My friend Amanda sent me an email with an attachment describing three guinea pigs looking for a home. “Very cute four week old guinea pigs looking for a home,” it reads. “We like to stroll around, squeak all the time for food and we love to cuddle. All we need is a cage, hay, water and pellets.”

I thought I might solve our housing crisis by sending out a similar one for the children. This is how it might read if written by Olivia:

Three very cute and lovely children looking for a home in central Abu Dhabi. Must be a large house, have sea view and be close to the French school so we can come home for snacks should we need to. Would also prefer walking distance to Marina Mall or possibly driver on hand to take us there.

We like to shop. Leo doesn’t much, but that doesn’t matter. We also like to play Nintendo DS games; someone with a library of said games (especially Super Mario) would be preferential. Or in any case enough money to buy them. If you have a spare room for our parents that would be good too, but we’re not really fussed.

We eat almost anything; Bea will try to eat nothing but chocolate cereal, but don’t let her. We must have pasta at least once a week please. We also need a TV with programmes we like such as Hannah Montana. If we have to share a room, then Bea and I could, but could you put Leo in his own room please because he snores. You will like him a lot, everyone does, he is blond and charming. It gets a bit irritating actually.

That’s it. We’re very nice, not that much trouble. Well, Bea is a bit. But you’ll get used to her. Leo is fine as long as he has a ball to play with. And I’m very useful if you ever lose anything as I remember everything. Thanks. Oh can I have a mobile phone please? A pink one. Don’t give one to Bea, she’ll only break it. She just broke mummy’s. Leo wouldn’t know what to do with one because he’s a boy. Please write soon. Mummy is going mad with us all in the hotel and it’s getting boring.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Today I made a most remarkable discovery. To understand just how remarkable we need to go back in time more than thirty years to when I was a little girl and playing with my some conically-shaped weights that belonged to my grandfather. I can’t remember how old I was, possibly seven. I was swinging said weights around in large circles above my head and back down again as fast as I possibly could.

“Don’t do that,” said my mother.

The next minute I had managed to get my thumb caught between them and totally squashed it. It really hurt. I still remember the pain. My mother put my thumb in cold water then hot water. But nothing helped.

As a result of my own stupidity, I have lived with a flat thumb since that day. When I was a teenager I was ashamed of it and would curl it up in my palm, hiding it like a deformity. In later years I have grown used to it. It is actually quite useful. For example I can never remember which is left or which is right, especially in moments of severe stress, like when I am map-reading. “Flat thumb or thin thumb?” shouts Rupert just as we’re about to miss the turning. Flat thumb is right, thin thumb is left.

This morning on our way to the club I noticed to my total and utter amazement that Olivia has a flat thumb - and she has never been stupid enough to squash it. Somehow my flat thumb must have become part of my genetic make-up and as she is identical to me in every aspect, she has inherited it. Incredible. There is just as much difference between her thumbs as mine. And it is her right thumb that is flat, just like mine.

The other two don’t have this genetic quirk. Bea has two flat thumbs, one rather more chewed than the other on account of her constantly sucking it. Leo has very elegant thumbs, like his father.

Was Olivia upset by this discovery? Not a bit of it. “I’m just like you mummy,” she said, giving me an uneven thumbs up.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Stockholm seemed a fitting place to see the film version of Mamma Mia! Julia and I saw the musical a few years ago in London and loved it. As it was raining yesterday I took the four children off in search of a cinema. We eventually found one and settled down with our popcorn to a real treat. We were in the middle of the front row, my favourite place to sit.

The film is brilliant; we all loved it. I particularly related to the plot because part of it hinges on who is going to give the girl away at her wedding. I had a similar conundrum at mine. By then my step-father and I had fallen out, so he was off the list. My real father seemed an obvious second choice (although he had practically nothing to do with bringing me up). So he was dragged along to Sweden, along with around 100 other guests.

The morning of the big day he left. He has still to fully explain himself but has said he finds weddings so “bourgeois”. So I was left with two major problems. One, who was going to do the Dante reading and two, who was going to walk me up the aisle. I asked my Italian aunt if she would do the reading.

“But I don’t know if my hat will go with Dante,” she said. Perfectly understandable. But she did it, and read beautifully. I asked my mother to walk me up the aisle and give me away. It was an emotional moment and fitting as my mother is the person who brought me up and the one closest to me by far.

I won’t tell you what happens in the film, but go and see it. I felt like clapping and singing, rather like we did in the musical, but being in Sweden I suppressed my desires for fear of arrest for unruly behaviour.

The kids loved it. “I sunged all the songs,” Leo told me. “Oh why is it finished?” wailed Olivia at the end. Meryl Streep was, as always, totally amazing. I read somewhere she wrote to the boys from ABBA and asked if she could be in any film version they made.

She was the perfect choice, rather like my mother was at my wedding.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

A teenage bride who came to Leeds for an arranged marriage has been beaten to death during a “prolonged and vicious attack” by her young husband over a three-week period, all with the collaboration of his relations who apparently took an instant dislike to her.

Sabia Rani, aged 19, from Pakistan, married Shazad Khan, aged 25 in January 2006. She suffered bruising to 90 per cent of her body, sustaining horrific injuries that would normally only be seen in victims of a car crash. Paramedics found her dead in her bathroom.

The family blamed “evil spirits, curses and black magic” for the horrendous injuries, but the truth is that Sabia’s broken ribs were caused by her husband stamping on them. He was convicted of her murder last year. The police are now prosecuting Sabia’s mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband for allowing the death of “a vulnerable adult” and perjury.

While I applaud the fact that the rest of the family is being prosecuted, I don’t think it is enough. If you have a dog who repeatedly attacks your children, you put him down. He is not willing or able to abide by the rules of your household so he is no longer welcome.

So it should be with people who are not willing or able to abide by the rules of our society. Personally I would put them down, but a more politically viable option would be to deport them. Unless we send a strong message to those living under these medieval beliefs and customs the “honour” killings and abuse of women will continue.

And before you start writing to me harping on about human rights, do you really believe that someone who does this kind of thing can be called human and therefore have any such rights?

In colonial India the British put an end to the ritual of Sati or Suttee, the burning of a newly-widowed woman on her husband’s funeral pyre.

The locals told Sir Charles Napier that it was their “custom” to burn widows.

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours,” he told them.

How many more young girls will die at the hands of their families before we have the courage to act against these “customs”?

(Read the Daily Mail article: ‘Family turned a blind eye’ as teenage bride was beaten to death by arranged husband)

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In the hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.”

This little ditty from the American writer Clement C Moore may give the impression of peace and harmony in our home. Not true. Once again Christmas has arrived without my permission.

I was going to be so organised this year. Start buying presents in July, get all the Swedish things going like the candles you burn every week until the BIG DAY. Order organic, hand-made advent calenders that the children will love and nurture forever, have the stocking fillers and presents beautifully wrapped and hidden by October.

None of this happened. Instead of writing at my desk I should be hiding in the downstairs loo wrapping stocking fillers. The advent calenders are the cheapest awful chocolate ones from the supermarket bought on December 1st and I still have to buy Bea’s main present.

Christmas comes but once a year. So you’d think I would be prepared for it. Why do I never remember that time between December 10th and 25th goes at double speed.

This year for the first time we are invited to some French friends on Christmas Eve. As a Swede I am not averse to celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. But I have heard that in France one goes to midnight mass and then has dinner AFTERWARDS. Meanwhile Santa will have been and dropped off all the presents. So assuming we have the usual seven courses I should be home just in time to stuff the turkey and pop it in the oven for lunch.

Why Tony Blair has converted to Catholisism I can’t understand. Especially just BEFORE Christmas Eve. You’d think he’d have hung on for a few days, avoided midnight mass and got an early night.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

The school holidays have started. They have coincided with my husband being away (funny that) and a kidney infection. A better woman than me would have remained calm, collected and zen. I have never been grumpier.

“What’s work?” Olivia asked me yesterday. Well, you could define work as going down a mine for example, or being Chief Financial Officer of Barclays bank (for which you would be paid a basic salary of £600,000 and a bonus of £450,000). Or you could define work as looking after your children, for which no one will pay you. But you are expected to be eternally dedicated, grateful, patient etc.

Of course children can be a total joy and they are amazing as well as lovely, some of the time. My husband calls our children “our greatest creation” which I agree with. But for some reason half-term has turned ours into marauding lunatics, ready to kill each other at any given moment. They are not just bickering, they are violent. Yesterday the trampoline was the scene for a monumental battle between Bea and Leo. By the time I got there Bea was injured and weeping and Leo was stomping up towards the house shouting “she hurt me first”.

This goes on all day. They fight about who should sit where, who should go through a door first, who used the right crayon or the wrong one, who is allowed to look at Bea’s mermaid book, who should get in the bath, who should get out and so on. There is nothing too trivial to fight about.

By 6pm I am exhausted, depressed, angry and just about losing the will to live. So I down chilled Sauvignon Blanc at breakneck speed. By 6.20 I am on my second glass. By 6.40 I have lost count. I call it The Aperitif a Grande Vitesse. It works for me. Suddenly the arguing seems less irritating and anyway, it’s only an hour or so to go until bed. Then I can have a glass of red to celebrate.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Here follows a conversation between my husband and my son as they lay in bed this morning chatting:

“You’ve got very big arms and you’re very strong. Are you scared of anything?”

“Mummy.”

“Mummy’s not scary. She’s not a witch.”

“What about her cloak and broomstick?”

“Poor Mummy. She’s lovely.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

We got back yesterday evening from a perfect press trip. I did write and tell you all about it but the blog seems to have vanished. I can only assume the tourist board of the Var, keen to avoid yet more visitors to the magical islands of Porquerolles and Port-Cros somehow managed to infiltrate my blog and delete it. Anyway, to sum up, it was totally perfect. Lots of sunshine, sea, sand, and not a PR person in sight. The only PR I saw a lot of was Pale Rose.

Then we came home. It started well. “Did you have a nice sleep?” was Leo’s first question. But then it went pear-shaped. Children, rather like animals, will punish you if you go away. The parental truth is that much as you NEED to get away in order to remain married, they don’t care. I mean they care about you remaining married but they don’t care what takes you away, they don’t like it.

They bickered and fought and pushed each other off the trampoline and argued and wept and generally behaved as badly as was humanly possible until it was time for bed.

But I was prepared for this. I had three days to prepare for this. And rather like a terrible hangover after a fantastic party I have to conclude that it was worth it.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

So the police in Portugal are now making the contents of Kate McCann’s diary public. In it she says she is struggling to cope with three young children and that her husband leaves most of the housework to her. They are citing this as a possible motive for sedating, and accidentally killing, young Maddy.

Mothers do not in general sedate their children. They cope. Whenever mine get really bad I think back to what my grandfather once said: “You wouldn’t want children who just sat in a corner and did nothing, would you?”

As for the husband issue - well, this is not the first time I have heard a woman complain about her husband and it certainly won’t be the last. Mothers of young children are by definition tired, harassed and busy. But they know that and they deal with it. Kate McCann was dealing with it. If I kept a diary I would probably complain about my husband and children on a daily basis. As it is I don’t, my poor unfortunate friends have to listen to me instead. But my point is this, complaining about your children does not make you a murderer.

I hear the next thing they’re going to take is Madeleine’s little Cuddle Cat that Kate has been clutching to for comfort over the past few months. How cruel can you get? Will someone please put a stop to this farce?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I have always prided myself on the fact that Rupert and I have never had an argument in front of the children. I think after almost 10 years of marriage this is incredibly good going. But, I’m sorry to report, parental truth number six is that you will, at some stage, argue with your spouse in front of your children. And a few nights ago, I did.

I won’t go into the details. Obviously I was totally, 100 % right and he was impossibly wrong. But the reaction of the children was not as I had imagined.

After about three minutes Olivia started to cry, which then set the other two off. I felt like a wicked witch and we immediately stopped arguing. A little later on, Olivia told me she didn’t like us arguing.

“I don’t like it either darling,” I replied. “But you three argue all the time, now you see how hateful it is.”

“Yes,” she said. “But we can’t split up.”

Fair comment I suppose. Then came Bea’s reaction, as she flounced past me in her cute little swimming costume.

“If you two split up, I’m not living with either of you.”

We have been warned.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007