People (mainly other mothers) are always asking me how I feel about the fact that we sent the children away to school. They have now been at boarding school for a year and a half and I’m still not really sure what I think of it all. Having never been to boarding school, it was not one of those things I was adamant I wanted to do, although I could see the benefits and was jealous of my friends who went.

It all started with a bike ride. Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, returned from a bicycle ride with the realisation that he no longer loved his wife and told her that they must separate. My husband returned from cycling in the Languedoc hills two summers ago with a similar epiphany, although his concerned the children, not me. “We must send the children to boarding school,” he said, before going upstairs for a shower.

When a man comes back from a bike ride with something to say, one is forced to listen and, sometimes, even to act. In fact, our children’s education had been worrying me too.

We had been based in Abu Dhabi for six years by then and I felt there was something missing from their lives. One of our friends from France summed it up when he came to stay by saying that Olivia was “running on empty”. There just wasn’t enough to stimulate them in Abu Dhabi, at least not in terms of education. I still don’t believe that a school that finishes at 2.30 pm can possibly be teaching them enough. Added to which, it was expensive. And as we were spending our own money we decided we would rather spend it on something more worthwhile.

As I said they have now been boarding for a year and a half. There is no doubting the benefits. All of them have flourished. Leo has developed into a gorgeous little gentleman and already knows more than I do about just about everything. He has captained his school football and cricket teams. Bea has turned out to be a school superstar, with great grades and masses of extra-curricular activities such as the school play, musical theatre and netball to mention a few. Olivia has become a lovely, confident and capable young lady, who is on track to do really well in her GCSEs this year and has made friends I think she will know forever.

There are so many upsides; the education (obviously), the people they meet, the things they do (Leo’s school just raised money for Afghanistan by reading poetry for 24 hours in a tree-house, nuts I know, but what a lovely romantic idea), the sport they play, the values they learn, the bonds they make. But what are the downsides?

I suppose the biggest one is that I miss them. OK I won’t pretend to miss the everyday drudgery of the school run, the homework, and the endless bickering. But I do miss not seeing them every day and not kissing them goodnight. The girls are much better at keeping in touch with me than Leo, so we skype or talk every day and I love hearing their news, but sometimes I won’t hear from him for ten days, which is tough. I rely on texts from another mother to know how he got on in his football matches. And of course I wake up in the middle of the night wondering how he is.

The truth is of course, he’s fine. He’s more than fine. If he weren’t fine I would hear about it. We have had some bouts of homesickness from all three and I can confirm the saying about boarding school that ‘you’re only as happy as your most miserable child’. A year and a half in though they are all pretty settled and I think would be horrified at the thought of going back to school in Abu Dhabi.

I suppose the reason I say I’m not sure what I think about it is that although I know it’s the best thing for them, it may not be the best thing for me. And I still can’t help wondering if we are all missing out on family life. Having said that I worked out the other day that they have five months at home so we do have plenty of time together as well.

I don’t think there always is a right or a wrong when it comes to children. Maybe there is just a middle ground that works and for the moment this is it.

Any mother (no, not fathers in my personal experience) of children going off to boarding school will know that after the stress of saying goodbye to the little loves, the next most stressful thing is the dreaded LIST of belongings they can take. This includes everything from a (named) lice comb to underwear (in Leo’s case, only white allowed) to duvet covers, wellington boots and that’s before you’ve even started on the uniform.
On Leo’s list this year was a satchel. It had to be black, and it had to be a satchel, not a backpack, or a briefcase. I can’t tell you how hard it is to find a good old-fashioned black satchel. At least for less than 200 quid. Finally I stumbled across a website called George Isaac Satchels. There it was, the PERFECT satchel. Available in every colour, even pink! I was suddenly transported back to an era of Enid Blyton and bad pub food. Ideal. So I ordered the satchel in what I thought was enough time, ten days before the start of term.
Term began and there was no sign of the satchel. I called the company, got an answer machine. I emailed, no reply. Happily Leo was so involved in the beginning of the football season he didn’t really mind.
Another week passed. Still no news. I emailed again. It’s on its way I was told. They are handmade in London so can take up to 20 days. Should be there this week. The week came and went, still no sign of the satchel.
“It’s an internet scam,” thundered my husband. “You fool.”
“I do really need my satchel,” said Leo when I saw him at his first football match.
I wrote again. A reply came back from Joanna saying she would check the tracking order as soon as she was back from hospital.
I asked her if she was all right. “Yes fine, just having my chemo.”
So, as it turns out George Isaac Satchels is far from an internet scam. Joanna set up the business to raise money for the Wessex Cancer Trust. So if any of you need a satchel, or even a handbag (see pic) then I can highly recommend them.
Just be sure to order in plenty of time…

https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeIsaacSatchels

http://www.georgeisaacsatchels.co.uk

A few days ago we went on a family picnic to a lake close to our home in the south of France. After a rather pleasant lunch of saucisson, baguette and brie washed down with rosé wine, my husband and I left the children to play while we took a stroll around the lake. At one point we came across a woman lying flat on her back wearing nothing but black bikini bottoms and a pink towel covering her head. Even without seeing her face you could tell she was of a certain age. We immediately stopped chatting and tiptoed past her. In part, we didn’t want to wake her up, but there was also the feeling that we were intruding on something private, almost something we shouldn’t be seeing. It struck me then how rare it is to see a pair of boobs on display in France, at least from a woman below the age of 50.
The magazine French Elle, know as ‘the bible’ here, ran an article last month heralding La Fin Du Topless Sur La Plage? – Is this the end of topless bathing on the beach? The magazine concluded that yes it is, and that only two per cent of women under the age of 35 now sunbathe topless.
When we first moved to the south of France in 2000 there was still quite a lot of topless sunbathing on the beaches but nowadays, letting it all hang out is no longer de rigueur. Why is this?
In the sixties, Brigitte Bardot led the way in St Tropez. It was the sexual revolution and French women’s breasts were at the forefront. Bardot topless on the beach was synonymous with equality. Wearing a monokini was a sign of liberation, freedom of choice and youth. Now it has become the opposite.
“For a French woman today, not showing her breasts is a sign of liberation,” says Chantal, a 28-year old accountant I meet on the beach at Espiguette Plage, close to Montpellier in the South of France. “The fact that we can cover up, that we don’t need to display everything shows we are in charge of our own bodies, that we decide who sees what, and when they see it.”
This sentiment is echoed by her friend Justine, a 30-year old bank clerk, who adds that the shift in attitude has in part been brought about by the proliferation of porn on the Internet. Breasts on the beach are no longer the innocent manifestation of a social and sexual revolution; they have been somehow tarnished by the porn industry. If you expose your breasts, you are cheap. Or rather nudity has become cheap, at least in public.
“It is women who are forced to work in this disgusting industry who have to show their breasts. Educated career women do not,” she says. “The female body has been stolen by the porn industry, which uses it as it pleases. By covering up we are saying that we will not be part of this debasing of women. We are making a stand.”
Needless to say both Chantal and Justine are wearing bikini bottoms and tops. I ask them where they bought them from. Monoprix says Chantal, Eres says Justine. As with a lot of things in France, fashion plays a big part. Eres is an exclusive French swimwear and lingerie house that claims its products are “body architecture”. And it’s tough to have much influence on a body with just a pair of skimpy bikini bottoms. I am sure there is an element of fashion behind French women’s reluctance to get display their boobs. As Julie, a 32-year old French friend of mine who lives in Montpellier says: “Going topless would seem very 1970s, rather like having hairy armpits and wearing flares.”
The trend to cover up seems to have affected more than just the nation’s beaches. Ségolène Royal, former presidential candidate and now Minister for Ecology, recently tried to force women to cover up in her government ministry by declaring a ban on the famous French décolleté, or low neckline. Her argument was that they were to work not to show off their assets. She didn’t succeed, because even if a French woman doesn’t want to show her boobs, no one has the right to take away her liberty to do so. Royal was forced to make a public retraction on twitter.
How much the covering up on the beach is influenced by the fashion houses wanting to sell two bits of material for vast amounts of dosh as opposed to one is hard to say, but the union-style mentality is still extremely obvious in France. When Bardot got her boobs out in the Sixties a whole nation of women followed. Now a whole nation of women have put their boobs back in. During my day on the beach, the only French women I saw sunbathing topless looked like they’d been there during the sexual revolution. The others were German and heavily tattooed. And there is nothing seductive about them at all.
“Sunbathing topless makes you look old and unfashionable,” says Manon, a 34-year old graphic designer from Montpellier. “It’s the sort of thing my mother did. I never have. It makes you look old and at the same time it’s very ageing. The skin on your breasts is very delicate and sun exposure is not good for it.”
Health is one of the biggest factors driving French women to cover up. For a nation of Gauloise-smoking, coffee drinking rebels this too is a new trend. “It has become very retro to sunbathe, topless or not,” says Claire, a 38-year-old French friend of mine who lives in the Aquitaine region of France. “Everyone now knows the damage the sun does to your skin. I wear sun screen every day, even in the winter, and most of my friends do too. There is nothing more ageing than all that crinkly skin on your décolleté.”
Despite their reputation for smoking and drinking coffee, you only have to walk into a French pharmacy to see how seriously French women take their health and the effect it has on their looks. Almost three-quarters of the shelves are stocked with lotions and potions for slimmer legs, firmer buttocks and clear skin, magical cures that may or may not work but certainly sell well. If there is one thing they know about, it’s how to make the best of themselves; and it seems they have come to the conclusion that being almost naked in public is not a good look. As Claire says: “It is quite rare to see any under forties here sunbathing topless unless they are German, Dutch or ‘daring’ British. Elegant French women tend to be quite understated fashion-wise and we think pretty and strategically-placed fabric is far more alluring than flabby flesh. I have never sunbathe topless in public mainly for this reason, but also because of the damage the sun does.”
French women are programmed to seduce, and French women find undressing for a lover (or being undressed) much more seductive than showing up naked. Why take away all the mystery and allure? In this instance less is not more. It’s all about the joy of slowly opening the package, peeling back the layers to discover the prize within. “No man will be bothered to seduce you if you give him everything on a plate, they want to have the fun of the game, even if they know you’re a sure thing,” says Julie. “My husband still enjoys removing my underwear, even after ten years of marriage and two children. And I love playing the game with him, it keeps our marriage alive. ”
Clothes are there to make men think about removing them, to make them imagine what lies beneath and the promise of untold pleasures and beauty if they could just get there. As the author of the French classic book Bonjour Tristesse Françoise Sagan said: “A dress makes no sense unless it inspires a man to take it off you.”
As I leave Espiguette Plage I spot an attractive blonde woman sunbathing topless. I see she is reading a book in French. Have I found the only remaining French topless sunbather under 50? No, she tells me, she’s Swiss.

We are staying with some lovely friends in France at the moment where I have come across a brilliant, and indispensable, book. It is called In Search of Charm and was written by a lady called Mary Young in 1962.

We are told in the blurb that Mary is the “Principal of the Mary Young Model School and Agency in London and the organizer and chief instructress of courses on poise, dress and personality”. It goes on to say that in her book, Mary “shows how to set about becoming that charming young woman you would like to be”.

My girls and I looked through it and were horrified to find that we have spent our entire lives walking into a room THE WRONG WAY. I quote: “The secret of a good entrance is to come in without commotion, closing the door behind you with both arms behind you so that you are looking into the room. The picture is even more attractive if you slide yourself into the middle of the door so that you are ‘framed’ as it were.”

We have now spent hours perfecting the entrance, as Olivia demonstrates, Mary would be proud of us. We’re still working on the exit.IMG_1850
Another top tip from Mary is how to walk up stairs. “Young woman, you should go up those stairs like a bird in flight, lightly, daintily, with feet dead straight and treading on the ball of the foot only.” Easy peasy unless you’re carrying armfuls of laundry or firewood.
Mary covers many more topics, such as hands and feet. “Did you know,” she writes, “that neglected hands can undermine your confidence?” And “Do you know that your feet should be scrubbed with soap and water and rinsed in cold water every morning and every night, and in fact as often as is convenient?”

Other subjects include personality, voice and laughter, etiquette, and even how to maintain a perfectly charming figure through her “three-fold attack” which is essential reading. First point is to “use the body in all its normal everyday activities beautifully and correctly. Second is “eat to live” and NOT the other way round. Third is “exercising, but in particular becoming an enthusiastic walker, and breathing deeply and rhythmically”.

Obviously a lot of the advice Mary gives (especially pertaining to the length of gloves we should all be wearing) is outdated. But I thought it was a fascinating insight into just how much you can do yourself to create a good impression. As Coco Chanel said “There are no ugly women, just lazy women.” And although Mary (and Coco) belong to a different era, I don’t think it does young ladies like my girls any harm at all to read about the importance of posture, manners and clean nails. I’m not sure why these things are no longer viewed as important, but they don’t seem to be. And actually they really can make a difference. I thought one of her best lines was the following: “Do you realise that in the sum total of your appearance one wrong or uncared for item can ruin the whole?” Now where did I put my gloves…?

When we were in London last time Rupert, Leo and I went to see the Matisse at the Tate Modern. It was fabulous, if a tad crowded. One upside to living in Abu Dhabi is that wherever you go, you are practically alone. Leo and I wandered through listening to the “instructions” as he called them and I am now a convert to those things. They really do bring an exhibition to life.
This morning I received two takes on the Matisse; one rather improbably from Top Shop, in its email newsletter. The other from my good friend Simon Fletcher, an established artist in his own right. Top Shop focuses on the colours and vibrancy of the exhibition, it’s nicely put together and even links his cut-outs to crop-tops in case its readers are waning. Below are Simon’s thoughts:

Matisse papiers decoupé at the Tate modern, London until 7th September 2014

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue”
H. Matisse

I didn’t know why it was called ‘l’Escargot’ when I first saw it as a boy but I loved the colours and dynamic; I envied ‘La Danse’ and marvelled at the simplicity of the idea of three arches with figures moving through them.

Henri Matisse 1869 – 1954 has always been an inspiration for me since my teenage years. He defies categorisation and enjoys a unique position in 20th century art somewhere between abstraction and figuration.

Seeing his colour develop from his first Fauve period, the portrait of his wife (portrait with green stripe 1905) and the early landscapes, the Moroccan paintings and interiors of his middle years to the last paintings before his illness in 1941, the pink nudes, the great still lifes, is to map a joyful journey. There are no political statements in his art, no social significance, just exciting, stimulating use of colour and forms.

Illness marked at least two important milestones in his life the first being when, recovering from appendicitis in hospital, he was given a box of colours. The effect of his first attempts to paint inspired him to quit his job as a lawyer’s clerk and enrol at art school where he met and became friends with painters who would eventually form a loose movement which became known as the Fauves. On seeing their work exhibited a critic had written that it was like seeing wild beasts (fauves) together and the name stuck. The second milestone came when he was recovering from surgery for intestinal cancer and, unable to stand for long he turned to coloured papers and scissors to create his famous late works, the papiers decoupé.

Illness turns us inward, the forced inactivity allowing lengthy reflection about our past and possible future and there is no question when looking at the work of this last period of his life that Matisse had come to it at the perfect time to complete his oeuvre.

In these works we can see a consummate artist at work using all the various and complex skills acquired over many years of creativity: knowledge of the human form, of plants and animals and of course that last and most difficult thing, a mastery of colour. Few painters I think have had such an ability to create harmonious compositions using a powerful palette of rich colours. The success of these works and their enormous popularity is largely due I believe to the careful placing of evocative shapes which suggest plants, animals, flowers, figures etc. but which never impinge to the extent that our imagination is trapped by them – he leaves us free to make associations in our own way from the sublime choice of colours from deep magenta, through ultramarine to gold ochre and black.

Simon Fletcher 2014
www.simonfletcher.org