Never mind the vinaigrette, last night I felt totally overcome with an overwhelming and heavy sense of responsibility. I looked around the table at my three children. They were all happily eating, arguing over who should have laid out the napkins and whether Jesus had created my hair (actually he didn’t, Rodolfo Valentin did).

Suddenly I thought; “Help, their whole happiness, health and lives are in my hands.”

I think in part I am feeling like this because next week I go away. I have one more luxury spa to visit in the Caribbean (it’s such a tough assignment) and am going to spend the week being pampered and also finishing the book which I said I would get to my agent by the end of April.

Most sane people would be busy packing their bikinis, waxing their legs and shouting ‘yippee’ at the thought of a week in the Caribbean. Not me. As I walked into my son’s room this morning and smelled his yummy, gorgeous smell my only thought was “I can’t live without this for a week”.

But of course I can, and I will, and the children will be fine with ‘Mami’ Chantal and ‘Papi’ Gilbert who spoil them and adore them and do all the things with them I will never do like go to McDonalds, drink Coca-Cola and watch Spiderman in French.

I know from past experience that once I get on that plane and start thinking about the book my angst diminishes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with now.

My husband meanwhile is in Delhi, hanging out with my best friend. He helpfully emailed me this morning to tell me she “has not one wrinkle and looks great”. So is the answer to staying young living in India, surrounded by younger men (she works on an Indian version of a FHM-style Mag) and not having three children? If so, it’s too late for me.

I’ll just have to accept my wrinkles and go and smell my son’s pyjamas.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

The children came home for lunch today. Accompanying them was Olivia’s best friend before she met the other Olivia, Clemence Barre. For some reason she is never known simply by her christian name, notwithstanding the fact that as far as I know there is no other Clemence within a ten-mile radius of here.

I am always nervous about feeding French people. They seem to have this food thing so sussed. The first time Clemence Barre came to lunch my husband fed her baked beans on toast. She was not impressed. So today I went shopping and bought lovely hams, cherry tomatoes, salad, cheese and of course a baguette.

Half-way through lunch Clemence Barre said: “I don’t really like my salad.”

“Why not?” I asked

“I prefer my salad with a little vinaigrette,” she replied. Of course if I put vinaigrette on salad my children won’t eat it, it’s too strong, so I had left it out. I put some balsamic vinegar aux fruits rouges from Fauchon in Paris on Clemence Barre’s salad which she then ate happily. How is it that even aged seven the French are so much more sophisticated than us?

For those of you following the Heathcliff saga, I wasted no time in booking our summer holiday to stay with my mother and have sent him a text telling him we’re coming. This was about seven minutes ago and I haven’t heard back, but won’t go into terminal decline just yet. I’m bursting with curiosity to see what he’s like now. Funny to think that when I last saw him mobile phones weren’t invented. How old does that make me feel?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

It is Monday morning and as I start my stressful commute down the stairs to my office overlooking the pool, I am reminded of all those poor people stuck on trains, buses, tubes and trams. But I have a cunning plan to make their morning commute less painful.

In Geneva (and what a great city it is) we all took a tram from the hotel to the cathedral one morning. About three minutes into the tram ride a glamorous lady with masses of dark curly hair started to sing, accompanied by a man on an accordion. The children did what children do when they hear nice music; they got up and started to dance. I gave them some money to give to the performers who then launched into that brilliant Gipsy Kings tune that we can all hum but can never remember the name of. Now I wanted to dance as well. But the tram was full of commuters looking grumpy.

So what did I do? I swayed rather pathetically in my chair, not daring to get up, despite encouragement from my three little dancers who have yet to acquire inhibitions. I still regret not getting up, although my husband did later confirm that I would have looked like a mad woman, which is something I try to avoid.

But imagine this: what if everyone on the tram had got up and started doing the salsa? How much more fun would their commute to work have been that morning and how much happier would they have been when they arrived at their desks?

So my advice is, if you feel like dancing, go for it. Maybe you could start a trend, a sort of commuters’ equivalent of laughter yoga. I wish I had.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I have finally worked out what it is that women don’t like about men. This revelation can be indirectly attributed to Leonardo who was found by a German at 11pm in the lobby of the hotel.

“Please take better care of your children at this time,” read a note the German left me the following morning.

How I’m supposed to take care of my children while fast asleep is beyond me. I asked Leo what he was doing in the lobby. “Talking to peoples,” he replied. Anyway, it was clear that either Rupert or I would have to share a room with him to avoid him running into any more Germans. Talking of running into Germans, I literally did, I failed to stop at the bottom of a piste where the snow had been turned into slush, which I thought would slow me down. Sadly it didn’t.

“First you must learn to stop ze skis,” bellowed the German.

“And you must learn to stop invading Poland,” was on the tip of my tongue but I thought better of it.

When we got back from dinner last night Olivia was still awake.

“Do you want to share a room with me?” Rupert asked her.

“No,” she replied. “You snore and you’ve got a willy.”

Other highlights from Zermatt include seeing Leo on skis for the first time (how cute was he?); my first ski with the girls who have very different techniques. Bea just points her skis down the mountain and shrieks, Olivia is more into the careful turns. I miss waking up to a view of the Matterhorn and of course the lovely Ed whom Olivia talks about constantly. She misses her new best friend that she made in the Yeti Ski Club too, conveniently also called Olivia. Apart from skiing with the children my two favourite moments were afternoon tea on my terrace in the sun and an evening walk on the hills around Zermatt.

Zermatt is lovely and I am determined to make it back there soon. We are on our way to Geneva now where we stop for the night before heading home. Geneva is a great place; but I feel rather like Heidi when she is carted away from the Alps to Frankfurt. As I watch the mountains vanish in the distance I am already yearning for them.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell

The most distinguished Englishman to visit Zermatt was Edward Whymper, famous for being the first person to climb the Matterhorn. He made eight attempts to climb it, only succeeding when he realised he was about to be beaten by an Italian. He now lies buried in Chamonix, a monument to the great British adventuring spirit.

Even once he got to the top of the Matterhorn I doubt he made as much noise as a group of people from Yorkshire we had the misfortune of running across this evening. We went out from dinner having left the children in the hotel with the lovely Ed. Suddenly as if from nowhere they appeared along with trays of lager, clouds of smoke and extremely loud voices. It began with a lot of random yelling. Then it turned into games like the famously intellectual ‘give me…clap clap…names of…clap clap’ which I last saw being played at the annual Hatfield College rugby club dinner; famous for its high-brow evenings and charming traditions like chanting ‘moose’ en masse when an unattractive girl enters the room.

Offensive as the Yorkshire contingent were (I did at one stage wonder whether I should renounce my English citizenship) it was an interesting study in anthropology. There were children there and you could see how they would grow up to be just as loud and uncouth as the adults around them. I watched in wonder as one girl aged about eight took to yelling ‘anyone who doesn’t want to play - go away’ and wolf-whistling to get the attention of the others. Actually it was rather like watching monkeys in a cage at the zoo, only more depressing.

There was one upside though. Our children have been fairly menacing over the past few days. But spending time in the presence of these louts made us look forward to seeing them again. We quickly paid the bill and headed back to the hotel where the girls were fast asleep and Leo was waiting to give me a kiss.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

We are in Zermatt on a skiing holiday with the children organised by a company called Powder Byrne. The concept is brilliant. They take your children away to places with lots of other children and people like a very nice man called Ed who like looking after children from 8.30 to 4pm so you can ski, sit in the sun, drink hot chocolate or do whatever you like doing up mountains. Then they organise a dinner for them every day at 6pm so you can have an hour in the bar.

This is all well and good, but what I want to know is this: Is there a company that looks after them at night? If not, can I just say that this is a business opportunity waiting to happen and I will be your very first and most loyal customer.

Our night went something like this after a nine-hour train journey from Montpellier to Zermatt.

9.30 pm (by which time I was fast asleep on account of Leonardo keeping me up all night the night before). “Mummy, daddy, Leo won’t go to sleep, he keeps annoying us.”

We get them into bed again, take my laptop into their room and try to calm them down with ABBA. This works for a few hours.

Midnight “Mummy, daddy, we can’t sleep.”

Off I go again, now I try Jack Johnson and swearing.

3am “Mummy, it’s already morning time in France. We’re ready.” The three of them are up and fully dressed. Great.

I explain (rather patiently I might add, considering) that when the sun is not up, it is not morning, here or in France.

They get back into their pyjamas and go back to bed reluctantly.

6am “Mummy, my bed isn’t tidy up.” This time it’s Leo, alone.

“Like I care,” I’m tempted to respond. Instead I tell him to go back to his untidy bed, which of course he refuses to do until I go with him and make his bed for him.

Olivia groans from her bed but luckily the girls sleep through the untidy bed episode.
7am we have to wake them all up to get them ready for ski-school.

It is now 7pm and I approach the night rather like a torture victim approaches his torture chamber. I suppose the only upside is, it can’t get any worse.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

There was a good article in this week’s Sunday Times about the remarkable comeback of Take That. Bryan Appleyard wrote about how amazing it is that after ten years in the wilderness the boys are back, bigger and better than ever.

It’s all very well going on about their ten years in the wilderness, but what about mine? It’s been horrible having to listen to Robbie Williams for the past ten years.

I remember when I first saw Take That. I was at my mother’s house in Devon (and by the way she thinks she may have spotted Heathcliff in a local supermarket, but decided not to approach him) when the five boys appeared, half-naked and dancing.

My mother was amazed at how young they were. “I wouldn’t know whether to feed them or f*** them,” she said. I was less confused then but looking at an old picture of them in Bryan’s article I have to admit they looked about fourteen.

Anyway, the MINUTE I heard they had come out with a new album I ordered it. I have now copied it several times so we have copies for both cars and each of the children’s rooms. They are all addicted to it and sing along loudly. Bea’s favourite is Patience which she hums non-stop. My husband has tried to wean them off by playing them Bob Dylan whenever I’m not around but I’m thrilled to say it hasn’t worked.

I am still researching my book on anti-ageing and I have to say that a Take That album played loudly in a convertible car whilst driving along in the sunshine is as good a tonic as I’ve come across, on a par with Laughter Yoga on Laguna Beach.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

The children have become very interested in who is related to whom and how it all works. Bea and Manon have been told that although they look and act like twins, they actually aren’t.

“Yes we are,” Bea told me this morning. “We have the same pink leotard for gym.”

Olivia has been pondering the brother and sister thing for a couple of days and has finally come to terms with the fact that she is inextricably linked to Bea and Leo, however angry it makes her.

“But what if Grandpa and Mormor (my mother) got married?” she asked her father. “Would that mean that you and mummy would be brother and sister?”

An interesting idea, but knowing my mother and my father-in-law I’d say it’s highly unlikely. He doesn’t share her passion for Che Guevara and she doesn’t know one end of a golf club from another.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

This morning was one of those mornings that make me even happier than I usually am that we moved here. For some reason the children were nice to me, and to each other. Even Max the cat was spared his normal morning tail-pulling from Leonardo.

I took the girls off to their gym course in Pezenas. It is the school holidays and they are doing gym and art every day from 9.30 to 4pm. This is costing us a total of £30 for both girls for the whole week. Amazing considering we paid more than that for half a day in a Sussex nursery when we only had one child. They skipped behind me with their friend Manon, happily discussing various ‘books’ they are writing which they assure me will make them a lot of money. Yeah, right, I know all about that. I’m sure with my aunt disinheriting me the books I have written so far have actually lost me more money than they’ll ever make me. But I didn’t mention that to them. As their subject matters are clowns, water and fire I doubt they’ll offend any remaining rich relations.

Having dropped them off I went shopping. By the time I arrived at M. Clerc’s shop I already had my hands full. Once there I bought fresh asparagus, artichokes, cherry tomatoes and lots more goodies.

As I went to leave with all my shopping he said: “Wouldn’t you rather swing by with the car?” What a sweetheart. Minutes later I arrived and pulled up on the pavement, holding up the traffic behind me. M. Clerc loaded my shopping in, told me I looked beautiful and gave me a kiss goodbye.

There are two main reasons this little episode makes me glad we live here; first there is no more charming grocer on the face of the earth than Jean-Luc Clerc, shopping with him is a joy and however tempted I am sometimes to move to somewhere a little more exciting or closer to a plate of proper Italian pasta I know I won’t leave until he retires. Second no one here would give you a hard time for holding up the traffic while your lunch is loaded into your car. Is there anywhere more civilised to live than France?

An eventful weekend, which began with me driving into the back of someone while gazing at a Ferrari.

I don’t know what it is about red Ferraris that get me so excited, maybe it’s genetic. Cars normally leave me cold. Anyway, there we were, me and the children, at a roundabout in Beziers bored after a long day’s shopping looking for exactly the right piece of gym kit and dance shoes.

Suddenly I spotted it, about four cars ahead in the lane to the left of us.

“Look,” I yelled. “A Ferrari.”

The children all flew out of their car-seats and pressed their faces up against the window.

“Get closer,” they commanded in unison. “I want to show them Leo’s jacket,” said Olivia (Leo has a Ferrari jacket, bought for him by my aunt along with a remote-control Ferrari that probably cost more than our car before she stopped speaking to me).

Two cars moved and now we could just about hear the Ferrari revving seductively. We had opened all the windows despite sub-zero temperatures and even turned Take That off (a rare occurrence). I was so keen to get up alongside this demi-god of cars so that I went straight into the car in front.

The driver was a woman; her husband was sitting next to her peacefully reading his newspaper (at least until we crashed into him). He stormed out of the car, carrying said newspaper, which I thought he was going to hit me round the head with.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was looking at the Ferrari.”

“Oh,” said the man following my gaze. “That’s alright then, no damage done.”

“Sshh,” said Bea. “We’re trying to listen to it.” The sound was divine and dangerous; like a big cat getting ready to pounce.

The Ferrari sped off and I felt a terrible longing deep down inside. Olivia must have felt the same.

“I need a Ferrari,” she announced.

Knowing her, one day she’ll have one. I hope she lets me have a go now and then.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007