Cannes

So there I was at the Martinez pool bar in the sunshine with glass of Taittinger in hand, a pre amfAR apero. I was made up, coiffed and party prepped for the red carpet by the L'Oreal team of professional stylists and make up artists, which is just as well as I was sitting with a table of supermodels, including Milla Jovavich, Isabeli Fontana and Bianca Balti. Kylie was lounging around in the bar with her boyfriend in jeans, a T shirt and not a scrap of make up....and still she looked amazing!

Leaving the Martinez in a fleet of festival cars to head to the Eden-Roc and THE party of the festival, the amfAR Cinema Against Aids gala, with a police escort and roads closed to let us through, was a little surreal. The night itself lived up to expectations, not least because it finally stopped raining. You can read all the goss, including how Leo DiCaprio raised €4million at the auction with a trip to space, in this week's Hello magazine....buy it NOW!

My highlights.....Behind The Candelabra, an excellent biopic for HBO about Liberace in which Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are totally believable as gay men with a soundtrack straight out of Studio 54 circa 1977. It has it all, glitz, glamour and great acting from M&M. Just a shame that Michael won't be eligible for an Oscar as it is one of the finest performances of his career.

Also, The Great Gatsby, which is attracting mixed reviews but which I loved. See it for the costumes and party scenes alone but LDC also makes a great Jay Gatsby. At his private party here two years ago, Leo put in a brief appearance surrounded by his entourage who were watching his back while the beautiful people ate, drank and danced on the terrace of his rented super villa in Cannes Californie. Watching him on screen brought back memories of that night. Gatsby is big, brash and just what you would expect of Baz Luhrmann, which is not a criticism.

And the parties, oh the parties.....Calvin Klein, on the beach at L'Ecrin, as torrents of rain lashed down on us, rendering the beautiful stretch of sand there utterly surplus to requirements. Chopard Trophee, where all the celebrity guests dripped in borrowed diamonds (Cara Delevingne was particularly excited about her enormous diamond pendant), Belevdere, with the dancing dwarves, naked tattooed fire-eaters and magnums of Dom Perignon and last but definitely not least, amfAR, where Sharon Stone proved that at 55, she can still rock it in white Cavalli, as you can see from the picture above, and turn every head in the room.

The Chopard suite on the rooftop of the Martinez was pretty special. A waiter handed me a glass of pink champagne on arrival and the best lash lady in Paris, Sabrina from Un Jour Un Regard, did my eyebrows and lashes (I didn't say it was all work.)

And so was the Michelin pop up at the Palais, where two star chef Bruno Oger, who cooked for Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCap after the opening of Gatsby, rustled up a stunning six course lunch for me and a few other lucky journos at the chef's table in his amazing kitchen at the Electrolux Agora Pavilion.

The lowlights? Lack of sleep for two weeks and the bloody rain. Forget the goodie bags, nice as they were, it was an umbrella you needed at all times for Cannes 2013.

La vie en Rose

As Cannes Film Festival approaches, my dilemma is what to wear. The last few hot sunny days have kidded us all that summer has finally arrived and bikinis and kaftans have been de rigeur chez Kershaw with jumpers and jeans stuffed to the back of the wardrobe to make room for silk T shirts, floaty shifts and shorts. Now the forecast is predicting torrential downpours over the next three days, making the prospect of cocktails at Nikki Beach not quite as appealing as they should be.

Attending glam soirees all done up like a dogs dinner is one thing but being rained on as you leg it and skid along the Croisette in ridiculous heels looking like a drowned ferret while the great and the good emerge from their dry chauffeur driven limos is another. Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

 The Great Gatsby opens the festival tomorrow, with the press screening ahead of the starry premiere tomorrow evening. Leo DiCap (I feel I can abbreviate now that we are virtually old buddies having rubbed shoulders at his private villa party two years ago), Carey Mulligan (who would be my choice to play me in a film of my life, I'm sure she would jump at the chance), Tobey Maguire and Baz Luhrmann will be posing on the steps of the Palais des Festivals while us mere mortals bask in their dazzling reflected glory.

Then there are the party invites which are currently piling into my inbox.....Calvin Klein, Chopard, Belvedere, Eva Longoria's gala dinner, to mention  few not forgetting Judy's friend's birthday supper, which will be every bit as good as the celeby bashes, if not better....it will take more than a few showers to dampen the party atmosphere this year.

Before the rain arrives, I snapped the picture above as whatever the weather, the garden is in full blossom...the orange trees, jasmine, climbing roses, grapefruit trees and even the viney weedy thing that usually really annoys me growing up our terrace are all blooming and their heady scents fill the air.

The perfume is the first thing I notice every morning when I get up to check on Earl/Steve McQueen. He hops around the olive trees every morning looking in rude health. I saw my neighbour Rosine last week and she asked, vous avez un lapin qui vit dans votre jardin? I explained that he had escaped from his two storey townhouse hutch and she told me that in the past few weeks he has eaten all of her blette and courgettes and has just started on the leeks. Eek.

I have been taking Special K, spinach, rocket, apples and carrots down for breakfast and dinner to feed him up so that he doesn't feel the need to raid her vegetable patch. He is now so confident when he sees me arrive with his organic picnic box that he races towards me like a demented puppy eager to tuck in. After his feast, he has taken to lying by the hammock (not in it) snoozing in the sunshine with his back legs stretched out. I'm still deciding whether the next picture I post should be Leo DiCap in his tux tomorrow night or Steve McQueen relishing his great escape.

Gastronomy in Bar

When we bought a house in Bar sur Loup almost five years ago, it was a sleepy little mountain village with a few shops, popular mainly with walkers and summer sports enthusiasts and despite the name, no bar. Today it is fast turning into a mini centre of gastronomic excellence. This usually happens to places just as we leave. Docklands was a vast expanse of yuppie (remember them?) housing developments surrounded by wasteland when we bought our first flat there in the late 1980s. Crouch End was starting to buzz in the early 1990s and Totteridge waited until we moved out before allowing a string of very decent eateries (not forgetting M&S) along the high street. When le Donjon opened last week, I thought it was cute to name it after the owner Donald and his better half Jonathan, but it derives from the building's first purpose as a 14th century village jail. There is nothing prison-like about the food however, with a blackboard of local seasonal specials, in much the same way as Ecole des Filles do things, but for half the price (€30 a head for two courses and wine, I kid you not.) Added to which the owner and chef, a charming man called Thomas, used to cook at EdF with their chef extraordinaire Stephane. The atmosphere is cosy and intimate, the setting is a wine cave-like space and service is prompt and friendly so it deserves to do brilliantly. Handyman is especially pleased as it also serves as the village bar. Thomas and his wife Christine have a daughter called Norah who is obsessed with dogs - mine had three extra walks each with her during dinner after which they ambled home and promptly crashed out. As did we after a delicious meal of fresh asparagus in a cream reduction, arrancini (little fried balls of rice with a ragu sauce), prawn risotto and the best home made cheeseburger Issy has had in France. Along with Ecole des Filles, which I have waxed lyrical about many times before as it is my favourite restaurant in the world where you can play a game of boules before or after dinner, Le Jarerrie, Michelangelo pizzeria, run by the delightful Eric and Corinne, and the stunningly situated Michelin starred Hostellerie du Chateau next door to Le Donjon, Bar sur Loup is making a name for itself as the place to eat, whether it's fine or casual dining you are looking for. People now drive from Nice and beyond to have dinner here, giving nearby Mougins a run for its money where quality and innovation are concerned. And best of all, there is not one tourist shop, it is a real, working village in the heart of a valley (see above) famed for its oranges with a brilliant community spirit. Now if we could just get someone to take over Boulangerie Maia and open a butcher and greengrocers, we would be laughing. Coming back from Barbados last week was always going to be a comedown but with Cannes Film Festival around the corner and the promise of great films, a glittering A list in attendance and some seriously amazing parties, I can't feel too down. While I was away, Earl, our visiting rabbit on hiatus from Tony and Shan's, managed to tunnel out of his hutch on the terrace below the house and scarper. We have changed his name to Steve McQueen and first thing most mornings, he can be spotted hopping about among the olive trees enjoying his new found freedom, as long as he avoids the kestrels and eagles which fly overhead. He can already outrun the dogs much to their frustration, which is encouraging.

Whoo I'm going to Barbados

Actually I'm already here. I'm sitting by an infinity pool on a hill above the west coast during a shoot.....I know, I know, it's a bum deal but that's work for you. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and get on with it. At least I'm able to share it with you in today's photo. We have hung out with Dannii and Cilla watching Bajan drag queens in Holetown, belted out My Way and Sweet Caroline at top volume with Cilla at Lexy's piano bar and yesterday it was a chatty lunch with Elle Macpherson about the new season of Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model. So far, so gorgeous. Bumped into Bradley Walsh at breakfast, who is taking a well earned break after finishing the most recent series of Law and Order. You can easily see why Barbados is such a popular destination. The laidback manana vibe makes you relax instantly, the friendliness is legendary and the background noise is the chatter of parrots, cicadas and gently lapping waves. There is also a pretty amazing choice when it comes to restaurants....Lone Star offers a tasty menu on the site of an old garage with an open verandah for dining that looks straight onto the beach. It's chi chi and cool and rare that you don't spot a celeb at some point during lunch or dinner. Daphne's, the sister to the London outpost, serves spectacular Italian food with a Caribbean twist. Then there is Ragamuffins in Holetown, a Bajan institution which offers simple West Indian fare, including blow your socks off curries and spicy stir fries as well as the aforementioned drag act on a Sunday night. The queens were at least 6ft 5 in their heels and blasted out Madonna, Shirley Bassey and numerous other disco anthems including Kylie's Love at First Sight, much to Dannii's delight. Other delights include sundowner pina coladas on the beach, a pod of whales including a mother and baby visible just off the shore and barefoot beach runs in the morning. Mmmmmm. The trip came hot on the heels of a fun few days in London mixing work with pleasure and Livvy's 18th birthday weekend, which went with a bang. Highlights included cooking an Indian banquet for a dozen of her best friends, which started with a bang as Handyman joined them for tequila shots before we were forced to leave them to it, a blistering performance at Cody Chestnutt's Nice gig and a birthday lunch at my favourite Italian in Cannes, da Laura. Thank goodness for Cannes Film Festival next month as there just isn't enough glamour going on right now!

Spike

This is the story of Spike. As a naughty cheeky kitten, he used to run up the sides of my dressing gown while I made breakfast looking for trouble (him, not me.) Half Abyssinian, he grew into a beautiful sleek grey feline who liked to chat all day long. If you said 'Spike', no matter what your tone of voice, he would answer with a 'yes?' type of miaow. Spike's greatest passion was hunting. The times I arrived home to find all manner of dead wildlife be it mouse, vole, rat, once even a rabbit on the doorstep are too numerous to mention. He also liked to bring me a present when I was least expecting it, like the time I was lying on the floor of my office doing a phone interview with a supermodel in Paris and a little grey dormouse popped its head up inches from mine, leading to a mid interview meltdown and me leaping on my desk screaming while Spike tried in vain to catch it. I like to think we saved as many small creatures as he killed, so inept was he at keeping them as soon as he brought them through the catflap. I would get Handyman to set a humane trap, catch the little blighter and let him go in the paddock at the end of our garden, while Spike looked on to see if he could make a better effort second time around. When we made the hot interminable journey from the UK to the South of France with Spike and his sister Lottie, who is as quiet and calm as he was crazy, he spent the entire journey howling in his cage in the back of the car. He hated being cooped up or trapped and was in and out of the house dozens of times a day. On sunny days, he would come and sit by the pool, perched on the end of my sun lounger, stretched out lapping up the rays. When it got too hot for him, he had a den in the bushes by the palm tree where he would curl up in the dust for a siesta. He even loved rain, as the myriad of muddy footprints from our back door testified. Last night, as we laid by his side waiting for the vet to come - he had recently developed chronic arthritis, an unfortunate result of his very active 11 years, which had moved into his spinal cord and was having trouble walking so the time had come to do the right thing - we recalled our favourite memories of him. Mine was the fact that whenever we went on holiday, no matter how long we were away for, when we arrived home and drove up the drive, Spike would always be sitting there waiting to greet us effusively. The girls loved the memory of him being regularly tucked up in Issy's doll's pushchair when she was a toddler, wrapped in baby blankets with just his head visible, and wheeled around the house. Bizarrely, he loved this and never tried to escape, lying there like a swaddled newborn, until one day he decided he'd had enough and leapt out of the parked buggy and landed on Issy's head while she ate breakfast. Handyman remembers him shinning up the bamboo last summer like a very fit squirrel. When the dogs arrived five years ago, Spike still ruled the roost, and took to lounging on the top step of the staircase, superior in the knowledge that Tallullah, our mini schnauzer, wouldn't dare to try and come past for fear of a swipe. Oscar, on the other hand, had plenty of spats with him but never managed to get the upper hand and grudgingly conceded defeat on being top dog. Top dog was always Spike and he knew it. He is already much missed, so much so that I can't bring myself to mop away the last of his muddy footprints. The house feels quieter and emptier without him. We are going to bury him today under the olive tree that he used to love climbing, while he explores whatever new turf he is now king of.

Sloping Off

Rain of biblical proportions over the last few weeks has had one phenomenal upside....huge late falls of snow in the mountains, extending the ski conditions in the local resorts well beyond half term. As a newly addicted snowboarder (stop sniggering) this has been manna from heaven because it hurts a lot less falling over or face planting in fresh deep snow than in the crispy icy sparse stuff. Take last week and my third day as a boarder...God I love saying that. The snow was crisp and crusty to start with but snow flurries that started mid morning meant that by lunchtime, the whole resort of Greolieres was covered in a few centimetres of fresh powder. I was having such fun gliding silently through the soft white stuff that it didn't occur to me that I would somehow have to drive myself home through a raging blizzard. I was forced to quit when thunder and lightning closed the resort mid afternoon and having struggled to attach snow socks to the Jeep, I set off on the hair-raising journey home. On the hill leading out of the resort, cars were slipping and sliding backwards towards me but the snow socks held fast and got me up in one piece. Seeing a white van hanging over a precipice hundreds of feet high a couple of kilometres further on was a sobering sight, although the driver didn't seem unduly worried, and I crawled home steadily, in fact I could have snowboarded home faster. This week's session was a different story. Close to a metre of snow has fallen in the last week and it was blue skies, sunshine and a balmy 7 degrees when I arrived for possibly my last day on the slopes this season. Mid-week if you see six other people it's a busy day. There was barely a soul to be seen as I clipped on my board and hopped on the chairlift. Every time I go...and this was only my fourth outing....I think that any skill in staying upright the previous time must have been a total fluke and prepare for the worst. I got off the lift fully expecting to wipe out but reader, somehow I glided down to the bottom WITHOUT FALLING OVER! To clear up any confusion, the picture above isn't me (although this is what I aspire to.) On the next ascent, a seasoned 20-something dreadlocked boarder offered me some of his Snickers bar and started chatting. I confessed I was a beginner and he offered to take me off piste cutting across several different runs from the top. I was tempted but sensibly I declined. We both agreed that it's the most fun you can have in the snow. It's like catching a wave, except this wave is huge and you can stay on it for 15 minutes and travel several kilometres without being knocked off it. My next companion on the lift, a Parisian businessman, told me he stopped skiing 30 years ago because he was so smitten by boarding. I can see where he is coming from. He gave me some tips on using my body to direct my path and keeping balance on my turns with my arms outstretched and nodded approvingly as I caught him up halfway down the slope saying: 'Quatrieme fois? C'est pas mal!' I feel like I have joined an exclusive club, one which I used to think I didn't want to belong to (there is an unwritten rivalry between skiers and boarders) but now that I have been welcomed in, I'm rather enjoying my membership (even if I have knees the colour of mouldy aubergines to show for it.)

Thought for Food

Reading the papers on my iPad in bed yesterday morning, I noticed a proliferation of articles about food and health......horsemeat DNA found in Ikea's famous meatballs (the same ones Iain and Issy rush to order at the cafe as soon as we make a visit to the Toulon branch of flat pack heaven.) I bought two 1kg packs the last time we were there a couple of months ago, and just half a pack remains. The whole house, apart from me, fights over who gets the most and when I'm stuck for a menu choice, the suggestion of spaghetti with meatballs and ragu sauce goes down a storm. I read the report out to Handyman, who without missing a beat, retorted 'Don't throw them out....I will eat them, even if Issy won't.' Personally I prefer my horses to look like the ones above, and frankly horsemeat is the least of the problems in so-called minced beef but that's another argument altogether.... A different report talked of Overeaters Anonymous and the food obsessions of the clinically obese (one woman used to dream of a spare room filled with Smarties.) A third report talked of the well known value and magic of a Mediterranean diet and why a food intake rich in nuts, olive oil, fresh fruit and vegetables is better for you than medicine in lowering statins and cholesterol, minimising the risk of serious illness. So far, so old hat and certainly not rocket science. And yet.... When I started my four month course of chemotherapy, 18 months ago. I consulted a Harley Street nutritionist. I was urged to eliminate fats, apart from olive oil and a couple of other good oils, meat, alcohol, gluten, refined sugar and dairy. Sounds harsh doesn't it? All the goodies we look forward to. It wasn't easy but faced with the stark choice of being sick all the way through chemo or fine tuning my already fairly healthy diet, it was a no brainer. I had substitutes (dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, xylitol and agave syrup instead of sugar and two glasses of champagne a week when I didn't cheat and sneak a few more.) The treatment could also have made an impact but I went from my lifelong weight of 54 kg down to a mere and very scrawny 47 kg. Too thin for me and yet I felt as good as it's possible to feel while undergoing major drug therapy, was able to run, play tennis and ski occasionally during treatment and was not sick once. I came out the other side and relaxed my food plan a little (while continuing with the general principles) and went back up to a healthy 52kg, which is my current fighting weight. What I'm saying is that a lean, clean food plan (but not branded low fat or low sugar, which are usually stacked exhorbitantly high in other areas) can help you lose weight permanently, look great and feel energised without resorting to quick fixes, fads or starvation. I certainly don't recommend the chemo diet to anyone, but it was a valuable lesson in how to get through a life threatening illness and treatment feeling as good as it's possible to feel whilst retaining some element of control. I'm writing a book about it, but the concept works outside of illness and treatment. What's more, when Handyman embraced some of the same principles after a particularly rich and indulgent Christmas, he lost 6 kg without even really trying. Of course, one week long trip to Blighty and the 15 takeaways/roasts/liquid lunches proved an annoying blip. And the Ikea horseballs probably aren't helping.... Without doubt, it helps to live in the Med. My local market is bursting at the seams with small producers selling fresh seasonal produce. Certain things are much harder to source here....gluten free is expensive and rare.....but I have found a couple of boulangeries that sell pain au seigle and pain de petit epeautre (gluten free bread) although sometimes a Provencal or baguette finds its way under my arm. In the land of bread, cheese and fantastic wine, I regularly go off piste. Whether you make the changes because of illness, weight loss, lack of energy or a desire to get fit, one thing I can promise is you will never look back.