Paris

It's 11.15pm, I have blogged once tonight (which is a rarity I know), am dead on my feet after 2am homecoming from the Big Chill this morning and have a massive list of things to do before I leave for Toronto on Wednesday, swiftly followed by New York for work. Aargh. But I cannot pack up before writing about Paris, which broke up the journey to the UK.
Service...top, food...cheaper and better than the Riviera and markets ... brilliant for vintage, high fashion and antiques. We should be moving there sometime soon.
I wrote myself a memo with the names of all the best places we visited but have now lost it so will have to do this from memory.
We stayed in a fab apartment in St Germain at le Prince Regent Residence et Spa, beautifully furnished in an old bourgeouis building with a little courtyard just five minutes walk from Cafe Flore and Les Deux Magots. Went straight out for dinner after an epic journey and very late arrival but the civilised thing about Paris is they understand that you might want to eat later than 9.30pm and actually take your money and custom with a smile.
We dropped off the luggage and ran to the first restaurant we spotted, across the road, les Caves du Polidor, which was all chandeliers, tiled floors and rustic tables oozing Parisien atmosphere without the too obvious tourist touch. Our waitress was Mr Bean's elderly toothless mum, she kept whacking Iain in the back of the neck, first with a bread basket and then the table mats. We were cracking up just as she performed her piece de resistance and knocked over a wine glass, stared at it as it rolled across the table and then walked away without picking it up! But the food made up for it, proper hearty chicken casseroles and mashed potatoes which are just what you need after numerous stale baguettes en route.
Breakfast at le Danton was followed by a stroll around the market at Clignancourt.
It's the biggest flea market in Paris and the girls were cooing over all the great fash finds there. Then Montmartre for some caricatures and views across the city from the Sacre Coeur, a float along the River Seine to the Eiffel Tower and finally Notre Dame where Livvy spotted Mr Fashion himself Gok Wan.
Dinner was at the Au Saint Benoit off Boulevard St Germain, and if you don't go anywhere else, go here for supper. It's intimate, friendly and the service and food are up with the best I've had anywhere in France. We rounded off with cocktails at a bar where two guys performed death defying acrobatic feats in mid air.
The Pub St Germain is a fab find for lunch or dinner too, with four floors of seriously cool decor, red velvet sofas and dramatic purple walls, virtually hidden away down a little cobbled alley and a manager who is on the ball and ensures that everything is swift, friendly and up to scratch. I know, this is Paris I'm talking about. It gets a bad press but maybe we got lucky.
We arrived in London to house sit for a friend only for me to discover that my pride n joy Houlihan leggings which I have worn just ONCE had been left at the hotel. After going into slight meltdown, I called the manager Remi, who promised to post them to me in the UK immediately. Two days later, they arrived. So Paris, au revoir, coming back very soon.

Glamping - lights, music and toilet paper!

Now there's camping and there's glamping. Until recently, well last weekend, I was a camper. Camping is that quaint outdoor pursuit that I love, on paper, until the rain starts to tip tap on the canvas before you have even finished pitching the tent, and rarely subsides until you have packed everything up again and decamped back to full plumbing and hot showers.
I've camped in England with varying degrees of success - last time we left early because of relentless downpours and the girls didn't speak to me all the way home and told me I had ruined their best holiday EVER. Forget Caribbean beaches and Alpine lakes, they love not seeing a toothbrush or the inside of a shower cubicle for days on end. What I remember about that particular trip was sitting in the laundry room at our New Forest site with my Manc friend Clare, who is a tough cookie, trying to warm up next to the tumble dryers.
Italy was fun last year but the opposite extreme, so hot that it was almost impossible to sleep.
So with the Big Chill beckoning, and a dry Glastonbury for the first time in years, I felt strangely confident as we packed up all our camping gear the day we left France. The fact that it took up three quarters of the boot, and that was without our months-worth of luggage, hair straighteners, beauty products...three females equals a lot of stuff....was not a worry for me, although Iain had to drive 1000 miles without a rear view.
Then two things happened. We saw the weather forecast for last weekend...showers...and noticed an advert for Yurtel on the BC website...yurts with double beds, proper quilts, electric lights, lamps, even carpet for God's sake. Oh and no forgetting an eyemask and ear plugs for the discerning festival goer who likes to sleep at some point. How did we miss this, opined Iain, who tries to avoid every camping trip with excuses like work, bike trips and frozen shoulders. He also mentioned something about being able to read in bed if the music got too much for him. So with less than 24 hours to go, we booked one and spent the next hour unpacking all aforementioned gear in sunny Herts before setting off.
The fact that we had a. all bought wellies, b. booked a luxe alternative and c. even thought to borrow the waterproofs that had been forgotten in our haste to pack meant of course that it didn't rain at all, well apart from one sharp downpour on Friday, which just meant beating a hasty retreat into the Thali tent for a fabulous Indian.
But if you think that's extravagant, the Lotterys can beat it. N&T had booked a hotel 8 miles away, then decided to join us Yurting, but didn't want to lose the full English breakfast and en suite that even the yurtel couldn't provide so kept their rooms on, sleeping on site and rushing off each morning for three hours to 'freshen up'. Needless to say, Issy became a Lottery for the duration of the trip.
My highlights? Mystery Jets' brilliant set on the Clash stage on Friday night, they thanked the crowd for sticking with them rather than watching Massive Attack on the big momma stage but they needn't have bothered because they were SO much better, and The Magic Numbers yesterday, who have made a few of my favourite tracks ever. Plan B was also magnetic live, not what I expected at all, and went down a storm. Lily Allen proved that pregnancy doesn't have to stop you having a good time and Paloma Faith and Newton Faulkner were also good value. Plus loads of little unknown bands, including Hundred in the Hands, who are really super talented.
Iain's highlights? The dozens of world food stalls serving everything from Lebanese wraps to Goan fish curry and everything in between. His mission was to try as many as possible and reader, he didn't fail.
Issy's highlights? Setting up a three day residence at the dodgem stand, she and Poppy must've spent every pound of their not inconsiderable pocket money whizzing round at speed bashing as many people as they could.
Liv and Lyd checked out the talent at the festival too, most of which had nothing to do with music, so everyone was happy. But the joy of arriving back to a toilet that doesn't resemble the one in Slumdog Millionaire cannot be denied.

A black day

Today I am writing the blog I didn't want to write. My beautiful, funny, clever friend Lisa died on Tuesday after a long and courageous battle against ovarian cancer. She was 52 and she leaves a husband and four gorgeous children.
Having a friend who is so ill when you are 1,000 miles away is very hard but we wrote letters and emails frequently (somehow she always managed to make me laugh no matter how bleak she felt) and talked on the phone and in that way, our friendship was just as strong as it was when I lived in England. I last saw Lisa at Christmas, when she cooked us scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast and uncorked a bottle of Champagne at 10am to celebrate us all being together at her house again. I planned to go and see her last Wednesday and when we last spoke, she was so looking forward to it, as was I. It seems unreal that I will never see her again.
The day of her funeral was terribly sad, as well as bizarrely uplifting. The rabbi told stories of her many car scrapes - her poor mini cooper was always in the wars - the way she used to chat on the mobile while driving and would turn to chat to whoever was in the back seat while speeding along, oblivious to anything else, and too many other zany moments to mention, and we couldn't help but laugh through our tears.
My favourite story was one Livvy told me this week, about when she and Beaux were in the car with Matt and Lisa one day. Matt said, shall we cause a scene, and Lisa said go on then. So he got out of the car and started throwing a wobbly in the middle of a busy roundabout, screaming and shouting at Lisa while she was hanging out of the car window and the girls were ordered to pretend to cry in the back. One or two motorists got out of their cars to come and see if they could help, only to be given their marching orders. Then Matt got back in the car and he, Lisa and the girls drove off screeching with laughter!
She is the kind of friend who would turn up for dinner with a bottle of wine she had already opened at home, or a lovely box of chocolates that she had already eaten a few of. She also had a vintage wardrobe that gave me green eye and which she generously let me rifle through for that special occasion when you didn't want to buy a dress if one of her D&G or Betsy Johnson creations fitted the bill instead. A total one off who will never be forgotten.
As we all stood at the burial thinking of her during prayers, the sun broke through the thick cloud and shone in a tiny blue oasis for a couple of minutes before disappearing....it really felt like she was there too, watching down on all of us.
Afterwards, we listened to Led Zeppelin and some of her other favourite bands, drank wine and swapped stories and laughter and tears.
Today I spent the whole afternoon in my PJs watching the boxed set of Glee ... somehow I just know she would approve.

Part Two

Forgive me readers, for it has been a long time since my last blog (well, apart from yesterday’s) and while painting this afternoon, I remembered loads of stuff that I forgot to put in, so here I am again. Actually, writing a book on paint drying would be infinitely preferable to what I am doing now, painting over lots of new concrete all over the outside of the house in 90 degrees of heat. The paint keeps drying in the pot so I am slapping it on quicker than I should and dodging the lumps which keep falling off as I am still in sweaty tennis gear (too hot to change) rather than painting clothes and standing on the velvet chaise stool instead of a ladder, which just makes it all more of a challenge.

The highlight has been hearing the pesky tiger mozzies approach with undisguised glee, only to find themselves stuck to fresh paint and watching them die a slow sticky death, which is still too good for them....no, I am not a Buddhist.

As all my lovely UK mates and colleagues think my life is a permanent holiday, consisting mainly of shopping, partying and lying by the pool drinking rose, I am expecting no sympathy on the painting front. It took a lot to dig out the paint again after the last time I wielded a brush two weeks ago. Iain, who has been flat out for weeks, said, can you paint the doors upstairs, it will only take half a day? Naively, I agreed, and spent four days on a half a day job. Feeling faint from fumes, I had to keep retreating to the fridge, the pool and my pc at regular intervals which is maybe why it took me eight times as long to do the job!

Went to a brilliant party last week at the Cannes Lions, perhaps the party of the year so far (well, along with Grace Jones at Le Baron.) It was Massive Music’s beach party to celebrate their 10th birthday at the Palais Stephanie beach in Cannes. Usually parties take ages to get going but their DJs were so hot on the decks that everyone was up on the floor by 10.15 and the place rocked all night. The highlight was a 10yo guitarist who came on to perform solo and who knocked everyone sideways with his talent and cool factor.

The only downside...having to buy tokens to pay, yes reader, pay for your drinks. I have never yet been to a party here where you have to pay at the bar, the pr machine knows that all journalists, media types and freeloading industry experts love a free bar. The Laurent Perrier and Belvedere flowed through Film Festival but Sarah says the whole ad business has had to cut right back on spending and the most dramatic saving they can ever make is forcing us all to pay for tomorrow’s hangover. It was so good that nobody cared, which proves that throwing a party is not rocket science - if you have great music, enough people and a fab setting, you really cannot go wrong.

This afternoons’ boredom was punctuated only by hearing Issy bursting chewing gum bubbles while lying on her bed in her shady boudoir watching American movies (how easy it is to be 11) so I reflected on the last two years here. Occasionally people contact me to ask about moving abroad, how we found schools, settling in, houses and areas, as it is an emotional and financial minefield when you first arrive in a new country. I realised that probably the most valuable bit of advice I could give is the piece I never offer. Which is, be very wary of taking people at face value. I have made a lot of gorgeous friends since moving here, which I never expected, but I have also met two or three people who misrepresented themselves and their motives, and truly had hidden agendas, which you only discover much further down the line.

I have never been a cynical person – one of my journo mates always used to say: ‘Ask Karen if you want to hear the Hello version, talk to me if you want the blunt truth!’ I’m still not cynical but much warier of making new friendships now. For some, starting a new chapter here means just that, a change of scene, lifestyle and better quality of life. For others, it is an escape for altogether different reasons.

BTW heard back from Amanda on the talented Leroy, he now has an in with a music producer who will spend a day in the studio with him in London. This guy has worked with Celine Dion, Cher, Enrique Iglesias and many more....but haven't heard back from Leroy. Maybe he thinks I am a demented stalker or fan! Or maybe I have discovered the only YouTube musician who doesn't dream of a recording contract. So frustrating.....

Nice has talent

Talent is a much overused word but just occasionally someone comes along oozing with it and you can't help taking notice. I was working earlier on a feature (Jessica Szohr from Gossip Girl, who didn't have much gossip at all) when Livvy told me to come and have a look at someone on YouTube. Usually it involves watching a dog do tricks or a gang of wedding guests performing Thriller, none of which are particularly scintillating. I politely feign interest for about 30 seconds before switching off.

Today was different. Leroy (not his real name) is an 18yo Spanish guy who goes to ISN and has made his own channel on YouTube where he performs cover versions from The Script, Chris Brown, Beyonce, Kings of Leon and so on. He plays guitar and sings and I spent ten minutes watching him. He is nothing short of brilliant, the whole package, and one of his songs, Jason Mraz's Lucky which he sings simultaneously with a girl he has never met before via webcam is phenomenal. I sent him an email wishing him luck and pasted the link to my friend Amanda who works with Simon Cowell and is married to Chris, a great music boss and producer in the UK. She came straight back to me saying: 'He's fabulous, have sent it to the producer and God.' (That's Simon.)

So watch this space to see what happens next. Or click on www.youtube.com/superleroyvv and see what all the fuss is about. He is going places.

Onto Issy's party last week. She's now 11 going on 25. She has a new Blackberry, which is her first ever phone and smarter than mine. I have the worst phone out of the entire family, but as I can barely use three functions on it..calling people, sending an email and texting...it doesn't really matter. She sends me things like 'Hi mum, I'm up.' Sweet. But never seems to have it on her when I try and call her. Somehow she has already used up her monthly forfait in the space of 10 days.

She and seven friends camped in the garden on her birthday. They were still awake at 1am telling each other ghost stories and I was woken up at 6am by lots of shrieking and giggling. Thank God there are no neighbours to hear them. Cue lots of jaded faces by noon when they all reluctantly trooped home after gorging on chocolate brownie cake, lemon cake and an amazing chocolate heart inscribed by Issy's friend Manon.When I asked if she made it herself she said; 'Non, c'etait mon patissier.'

Her parents have just bought the Hostellerie du Chateau in the village, a gorgeous old hotel and restaurant which we have loved since before we moved here but which has suffered from being off the beaten track and never been properly marketed. That's changing now and word is they are going for a Michelin star, having owned restaurants in Dijon and Aix-en-Provence. Issy is full of stories about how she calls a special number from her room to order strawberries in chantilly and nutella at 11pm and gets them delivered by room service!

Last week Manon came for lunch during school and I gave them turkey sandwiches, crisps and some raw carrot sticks. She raved to Issy about how amazing the food was, saying: 'I never get food like this, I usually get risotto or boeuf bourgignon for lunch!' When Issy went there a few days ago for lunch, they had a table for two in the restaurant (where supper is 59 euros a head for the set menu!) and enjoyed a three course meal, starting with feuillete of mozzarella and tomatoes, then fillet of beef followed by a fresh berry dessert. Thank God she didn't have to pay the bill!

A Gleeful week

The last two months have been my busiest since moving to France. It all kicked off with Malaysia and Elle Mac then came the Cannes Film Festival and last week was the Monaco TV Festival. Even the train journey, hugging the coast from Nice to Monte-Carlo, is enjoyable, particularly if you sit on the right and soak up the views. Am halfway through The God of Small Things but couldn’t bring myself to read when I could look out of the window and daydream instead.

I interviewed the lovely Julie Walters, above, who is always such good value. She was making me laugh about getting older, why she is proud to be grey and why she won’t even go there on cosmetic surgery or botox, hurray for that. She looks phenomenal, mainly because she is completely natural and funny and convinced me that 60 might not be so bad after all.

But the highlight of the festival has to be meeting Jane Lynch, aka Sue Sylvester in Glee. You have got to love a woman whose favourite quip on screen is: ‘I’m going to get a diaper for your chin because it looks like a baby’s ass!’ I LOVE that show and I love Sue/Jane so I didn’t shut up and thankfully nor did she. Coming to Hello magazine on a newsstand near you very soon – in fact this week!

Going back to being busy after a long honeymoon with France, it is really good to be firing on all cylinders again. I forgot how much I enjoy being busy. I definitely needed a period of go-slow to adjust to a new country, language and way of life and however much the girls are independent and to a large extent off my hands now, I think they have appreciated me being around a lot more.

I used to be so jealous of my ladies-that-lunch friends in Brookie Park with their tennis, manicures and of course the long Friday lunches. They were always jealous of me, rushing off to interviews, spending half my life in airports and meeting extraordinary people in far flung corners of the earth..and maybe not so jealous of the hours spent sitting hunched over my PC in my office til God knows what time writing it all up and the hours on the phone and email setting everything up. The grass is always greener but having had ample time to do that pool thing, lunch and tennis, I finally realised what I secretly knew all along – that life isn’t for me. Well, in small doses but with plenty of work tucked around the edges. Iain is secretly relieved too!

The only downside is I have been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to potter around in the garden. After two years here (hard to believe) I found a cherry tree in the garden the other day. I had a suspicion it was a cherry tree last year when I kept finding squashed red berries all over the windscreen of the car but none of us were brave enough to risk being poisoned by a possibly toxic yet innocuous looking berry when we didn’t even know how to call an ambulance. So I asked Rosine next door and she laughed her head off when I told her that we had all been too nervous to eat one. I picked loads and they are lovely, all the tastier for being straight from the garden with no fertiliser, pesticide or any other muck on them.

Had several calls in the last few days following the floods in the Var that have tragically killed over 20 people this week. The storms have been terrible and everyone is worried that we have been washed down the hillside but the advantage of buying a house that has been underpinned is that it ain’t going anywhere! We’ve had torrential rain in the last few days, interspersed with hot,hot sunshine (which just means the grass grows like mad and Iain has to strim twice as often.) Very peculiar for June.

As if to invite even more rain into our lives, I have just booked tickets to the Big Chill at Eastnor Castle in August. Lily Allen, Plan B, Gilles Peterson, Massive Attack and MIA are playing amongst others and it will be the girls’ first music festival. Makes up for me not doing Glastonbury and we are all dead excited! We are camping while Norma and Tony stay in a four star hotel down the road. I have tried to explain to N&T that room service and an en suite is not what festivals are about when you can have a portaloo and a warm beer instead but they are having none of it, citing ‘bad backs.’ Have a feeling we will have all four girls in with us while they have a ‘romantic weekend’ a deux. Which is fine. I am packing shorts, wellies, bikinis, hoodies and a cooler full of wine so we will be prepared whatever happens.

The only downer has been the news this week that Liv has to redouble (to non-French students, that means retake the last year.) She is utterly devastated. We wrote an appel last night and have to go to Nice next Thursday – Issy’s birthday unfortunately – to fight our corner. I don’t think it is a bad thing and even she is coming round to the idea that she will at least fly through the next year instead of struggling but like her competitive mum, she hates losing and really wants to stay with her peer group and her best friends who all mean the world to her. I think Lily is as devastated as she is. It’s heartbreaking to hear your firstborn weeping down the phone unable to even speak. So, we will appeal and give it our best shot and if that fails, she has to stay back. She has one friend in the year below who is thrilled at having his mate back in the same class and I have to believe that it might not be so terrible for her, especially as she is 15 going on 25 right now!

Just as I was content to settle into a period of house renovation, early nights and family suppers after the social whirl of the last two months, Sarah calls to say that it is Cannes Lions advertising festival next week, and she is coming over with Bex and has put us on the guest lists for all the coolest parties. My Dr Sebagh Youth Serum will be tested to the core once again and I have told Iain I have no choice but to fit in two parties a night as it will be the perfect networking opportunity...sadly his response was unprintable dear reader, but it was along the lines of ‘You poor love, of course I’m happy to cook for the children, walk the dogs and hold the fort here while you make new business contacts at the Majestic, Palais Stephanie and all those other boring beach parties!’

Cyber lesbian stalker alert!

Thought that might grab your attention....but it's not a News of the World headline, it's actually true! It all started on the night (or rather the morning after) the Monaco Grand Prix. Regular readers of this blog will remember that last year was memorable for the fact that Iain got a bit 'confused' on his way home after a couple of glasses at the Cafe de Paris, missed his train, sloped off to the Rascasse instead and ended up on a bench at Monaco station til Monday morning. He arrived home in the previous day's clothes (obviously) and got a roasting from Livvy for daring to walk through Grasse station at a time when some of her college friends could have spotted him and seen his resemblance to said highly embarrassed daughter.

Could it get any worse? I didn't think so....this year, he invited three London mates to join in the fun. The plan was to 'watch' the race at Cafe de Paris, then 'meander' back towards Grasse for a curry before arriving home about 11 ish. He didn't specify which day though. Fast forward to Monday morning, no text or phone call and no three drunken musketeers in various states of inebriation.

On the way back from the school run, I texted to say 'Where are you?' Ten minutes later, Iain replies 'Who is this?' Not the response I expected, so struggling to sound cool I send back 'It's me you idiot...the wife you never bother to call...' Then back comes 'I think you have a wrong number.' I reel back through my contacts to find I have an unexplained mobile number next to Iain (his real number is under Iain France, rather helpfully.) So I hastily send back 'Sorry, thought you were my husband!' only to get back: 'I don't mind being your husband...I am female though!' I end up having a little chat with Fran, who works as a carer, has a girlfriend in the police force and thinks it's hilarious that I am texting her at 7am in London to demand where the hell she is!

This was two weeks ago. A few days ago, I was lying by the pool with a chilled glass of rose (this has to be done on a regular basis for the next four months) and up pings 'Iain' again, asking 'So did he ever get home?' We had another little exchange about men (she has four kids so I'm guessing she liked them once) and a little laugh at their expense and I told Iain that if he doesn't shape up, Fran is waiting for me!
At least he didn't end up on a bench this time, quite the reverse, Tony booked a room at the Hotel de Paris which they all snuck into and crashed out on the floor until Monday.....

Have had my running coach on the phone this evening asking why I haven't been running with the club for ages. Well, between working on the house, writing up Elle Macpherson, covering the Cannes Film Festival and entertaining six sets of visitors in the last six weeks, all that is missing is a run every other evening. It's so hot right now that running any more than 8k fills me with horror, let alone goose stepping round Pre du Lac car park, another 'training' exercise which certainly makes you stand out from the crowd.

Other news....we heard last week that Issy got into Fenelon. She is so smart but it was particularly tough this year and very over subscribed and we're so happy she will meet lots of international friends as well as the French friends she already has. After two years spent speaking just French all day every day at school, it will be a relief for her to have mates she can chat to in English once again.

Last week I was walking up to school with the dogs when I received an email from Disney asking if I fancy interviewing the Jonas Brothers in the States this summer during their tour. If you are over 15, you won't have a clue what I'm on about but Issy reliably informed me that they are HOT and massive thanks to their first film Camp Rock. So obviously I said yes. I love that a little walk through Bar sur Loup can end up as a trip somewhere fab thanks to the wonder of BlackBerry.