue and chocolate may have looked like it had an accident en route from kitchen to table ( I think that was the idea) but tasted wonderful. Giles Coren I am not, hence no restaurant column, so this blog will have to do instead.

On the walk home, having secured a lunch for two kindly donated by the Sangoy family who run the restaurant for the upcoming Journee de Nature Partage on May 27th, I had to take a photo of this house just a few minutes walk from mine. The sign is protected heritage, saving the owner a fortune in paint and raising a smile among residents like me at the irony of having a retro Martini sign to admire but no bar in which to buy one, despite the name of our village being le BAR sur Loup. But then where would we be without the odd idiosyncrasy?

The earth moved on Sunday night. You might think this would be cause for celebration...or Handyman at least punching the air with macho glee. For once, it was nothing to do with him and everything to do with the epicentre of an earth tremor in Barcelonnette, 100 km north of here, which measured 4.9 on the Richter scale.

We were asleep in bed when I awoke to the sound of a low rumble, which is not an unusual sound in our bedroom after he has partaken of a Kashmir curry. But the doors started to rattle and I assumed the cats were playing a particularly vicious game of cat and mouse, with the mouse on the losing team. Handyman woke with a start and shouted out 'what the @&£! is that?' as doors shook, windows rattled and Livvy rushed into the room in terror to say that the whole house was moving.

Thirty seconds later it was all over and my chief concern, having spent five months renovating the pool was that the entire pool terrace might have collapsed and fallen down the valley. Because that is the kind of thing that happens chez Kershaw. Last time it rained heavily, we lost a wall in the garden but fortunately this time there was no damage.

If there is ever a good reason to buy a house on a steep hillside that has been underpinned, this is it. We stood firm in the face of adversity. It's the second tremor in a month, so we have to hope that there isn't a biggie waiting in the wings.

With the snow pretty much gone and temperatures reaching 22 degrees in the last week, spring has truly sprung, the skis have been put away for another year and the pool terrace is days away from completion (I keep saying this but it really is true) with the grand refilling planned for Saturday. The tiling is finished, the plants are planted, the loungers have been dusted off as you can see above, and the water levels should be perfect just as the first rain for weeks moves in on Sunday, so any idea of laying beside it admiring five months of blood, sweat, stress and tears will have to wait a little longer. Am excited beyond belief, which illustrates just how dull my life is at the moment.

The highlight of my week, apart from an illuminating chat by Chris France at Premier Mardi, was a chat last night with the singer Anastacia, who seems like a very down to earth girl, and who has been through hell with her health but come out fighting and still smiling. Oh and the re-opening of Michelangelo tomorrow after their season closure, which is music to Handyman's ears as it puts the bar back into Bar sur Loup and means Friday night off supper duty.

The death of journalism

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

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

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?

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

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.