Surf bore

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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.