November 20th 2008

Was rudely awoken yesterday morning by blaring Barbra Streisand from across the balcony at the apartment as Issy and I sat outside eating breakfast. Then constant mobile phone ringing and loud chatting....people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, it will be stored as future ammunition should I need it. Sadly bad nighbours make you a bit petty don't they, usually I wouldn't even notice things like that.
My day got worse when at lunchtime we started getting ready to come home and I couldn't find my purse. I searched high and low turning the apartment upside down twice and clearing out the car, but no purse. Panicking now as all my cards, cash, receipts for work, in other words a large chunk of my life are in that purse. Issy was more concerned about missing out on an ice cream so I hunted down all the euro change I could find in the car so she didn't go without.
I should add at this point that the kids are immune to these kind of traumas as I have a habit of losing important stuff. I have driven off with my purse resting on the roof of the car four or five times now, and once destroyed two mobiles in three days, shutting the boot on the first one and then leaving its replacement, yes, you've guessed it, on the roof of my car!
Got home and spent an hour hunting everywhere, imagining huge bills being racked up by some opportunist purse finder. In desperation, I drove to the supermarket this morning, as that was the last place I remember seeing my purse when I paid for groceries two days ago. A longshot I thought,until the cashier smiled as I was mid way through my broken French, told me I had 'beaucoup de chance, meaning a lot of luck) and went to the safe to retrieve it. A very honest shopper had found it at the till and handed it in intact. I don't think I should be allowed out alone.

November 17th 2008

I was in the middle of an important email for work last week when Iain yelled Rosine is here. That’s my lovely Italian neighbour. She said, in heavily Italian accented French, I’m here to show you how to collect olives and with that she marched me off down the garden. I have the best intentions but if it was left to me, they’d shrivel up and die so thank God for Rosine. We have eight trees, one of which has the most amazing ripe black olives on it. She reminds me of the old villagers in that advert for Olivio. She is shorter than me (about five foot) and well into her 70s but wasted no time foraging through the branches and in an hour, between us we collected 8 kilos of olives. Then she set up a makeshift olive table to sort good from bad, weighed them with a set of amazingly archaic scales and finally we left them soaking in a basin of water. She told me ‘beaucoup du sel et un bonbonniere pour demain’ but I don’t even know what a bonbonniere is so I have to knock for her at 3pm so she can take me to the shop in Grasse to buy one. Then she is coming back to help me soak the olives in the right amount of salted water with a bouquet of laurel and rosemary from the garden. She has restored my faith in neighbourly relations, even if it did cost me a much needed magazine commission. She was waiting at her gate for me so she could show me where to buy the bonbonniere and I spent the next hour practising my French as she chattered away. It truly is the best way to learn. She gave me a jar of her own olives harvested from last year...delicious, hope mine are as good. Spent the weekend in Mandelieu, the weather was amazing, me and the girls were in bikinis on the beach, which is bizarre but fab for mid November. My lovely Dutch neighbour Rudolph told me that the Parisien problem may soon be over...she is searching for another apartment as she finds it too noisy. Hang out the flags. Lastly, I had my experiences of ex-pat life published in the Sunday Times yesterday. As a writer I’m used to seeing my name in print and it was a small piece but a huge buzz, as for the first time I’m writing about our personal experiences rather than someone elses.
Thanks for all your comments.

November 13th 2008

Aren’t men funny creatures? Why can’t they just tell the truth? Case in point: last night Iain says he and Brian, our lovely bro-in-law who is staying at the moment to work on the house, are popping over to a friend’s empty apartment half an hour away by the coast to measure up for some work that needs doing. They’ve been working all day here and I thought, ahh how conscientious to be bothered to show up after such a long day. Suspicions were aroused when they both came downstairs reeking of aftershave, freshly showered and spruced up, Brian with his hair gelled, in a white linen shirt (you wear white at your peril here at the mo) jeans and loafers and Iain looking no less dressed up than if we were heading out for supper.
Me: What time will you be back?
Him: Dunno, later.
Me: Are you coming straight back or going for a drink after? (I didn’t mind, honest)
Him: Weeellllll, we are popping out for a pint to watch Mike (our plasterer) practise with his band.
Me: Hmmm where is he playing?
Him: Well he’s only practising in the downstairs room at Sullivans (a lively little open-all-hours pub in Mandelieu which specialises in Guinness)
Me: So if he is only practising, why does he need an audience?
Him: We are going along to give him moral support (which has to be the best excuse I’ve heard for going for a beer possibly ever.)
Ten minutes after they left, the girls and I are hunkered down on the sofa watching The Dog Whisperer when we all hear a loud scratching sound and high pitched squeaking coming from upstairs. My first thought is it’s a rat. One of the reasons we got rid of our walnut tree next to the house is because at night when you heard crunching and shone a torch up to watch the cute red squirrels having a midnight feast, what you actually saw was a big fat rat with a fleshy tail tucking in right above your head. Livvy said, I’ll go and have a look and the worst thing is, I let her! She was too scared to go upstairs and what kind of a parent am I to let her even if I do have a pathological fear of all things mouse-y and ratty. So I went up gingerly, throwing open doors one at a time like Cagney and Lacey and found Spike, our Abyssinian cat locked in Brian’s bedroom. Oh the relief.

November 12th 2008

I have followers! To all your guys who are following and the ones who posted comments, thank you thank you thank you. I was moaning to my bro-in-law Gaz (or Saltydawg) the other night about how no-one is reading my blog and he said he'd poke me (is that the right term) on his blog and here you all are. Think one of the problems is that haven't actually told anyone I'm doing this, always going to be a problem if you want people to read it!
Anyway, Dougnut-ella comes from Donatella because my awful neighbour in Mandelieu is a poor man's version of Ms Versace, but with bad surgery and long bleached blonde hair which would look great if she was 25 but not so good on a woman knocking on the door of 60. Spent the weekend there and she was nowhere to be seen but I'm sure I haven't heard the last of her yet.
One of my journo friends in the UK emailed me to say how she is really into dressing up and wearing make up at the moment. Since I arrived here five months ago, I've probably worn high heels twice (given that I have a collection to rival Imelda Marcos, that's not good value for money) and have given up on the little make up I used to wear altogether. The heels don't work on a drive that resembles a black run, and living in a rural village in the hills of France, you look dressed up in jeans and a T shirt. It's quite liberating but I sometimes miss going off to an interview dolled up in my latest purchases.
Took the girls to the Armistice Day Parade in the village yesterday. It was very humbling, old men and women from the village wearing their medals, barely able to shuffle aong but standing proud of their contribution to the freedom we all take for granted. All the children carried red white and blue balloons to the cemetery, which sits on a cliff edge overlooking the valley. A saxophonist played, everyone sang the French national anthem The Marseillaise and then the Mayor read out the names of all those who died in the First and Second World Wars. He must have read out 30 names, just from our tiny village. The balloons were released, carrying messages of peace from the children and I'm not ashamed to admit I had a huge lump in my throat.
This afternoon, we are picking olives in the garden. We have eight trees and my Italian neighbour Rosine (who is the pole opposite of the other heathen) has told me they are ready and not to leave it too late. Apparently I need a net to catch them all when we shake the trees and a bonbonniere to soak them in water and salt before they can be eaten. There is a local mill where you can swap your olives for the equivalent amount of locally produced olive oil, which sounds like a great idea as we will never get through them all ourselves.

November 10th 2008

Doughnut-ella next door came rushing out of the apartment and spent ten minutes screaming at me on the landing about what a bad neighbour I am, how noisy we are and rude etc etc etc. Standing next to me waving finger in my face...telling me she is going to call the police about me!She is mental, I told her so, also told her everybody in the block hates her, (well I know of at least three people who do) that I won't ever speak to her again until she can talk in a rational manner and finished off with DROP DEAD as I slammed the door in her face! The girls were doubled up with laughter behind the front door and I didn;t know whether to laugh or cry.
As we left she was on her balcony shouting into her mobile at the Garde de poste! Instead of stock cubes next time I'm asking Sarah to bring me a large bottle of ketamine!
Tomorrow is Armistice Day and it is a bank holiday in France. What a great idea, if there ever was a good reason for a bank holiday, this is it. In the village, they have a church service followed by a procession to the graveyard where all the local children release balloons in memory of the dead. Issy is keen to do it so we are going to go along, and as we haven't found anywhere to buy poppies here, it's one way of marking the day. It has made her ask questions about the past that she would never have done normally.

November 7th 2008

Half term ....Livvy’s friends over from the UK, all our friends with homes here out for the holidays so a big social whirl for a week. I always look forward to these times, catching up with gossip from home and friends I don’t see from one month to the next. The only fly in the ointment has been our hideous neighbour at the apartment. She is Parisien and frankly gives Paris a bad name. She looks like an older, more surgically enhanced version of Donatella Versace (don’tella!) and has a face like a slapped arse. All she has done since she started renting is moan at us for non-existent noise, moving the furniture at the dead of night (as if) and is always sticking rude notes on our door mat.
Last week was the final straw. We left Tallulah for less than two hours to pop out for a bite and when we got back was a rude note in very bad English telling us that the dog had been barking ‘during hours’ and we are breaking the rules and next time, ‘Take it with you’ underlined. I tossed it back on her mat and went to bed, only to find back on our mat in the morning. I put it in the bin, but one of Liv’s friends retrieved it and screwed it up and left it on her mat again. When we got home we saw she had rammed it into our door frame with such force it was almost impossible to pull out. As she is such a stickler for the rules, I complained to her about all the stuff she leaves on her terrace, banked against the glass divider. It looks like Steptoe’s yard. A small victory, she moved the stuff but before I could celebrate she stuck a dead plant up there so I bought a huge eucalyptus bush which blocks it out. Cow! Am trying to train it over the glass so it throttles her!
We have had rain non-stop for a week, although we aren’t as badly affected here as the Loire and Rhone Alps which have been completely flooded. It’s made usually pleasurable activities like shopping in Cannes and go-karting with Liv’s friends very wet and miserable (for me) although they seem to have enjoyed themselves. Think the summer is well and truly over.
Apart from problems with the Prima Donna, staying here has been a welcome relief from the dust and dirt at home. Went back at the weekend and was amazed to see how much more light we get in the house and on the terraces now that three of the most overgrown tress have been cut down. The treehugger in me wasn’t sure it was the right move but there’s no doubt it has made a huge difference and finally the house we bought for the view actually has a view.
One of our friends asked what we were struggling to get out here – she always brings me the weekend supplements that are never available – but this time I requested stock cubes (the French ones are full of herbs and salt and really mask the flavours of any sauce) while Iain asked for Cadburys. Two family bars of fruit and nut and milk chocolate duly arrived with Sarah and Iain requisitioned both to take back to the house with him and him alone.
When I got up and saw them positioned on his bedside table ready to take home first thing (he’d rather forget his keys, wallet and the dog than chocolate) I quickly chucked them both in the fridge under the smoked salmon and jumped back into bed. He got up and growled, ‘where’s my chocolate?’ before turning my wardrobe and drawers upside down. I held out for about 10 minutes, pointing out that he would be sharing the stock cubes via risotto, gravy and casseroles until he compromised on leaving the milk choc here. So next time I do roast chicken, I will make sure his portion is gravy free!

October 24th 2008
Am staying at the apartment for the next week during half term and I have never been so keen to pack my suitcase. Usually I leave it til the last minute if I’m packing for holidays or a job abroad but this time I can’t wait to get started. Taking all the things I can’t use here at the moment like scented candles (they’d look a bit silly in a building site, apart from which there’s nowhere to put them) and bath essence (no bath here only showers). Everything is covered with a fine layer of dust, it will be lovely to feel clean again and not have to wipe or wash stuff every day.
At the moment we have one ancient two seater sofa in the house which we all have to share, everything else is wrapped in protective plastic and out of the way on the terraces. Iain reckons the really dirty work will be done in the next couple of weeks but am not holding my breath. He is staying here to oversee the work while me, the girls, Livvy’s two friends Em and Em from the UK and Oscar will be in the lap of luxury!
Issy and I were walking home this week from school and she told me what she had for lunch and said jus d’ananas, without thinking. She couldn’t remember what it was in English (pineapple juice). Then she was talking about helping the teacher in English and mentioned that the other kids had to do it toute seule (all alone). We laughed about her coming out with these random French words, it’s fantastic that she is starting to think in French. She was also mortified when I answered one of her teachers with pourquoi instead of quoi. Two months ago, she wouldn’t have known that I’d made a mistake but now she can pick me up on my rusty French.
Heard about a rather nasty creature down here which can be very dangerous. La chenille processionaire is a long caterpillar which is extremely poisonous. It lives in pine trees and gives off toxic spores which can kill a pet and blind a child. It has no predators and the only safe way to get rid of one is to douse it in petrol and set it alight. They hang in white sacks at the top of pine trees and if you spot one you need to call the pompiers right away. Have warned the girls that these caterpillars are not for bringing into the house.
Popped back to London for a couple of days to work on the new remake of Minder for Five. It stars Shane Ritchie as Arthur Daley’s nephew Archie and newcomer Lex Shrapnel as ‘minder’ Jamie. They were both on good form at a photo shoot in Spitalfields, and Shane’s agent Phil took me on a tour of the area and showed me where jack the Ripper’s first victim was found. Spooky! Have a feeling Lex is going to be a big name, he’s done a few movies and reminds me of a young Chris Ecclestone.