I brushed my teeth this morning as the Ligurian countryside flashed by. I am on a night train bound for France after two days in Florence. The night train does not compare with the luxury of the Grand Hotel, and the view of Liguria may not be as dreamy as the one I had of the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio, but as a method of travel it is marvellous. I got into my bunk at midnight and woke at 8am. That happens about once a year at home.

I was rather tired. The office party the night before was great fun. “Don’t get drunk,” my mother emailed to tell me just before I left my room to join the others in the bar. And for once I didn’t. We ate in a restaurant that doubles as a museum during the day. I was sitting opposite a fresco of Dante having a conversation with Boccaccio. After dinner we went to a nightclub. Yes, you did hear me right. I went to a nightclub. And there discovered another advantage of getting older. I never have to go to one again.

The music was loud (funny that) and that sort of house stuff I loathe. They played one song Tamsin (a colleague from The 7 Arts) and I could sing along to and we danced happily. But then it was back to the dreary deep thud of monotonous music I’m sure even young people don’t want to listen to. Wouldn’t they prefer some Abba? Or maybe some Banarama? I know I would. And most of the pretty young things looked bored out of their minds.

As far as I can make out the point of a nightclub is this. If you’re a girl you show up wearing as little as possible and dance nonchalantly hoping one of the boys will come and pick you up and take you away from this meat market. If you’re a boy, you stand around posing and drinking and assessing the talent. I guess for women the ultimate aim is to be picked up by someone who marries you, thus making another visit unnecessary.

As we walked back to the hotel through the streets of Florence in the early hours of the morning I couldn’t help wondering if nightclubs had been around in Dante’s day the Inferno would have been even scarier.

Before I get to Nice, I must just tell you the best line of the trip. Ben, my boss, was looking up at the statue of David (the real one in the Accademia) when he said “Jeez, look at the size of him. Imagine how big Goliath must have been.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

There are worse places to spend a morning. I am at the Grand Hotel in Florence. My room looks out over the city and the Arno River. Inside it is almost more impressive. There are frescoes on three walls depicting romantic scenes from too long ago to even contemplate. The colours are faded reds, yellows and blues. The scenes unmistably Florentine. My bed has a regal structure over it which makes me feel like something out of a fairy-tale every time I look at it. There is a plush red velvet chair that is so deep, large and comfortable that I am tempted to stay in it for the rest of the week.

I am here for The 7 Arts (the head-hunters I work for) Christmas party. This is one of the advantages of having a proper job as well as writing. You get to see how people who have not spent most of their adult lives trying to be writers live.

Talking of trying to be a writer, I am reading a most brilliant and inspirational book called The Paris Review Interviews (Vol I). It is interviews with literary luminaries such as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Rebecca West and Dorothy Parker. I read last night that Capote was a horizontal writer. He always wrote lying down. Hemingway on the other hand preferred to stand up in his oversized slippers in front of a bookcase which he wrote on. This is obviously where I have been going wrong. Sitting down at my desk is not going to get me anywhere.

Happily as my adaptor plug doesn’t work properly I am writing this crouching on the floor with one foot pressed against the plug. Does that count do you think? Later on I may try penning a chapter or two while swinging from the wrought iron chandelier. That’s clearly what it’s there for.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Back in the 1990s, when I was an energetic young journalist covering Russia and eastern Europe, there emerged the phenomenon of the ‘Biznessman’ or ‘Biznesswoman’. These characters, generally male, would huddle in hotel foyers wearing leather jackets and tell me about their money-making schemes. They didn’t make much sense to me, but I assume they paid off. Central Europe has been transformed and Russia seems to produce a new billionaire every day. So, ten years later, I have decided to become a Biznesswoman. I’m not sure that I will wear a leather coat or huddle in a hotel, but faced with a husband who thinks that writing books on wine and water is a money-making scam and children who insist on horse-riding, tennis and piano lessons – and that’s just on a Wednesday – there was no option.

My first ‘bizness’ is probably the one I am most excited about. It is called Renew Retreats. I came up with the idea soon after finishing my latest book, To Hell in High Heels. Never mind hell; I was taken to bed with a kidney infection, felt run down and ready to die. I looked around for a spa retreat that would rejuvenate me and found nothing that I fancied. So today with a few of the most inspirational women I met during my research for the book, including Tina Richards, a top London holistic dermatologist and Anna Cooper, a jet-setting yoga guru and psychotherapist, together with my friend and neighbour Mary Lesault, we have come up with the ideal five-day spa retreat.

Ten lucky women will gather at Le Couvent in Hérépian in the first week of May and be treated to massages (one rather exotic one involving a Kansu bowl and warm oils which I have tried and it is mind-blowingly good), yoga, one-to-one dermatological consultations, nutritional advice and inspirational talks by moi on, among other topics, how to unlock your inner French woman and anti-ageing tips. For more information you can visit our glorious pink website.

The other ‘bizness’ is more prosaic, but may prove more profitable. After seven splendid summers in Sainte Cecile, we have decided to take the children on a Grand Tour of Europe next year. This will include visiting my mother near Rome, my cousin in Stockholm, Bea’s best friend Norrie in the Savoie and anybody else willing to give us a bed for the night. To help pay for this jaunt we are going to rent out the house for the summer. I hope it is a good idea. If anyone you know would like to stay in an old stone farmhouse with a swimming pool and only cicadas for company (as well as Max the cat and Wolfie the dog obviously), you can find out more at www.creme-de-langeudoc.com by clicking this link.

Now where did I put that leather jacket? Maybe I can find a pink one….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

My mother has recently started thinking about ageing. She tells me she would rather be dead than old. It’s a fair point. Having just written a book about ageing I know there aren’t many upsides. One is that the hair on your legs grows at a much slower rate. This is probably not much comfort if you’re a bloke. It also does not make up for no teeth, wrinkles, memory loss and a whole host of other irritating side-effects of age. What’s the point in having sleek legs if your face looks like W.H. Auden’s with a hangover?

I do not fear for my mother. She has always ignored the inevitable and will continue to do exactly as she always has done; that is live life as energetically and eccentrically as possible, until she is either arrested or immobile or possibly both. She is a great example.

Last night I saw another woman who has inspired me and made me less fearful of ageing. Rupert and I took the girls to see Marianne Faithfull in Beziers. She was absolutely brilliant. I am not a big concert-goer. I have been to about two in my life; David Bowie and Bananarama. I was reluctant to go, preferring to be tucked up in bed at 10pm, not singing along to rock songs.

But I am thrilled that we went. The girls loved it. Olivia rather sweetly kept waving at Marianne who sadly failed to spot her. She also didn’t hear Rupert’s response when she said “I hope you can understand me, I can’t speak French.” “Say it in broken English,” he suggested.

I had goose-bumps listening to her sing, thinking about her life and what a woman she must be. She really did “drive through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair” unlike her unfortunate heroine Lucy Jordan.

Marianne Faithfull is sixty-one, almost the same age as my mother. She has lived through drug addiction, Mick Jagger and breast cancer. She has an incredible presence. I felt I was looking at an an icon. There were times when she had to reach for her glasses to read the lyrics. She often took a sip from a mug of tea while the guitarist played a riff. She wasn’t prancing around the stage pretending to be sixteen. But she was having a great time, and so were we.

My point is this. Being over sixty is no excuse to stop doing what you love. My mother knows this and so do I, thanks to her and Marianne.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007