Paris...it sizzles

Paris was a blast. Thought I was being clever booking the train and it worked perfectly until I was on the way back. Had booked first class and was busy working on my laptop and feeling extremely smug about how much I was getting done thanks to my little personal plug point at my side when I was unceremoniously kicked off at Marseille due to a technical fault, then missed my connection back to Nice by an hour and finally crawled in at just before 1am. I will try REALLY hard not to moan about easyJet in future.



Highlights in Paris - hanging out at the Lido, watching rehearsals with Amanda in feathery costumes and swapping great gossip with her lovely husband Chris, stopping traffic on the Champs Elysees as we did an impromptu photo shoot in front of the Arc de Triomphe, watching the show that night (it was amazing, camp, kitsch and utterly over the top, like being transported back to the 50s) as the manager told me to order what I liked and they would carry me home (reader, be assured that wasn't necessary,) and gazing at the lit-up-like-a-christmas-tree Eiffel Tower on the way back to the hotel. Only thing I would say is Paris is not a place to be on your own, better when you are with someone, but didn't allow that to cramp my style.



Mooched around the Rue St Honore the next day, checked out the Hotel Costes, truly a cool place to stay, and Colette, which is every bit as good as the hype except the designers featured are Lanvin, Dior, Chanel and therefore suitable for window shopping but defo not buying. Found a great book called I Love Your Style by Amanda Brooks who used to work for Vogue. Full of amazing photos from the past 40 years of style icons, classic, vintage and boho fashion. Perfect reading material for Sunday morning in bed with a cup of tea.


Came home to an empty house as Iain and the girls were in London. Cleaned like a demon (wish I could lose my OCD complex) while playing the Police and the Jam at full volume which would not be acceptable if we were en famille, then ate in the dark (well candlelight) because that is how I like it, while everyone one else likes bright lights illuminating every corner. Funny how rebellion can take on different forms. Having the house to myself for two days was completely lovely although I think it's lovely only because it isn't a permanent situation. Usually I am the one who is away so I never get the chance to clean up and actually see it last. What a novelty to get up the next day and not trip over dirty clothes, towels and duvets strewn across the floor, or find toilets unflushed and countless mugs of cold tea and beakers of rank juice going mouldy. It was joy..but makes me wonder what am I turning into?

Village life

The clocks have gone back so autumn is officially here but on the beach at Juan les Pins today, it still felt like summer. Now that the summer dog ban is finished, Tallulah and Oscar can come to the beach, so they spent the whole day tearing around, rolling in the sand, paddling in the sea and sidling up to restaurant tables looking for scraps. Oscar followed me along the shoreline as I swam but wasn't brave enough to come into the water, as it was a bit fresh.

Have spent the last two weeks writing and pitching for commissions on the LA interviews. Have lots of meetings fixed up in London in early December with PR friends who have lots of projects coming up, including one with a friend who is now in charge of Comic Relief press, which will be a great one to cover next spring. Am also covering Glastonbury for Hello next summer - it's the 40th anniversary so the line up is sure to be even more amazing than usual - the girls are overjoyed at the idea of being there, even more so at the thought of VIP treatment and rubbing shoulders with the acts.

So it's all go at Chemin du Laquet, but sadly the same can't be said for Bar sur Loup in general. In recent weeks, there have been whispers in the village about 'le village, c'est mort' meaning that quite literally, the village is dying. It sounds dramatic but in recent weeks, our fave restaurant/hotel the Hostellerie du Chateau, closed for good as it is not making any money, as did the butcher. The boulangerie is up for sale, while our local Boulangerie Maia has been closed since spring after the baker was diagnosed with cancer. He has tried to find someone to take over but had no luck. And our little pizzeria, Michelangelo, hasn't opened at all this year. The Hostellerie is where we stayed when we were househunting and Michelangelo was our regular haunt so it is really sad to see places close because of a dwindling economy. Sometimes you feel like you are in a bubble here but the crunch is affecting everyone.

Off to Paris tomorrow to meet up with Amanda Holden, who is learning to be a showgirl at the Lido for a new ITV series called Fantasy Lives. She told me last week it's the hardest thing she's ever done and reckons it might look really easy when the show airs, so she asked me to come and watch her in action and tell everyone it's not as easy as it looks! I had to think for about 5 seconds before saying yes. She did mention something about me joining in but am pretending I didn't hear that bit! It's about 11 years since I last went to Paris and even the thought of a 6.30am train tomorrow morning can't kill the excitement. Staying til Tuesday evening and determined to fit in a visit to Colette, the most amazing store in Paris, and its new offshoot Merci.

We also talked about Simon Cowell's party a few weeks ago - her highlights were his brother's speech, which bluntly 'outed' Simon in the most hysterical fashion (half the partygoers were crying with laughter, Amanda included, while the other half, who have yet to work with Simon, were straightfaced for fear of blowing their chances.) The other highlight was a woman dressed up as a dancing vagina, I kid you not. Simon told his elderly mum it was a giant mouse! Think Paris will be a hoot, she is such good value because unlike a lot of showbiz stars, she has a wicked sense of humour and is gloriously indiscreet.

LA part two

Went surfing to Malibu on my birthday with Jude. It made up for not seeing the girls and Iain, which felt very weird. Now Watergate Bay, where beginners can stand up is one thing, Malibu is another. Put it this way, I did not do a Cameron Diaz and effortlessly sweep in on every wave, I spent most of my time paddling out to catch waves that kept eluding me. Caught a few in the end, but got nervous when one female surfer paddled over to say she just wanted to tell me how brave I was! It was plainly obvious to all the experts I was completely out of my depth. No worries, I surfed (very badly) at Malibu, and if you lose the brackets, that's all that matters! We had cocktails on the beach and then headed back for a fab supper.

Our big night out was at The Abbey, LA's most famous gay bar, and whether you're gay or straight, you cannot fail to have a good time. Most of the barmen are very good looking, straight, married guys (work that out) and it reminded me of the mad times we used to have clubbing with Gary, my lovely bro-in-law.

Came home Sunday night and still battling jet lag - as an eight hours a night girl, it is so dull to wake up at 3am feeling wide awake - and back in the groove of doing the less glamorous bit of writing everything up.

The only thing to get really excited about this week was the prospect of an open fire now the nights are getting chilly. It's a way of avoiding the five times an hour power cuts we were getting last winter and nothing beats an open fire. As I write, it's been going an hour, the room is filling with smoke and I can barely see, so not exactly a triumph but determined to get that *&**%ing chimney working. Have discovered that flames are good, but as soon as they die down, the smoke starts to flow in, so it's a constant relay of chucking more on everytime it starts to settle down - the perfect antidote to a cosy night lazing by the fire!

Sometimes there is nothing better in the world than room service. Arrived in LA on Friday and have been busy working and going out to fab restaurants. Interviews so far include Sam Neill (charming) Sally Field (very sweet) Rob Lowe, Felicity Huffman (very witty) and today, Courteney Cox (having heard horror stories, was surprised to find she was really quite funny and a good chat and in excellent shape at 45, which is comforting for someone who is not a million miles away from that herself.)
I'm staying at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, a truly decadent hotel where they hold yoga classes by the pool, give you suites big enough to throw a party in and generally go the extra mile to make you feel special. After eating sushi at Koi, which is one of the best Japanese restaurants in LA, and dinner last night here at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, it was a thrill to realise that actually, I didn't have to go out tonight. So I went to the gym, soaked in a bath so big that a small child could swim lengths in it and ordered, yes, more sushi, from room service. Perfection.
On Sunday night some friends of friends took me to see Kylie in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It is an amazing venue, an amphitheatre set in parkland so as it gets dark, it looks even more magical. We were right at the front and Kylie was a little pocket fairy in wacky costumes, belting out all her disco tunes and making the 75% gay crowd go delirious with excitement. The after-show party was equally fab, with pole dancers, drag queens and dancers on stilts entertaining everyone while Kylie sat in the VIP area with a few friends.
So far, have checked out a few shops between interviews (it has to happen) and these are my tips if you come to LA. Wasteland on Melrose is probably the best vintage store I have ever been to, they stock everything from Marc Jacobs to Missoni at basement prices, including Sass and Bide jeans for $45 (don't bother rushing, I bought them.) Everything I have ever bought there I still love, it's worth the airfare for that alone. Madison on Melrose is designer but with a sale offering 75% off, it was affordable too, so the studded black Pour la Victoire heels found a worthy home.
It's my birthday tomorrow and it is going to be very weird waking up alone. I have the girls homemade cards in my suitcase which will make me cry, but Judy has arranged cocktails and dinner at the Mondrian tomorrow evening, which will be really good fun. If we get a chance we are heading to Malibu after work so I can do some surfing and she can do some laughing.

It's official...Issy is a proper Frenchy now. She sang La Marseillaise yesterday in the village square with all her classmates at a commemoration for Amiral de Grasse, a famous French admiral who was born in the village 200-odd years ago. It was amazing to hear her sing the French national anthem in perfect French, especially when she doesn't even know God Save The Queen! She has been practising all week and despite the fact that we had heavy heads thanks to a very late night, we were blown away.
I'm off to LA on a lovely job this week but it has extended from 8 days to almost three weeks, meaning I will be away for my birthday, so we had a few friends over for sushi and champers on Saturday. The highlights....making a speech barefoot on the bench as everyone sang happy birthday, falling over with Faye (thankfully by that time I was so 'relaxed' that neither of us hurt ourselves) and just catching up with all our lovely mates. Iain had been out the previous night in Cannes with all his old city mates plus Mat and Milly so to say he was fragile would be understating it somewhat.
He came home Saturday afternoon, really wanting to go to bed, but instead had to be the host wth the most and actually filled people's glasses up and was very effective, much more so than usual when he is too busy knocking back the vino to worry about silly things like making sure everyone else has a drink. Then he cut all the sushi that Issy and I spent Friday night making, and laid it all out beautifully. I'd like to say that he also cleared up while I went to bed but that would be a lie. When the last stragglers left at 3.30, he just mumbled 'gotta go bed, let's leave it til morning' always a mistake but I could see his point.
Had my second tennis lesson today. Liv is fuming that my coach is the best looking man that possibly either of us have ever seen, which certainly makes it a more enjoyable experience on a Monday morning. It was a toss up between the tall, dark and extremely handsome 25-year-old and the grey haired but very sweet closer to my age 50-year-old. Reader, who would you choose?
My efforts to be cool are failing miserably though. Last week, I fell over trying to return a shot and cut my knee and ended up a bloody, sweaty mess. And this week, I managed to top that by whacking him in the shoulder with my raquet as I tried to practise the shot he was demonstrating. He said he is going to wear a crash helmet for my next lesson and I don't think he's joking.

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.