Tomorrow we leave Jamaica. As I write I am sitting at Strawberry Hill (another one of Kate Moss’s hang-outs, does the woman do anything but travel to Jamaica?). I am on a terrace overlooking mountains that are slowly being covered in evening mist. I have never seen such a lush landscape; the green is intense and the flowers bright yellow, pink, purple and red. My favourite ones were delicate small white ones that had blown off trees and floated in the sea at Goldeneye. It was like swimming surrounded by tiny origami swans.

From the valley below there is reggae music. Extremely loud reggae music. In France you have barking dogs wherever you go; in Jamaica you have Bob Marley. I was never really into Bob Marley, even as a young wild thing. In fact I was never really a young wild thing. As my husband pointed out when I told him I hated smoking pot as a teenager; “For someone who is so obsessed with ageing, you seem to have been middle aged for a very long time.” Perhaps I am going to go through adolescence when most women go through the menopause?

I think Jamaica is lovely but a little too groovy and laid-back for me. We met the manager of the hotel today who laughingly said “there’s no point in going 100 miles an hour, because everyone else is going at fifty”. She is over 40 and looks about 25 so obviously the stress-free attitude is a good one, but that would just really annoy me. How does anyone get anything DONE around here? Well, most of them don’t. Here is a classic example. One of the waitresses here told us her name today.

“That’s an unusual name,” said my husband, “what does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” said the waitress, who is probably in her mid-twenties. “I must find out.”

But even if I wouldn’t like to live here, I like it. The people are friendly, the rum punches good, the food delicious and the countryside stunning. Maybe by the time I’m 50 I’ll be groovy enough to really get into the swing of things.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I have made an enemy more menacing than any Bond villain. His aim is not to take over the world, but to wake it up. He struts around the garden crowing at all hours. His most favourite crowing time seems to be 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am and then just when I’m settling in for an afternoon nap at 4pm.

I have tried to scare him off by running towards him shrieking in Italian but he just stands there, crowing at me. Rupert threw one of my flip-flops at him which at least got him moving. He was shaken though, not stirred.

Nick the charming South African who runs the place has a healthy big-game attitude to irritating fowl and has ordered his liquidation, but the villain remains at large. I think he must have friends in high places.
Before I came here I had an email from my friend Rita. “Avoid the Jamaican Jerk Chicken,” it read. I don’t want to avoid this one. I want to meet it, on a plate, covered in BBQ sauce.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Lying in Ian Fleming’s bed at 4 am unable to sleep I started to wonder what he would think of our visit to his home…..

“Some rum types at Goldeneye. The man is there to write about a new property development there, plan is to build and sell houses I gather. The woman, too scrawny for me, is writing a book about ageing. Can you imagine anything less thrilling? And at my desk. She spends most of the day there tapping away.

Still the old place looks good and I suppose it’s nice to have a writer at my desk again, even if she’s a woman. Noel would not be amused.”

Whatever Messrs Fleming and Coward would have thought I have loved writing at his desk and reading words he wrote there. As I read Dr No I can almost hear him tapping out the words at his gold-plated typewriter, looking forward to drinks time.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

On the way to paradise, otherwise known as Goldeneye, we were upgraded to Virgin Upper Class. I have never been upgraded before and was very excited. Rightly so it turns out.

Flying first class is a different world. You have a dedicated slave to see that you’re happy at all times, every time you go to the loo someone has miraculously folded the end of the loo-paper into a neat arrow (maybe I could train the children to do this at home) and they even hand out goodies like lip-gloss before you take off. But the most exciting thing about flying Upper Class was the Colin Firth look-alike. Obviously I spotted him the moment we got on, but it took until the passport queue to strike up a conversation.

“Shameless,” my husband called me. “Selfless” is how I define it.

Of course I am happily married with three children (and two step-children) so what possible interest could a Colin Firth look-alike hold for me? No, I was thinking of my wrinkle-free, single friend Iona in India of course. Turns out Colin, as we may as well call him, travels a lot to India, so I am going to put them in touch.

Last night I had the best massage I have ever had. Orah appeared with hot oil, warm stones and magic hands to relax me beyond my expectations. She set up her table in the sunken garden. I listened to the rhythm of the waves and drifted in and out of consciousness as she manipulated my body. We discussed ageing and what ages people, like stress, which is what ages me. Orah told me she had watched Oprah the other night and there was a programme about women who defy age.

“Funny thing was,” she said. “They had one thing in common. They were all single.”

Hmmm. Maybe I’d better keep Colin away from Iona if she wants to stay wrinkle-free.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I have landed in Paradise.

“Welcome to Goldeneye,” says a charming black woman dressed in white. “Here is the house cocktail, it’s just a little rum, fresh apple and lime. You’ll be staying in the Ian Fleming Villa. There is a private beach, pool, several bedrooms each with their own outside bath and shower, any laundry you have just put it in the basket over there and housekeeping will collect it, the mini bar is over there, just help yourself, should you have too many Goldeneye’s and collapse there is an emergency medical button you can push for help, your masseur will be here at six. Nico, our personal trainer (Italian, very muscular) is on-hand to take you jet-skiing, running, canoeing, whatever you like. Can I do anything else for you?”

I am writing this at the desk Ian Fleming tapped out all the Bond novels on a gold-plated Royal typewriter. There was something impressively vulgar about the man’s taste, but not his house; it’s a masterpiece of minimalism. The room I am in is as big as the whole first floor of Sainte Cecile, the window stretches across almost the whole wall. Outside I can hear the sea lapping on my private raked beach, a chicken who has decided to visit, crickets, tree-frogs and various other Caribbean creatures.

Patrick Leigh Fermor describes the house brilliantly in his book The Traveller’s Tree: “Here, on the headland, Ian Fleming has built a house called Goldeneye that might serve as a model for new houses in the tropics. Trees surround it on all sides except the sea, which it almost overhangs. Great windows capture every breeze, to cool, even on the hottest day, the large white rooms. The windows that look towards the sea are glassless but equipped with outside shutters against rain: enormous quadrilaterals surrounded by dark wooden frames which enclose a prospect of sea and cloud and sky, and tame the elements, as it were, into an overhanging fresco of which one could never tire.”

Let me try to describe my bathroom. It is outside, in a sort of secret, bamboo walled garden, filled with exotic plants. In the evening over-sized candles light your way to a free-standing Victorian bath amid palm trees on a wood-panelled stage. To the left is a large shower and next to the bedroom door a rectangular marble slab with a brass sink on top of it. A large mirror hangs above it, its frame made up of tiny shells. In this mirror you can see a full-length view of yourself in the one behind which stands against a trellis at the other end of the garden-bathroom. This may not please all the guests but I guess Scarlett Johanssen, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, all of whom come here regularly, enjoy the view.

The ground between the two mirrors is covered with pale, old stone. It is lovely to think that Ian Fleming must have padded about here barefoot as he prepared to take his pre-cocktail bath underneath the stars, plotting Bond’s next move. The ground in the rest of the ‘room’ is a mixture of flagstones and tiny stones, candles are dotted about as well as plants; some vibrant green, some bright red and pink, no other decoration is needed. Half of the area is protected by a wooden awning, but if it is raining and you want a bath you will have to have a shower as well.

Last night we had dinner on the beach. The stairs was lit by large candles. A table was laid and we sat under the stars, listening to the sound of the waves, and ate prawns, fish and steak. This was washed down with a couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. In the distance, you could make out the sound of a Bob Marley song. There is always a snake in paradise.

I will more or less follow Ian Fleming’s pattern of life while I’m here. Get up early (as I write it is 5.30am), go for a swim (I’ll do some sun salutes of course too), have breakfast, write until lunchtime, lunch, afternoon nap, more writing, cocktails, dinner. What’s not to like? Though I’m not sure where I’ll be able to fit in the Italian personal trainer. Unless I can distract my husband…

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

England is going to the dogs we hear. In fact it is one of the reasons we left. I couldn’t face a life surrounded by yobs, litter, child molesters and people who can’t speak English. The horrific news last week that a mother goaded her toddlers into what basically amounts to human cock-fighting and then filmed them did nothing to dissuade me that we had made the right move in abandoning Blightly.

But whatever is happening to the rest of the country there is at least one place where the England of my childhood is alive and thriving. At Gravetye Manor in Sussex (www.gravetye.co.uk) you get the feeling nothing has changed for 100 years. Moreover there is a comforting sensation you get while sitting in the wood-panelled drawing room that things won’t change for the next 100 years.

We arrived Sunday just before lunch. My husband from Delhi and me from Montpellier. We were welcomed by a lovely girl who suggested we might like to have a drink in the garden before lunch. In fact one thing has changed at Gravetye over the last 100 years; the weather. We sat in warm sunshine looking over rolling hills down to the lake.

Lunch was a quintessentially English affair; roast beef and yorkshire pudding followed by the most orgasmic sticky toffee pudding which I ate with rather too loud enthusiasm. Another advantage of Gravetye is that all the other guests were well over sixty thus making my husband and I feel incredibly young and attractive.

After lunch we sat in the garden with our coffee enjoying the afternoon sun and the spectacle of a man in a straw hat sleeping with his mouth open while his wife pretended to look at the herbaceous border.

For how many years have people been snoozing peacefully in that beautiful garden? Long may it continue.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I am at the airport on the first leg of my Jamaica trip. There is a mad woman next to me muttering to herself about her passport and where she might have put it. What is it about travelling that turns people into lunatics? For all I know she might be perfectly normal in her home surroundings, but right now I’m tempted to call in the men in white coats.

Yesterday little Leo had a big day. In the morning he had school, once home we played in the garden, then he was forced to play mummy and baby with Bea. Bea is a far stricter mother than I am, so Leo was subjected to severe tellings off and not allowed to breathe without permission. He also had to carry Bea’s other “baby” around for most of the afternoon until Bea decided it should learn to swim and dumped it in the pool.

We baked a chocolate cake and took it to the river to eat it. Leo’s girlfriend Astrid showed up and so Bea lost her baby. Astrid and Leo are so sweet together, padding about, holding hands and whenever she can she steals a kiss. We spent the rest of the day by the pool where Leo did belly flops (rather sweetly called Angel jumps in French) from the little pool to the big pool to impress Astrid.

At 8pm he was exhausted. He collapsed into bed, weeping with tiredness.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Oh Spiderman,” he wailed, tears pouring down his face. “I love you so much.”

There’s no accounting for taste.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

They say that women of a certain age discover either God or gardening. What a choice. Why not fast cars or even faster men? Diamonds or sexy underwear? Lying around reading Elle eating chocolates all day and/or telephone sex with Colin Firth?

For me I think God is out of the question. I grew up exposed to the hypocrisies of Catholicism on one side and a lovely protestant vicar on the other; neither of them really inspired me. In terms of my character I think I am more Jewish than anything else, but we have no Jewish blood in the family. My sun salutes take me closer to Budda.

I once had a pleasant experience gardening. I was heavily pregnant and couldn’t sleep due to the heat. I went out into the garden and started pulling up weeds under a full moon, it was very satisfying. I also thought it would make a good book title: Gardening by Moonlight.

Yesterday I went to water our oleander, wisteria and new vines at the Mazet. The new vines are just showing their first tiny baby leaves, which is actually quite an exciting sight. I was surprised by how happy it made me. I suppose it’s the new life that make is so fascinating, rather like growing a baby, but less cumbersome and better for your figure.

But there is a big difference between gazing at a few vines and really getting into gardening. I can’t see myself getting the bug, at least not yet. But maybe I haven’t yet reached that certain age.

Talking of age, my parents-in-law came for dinner last night and at one stage Leonardo looked at my mother-in-law (a very elegant seventy-year-old lady who looks at least 10 years younger) and said: “You’re old.” Instinctively I told him not to be nasty to granny. But here’s the question; why is old nasty? If he’d said “you’re young” everyone would have loved it.

What’s wrong with being old? Is it because we drift into God or gardening people hate it so much?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

As I was doing my sun salutes this morning while swaying along to Mika, the new preferred album in the household which has knocked Take That off their number one spot after a record three months, my husband was recovering from a night of partying with my best friend and some of her friends in Delhi.

Mika, by the way, is brilliant. Tracks 1,2 and 8 are guaranteed to put you in a dancingly good mood and the others aren’t shabby either. My sun salutes are much more lively now, even if I have been kept awake by children most of the night, as I was last night. I mean, I know he’s only three, but doesn’t he realise how RUDE it is to come barging into my room at 4am, shout at me about his light being switched off and then spend the rest of the night snoring next to me?

My husband went to a nightclub where apparently tout Delhi was gathered. He mingled with top models (all as tall as him and he’s over 6 foot 2), celebs and of course my friend Iona.

Iona and I used to go to nightclubs when we were 20. I have to admit that I hated them then, although I pretended to love them. I even hated them when I was 17 and did practically nothing else. Goodness only knows what I’d think of one now. I mean I love the dancing, but all that noise, smoke and queuing for the loo is just too tedious.

Another thing I don’t miss is the prats you meet at nightclubs. My husband told me he shared a taxi back with a rather handsome, surly Frenchman with more hair than me (which is tricky considering I have at least two other people’s heads of hair as well my own.)

He tried to talk to the hirsute one who was monosyllabic. Until he asked him what he was doing in Delhi.

“I model, and I write,” he said with a flick of his locks. Yeah, whatever, as Bea would say.

Meanwhile I have finally had a text from Heathcliff. It sounds like he will be in Devon when we are there. Now I just have to make sure Olivia and Bea don’t fall in love with his sons. I know Olivia is far too sensible, but I fear for my little Bea-Sting….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I had always thought of myself as a glass half-full as opposed to half-empty type of person. Until yesterday morning. Yesterday morning a parcel arrived containing two large packets of things I had never heard of; one called a Pinnacle Studio Titanium Edition (is there any other?) and a Pinnacle Podcast Factory.

“Great, someone has forged my credit card and bought all this stuff that I have no idea what to do with and AS IF I HAVEN’T GOT ENOUGH TO DO what with finding a commercial director for Liverpool Football Club (along with Bea’s bikini top, I don’t know which is the tougher search), looking after three children alone, writing my next book, ironing for Britain, keeping the pool clean, walking the dog, feeding the fat cat, emptying the dishwasher, making the beds, cooking the meals, doing the school run NOW I have to locate this bloody company which probably doesn’t even exist and try to get my money back and then I’ll have to send the stuff back which means queuing up at the post office, wasting yet MORE time which I don’t have. Gggggrrrrrrrr.

I found the company very easily and was about to call the switchboard when I noticed they have a press officer called Dan. The useful thing about being a journalist is not the money you earn (hence the headhunting as well) but you can get nice people in press offices to do things for you. Dan said he would sort it out straight away but was sure my credit card hadn’t been tampered with.

An hour later the mystery was solved. I had written a blog about the French election for a French website and won first prize for my entry. You didn’t know I was a hot political commentator did you? Well, neither did I.

So my lesson for the day is, as Brian would say; always look on the bright side of life..da dam…da dam.. da dam di dum di dam….or something like that anyway.

And if anyone knows what it is I’ve won, could you please tell me?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007