“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitute a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.”

To many, George Eliot’s words will have a particular resonance as we watch the McCann drama unfold. I am glad to see so many comments on the previous blog, but I will not be swayed. I stick to my original conclusions; to quote the waitress in Thelma & Louise when asked who she thinks shot the man in the parking lot “neither of those two was the murdering kind”.

Of course I have no evidence. All I have is my own belief that I am a good enough judge of character and events to recognise a huge miscarriage of justice when I see it. If I believe that Kate and Gerry McCann murdered Maddy I may as well give up. If they are guilty then the world is a far worse place than I imagined.

I am happy to see them back home and hope that they will find some comfort in returning, albeit without their little girl. I can’t imagine what they will feel when they walk into her bedroom. But I am glad to see this latest debacle seems only to have made them stronger and brought them closer together as a family. Yet more evidence of their good character.

On a lighter note, here is a comment from Leonardo yesterday to his father as he got in the car.

“I love this car,” he said. “I love you daddy. I love Granny. I love everyone.”

What a splendid character he is.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Here is one of my favourite poems by Dorothy Parker:

By the time you swear you’re his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying.

The reason this came to mind today was not that I have shivering or indeed sighing in some lothario’s arms. No, I have been being a full-time mother. And after just half a day it strikes me that one lie we all live with is that looking after a home and children is a doddle compared with working all day.

This is the typical scene. Man gets up to go to work. Woman makes his breakfast, feeds and dresses the children, he dresses himself (in shirts she has ironed), goes off to the office where he may have some stressful moments and he may not. Then he comes home to a home-cooked dinner, kisses the children goodnight and watches the football until turning in.

What you can be sure of if you’re looking after children all day is that you WILL have stressful moments (as well as some fun ones of course). I have just managed to escape for five minutes to my desk and it feels like a haven. Upstairs anything could be demanded of me from wiping bottoms to acting as peace envoy to avoid any (more) blood spilling.

When we were at my mother’s house in Devon I took on the role normally allocated to men, that of main bread-winner and worker. I worked while she looked after the children. She washed and ironed. I shopped and paid for it. She took the children to the park, I wrote a few emails. There is no doubt at all that of the two I had the easier job. In fact I can’t think of a job that would be tougher than looking after children, except perhaps mining or long-distance lorry driving across Siberia.

So if your husband comes home today and grumbles that he’s had a tough time in the office here’s what you should do. Hand him the kids and say ‘welcome to my world honey’. Then go and lie down for half an hour, you deserve it.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

My stepchildren have now been here for four weeks. They are charming, sweet and I love them to bits. But they are also fairly useless around the house. It is only after four weeks that they have finally worked out one end of the dishwasher from the other. Yesterday I tried to teach Julia to iron. After ten minutes she, I and the poor unfortunate shirt lost the will to live.

The fact is that middle-class children in England today do about as much as Victorian children living in the colonies did.

The other day a friend of mine who lives in Sussex told me a story. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, who is at a local fee-paying school, brought a friend home to play. My friend’s husband was moving the lawn. Her daughter said hello to her step-father (like you would) and had a little chat.

“You’re very nice to your gardener,” commented her friend. Obviously one does not mow one’s lawn oneself.

Yesterday my in-laws took Hugo and Julia shopping for gym shoes. “What kind will you get?” Rupert asked Julia. “Tennis or gym or running?”

“Annabel has a different pair for everything,” replied Julia. Rupert asked Hugo why they expected to have a different pair of shoes for each occassion. “We’re middle class,” came the reply.

I can just imagine how hard Annabel’s poor father works to keep his family in trainers and gardeners (and before you call me sexist, being properly middle class her mother doesn’t work of course). As the writer Samuel Smiles said “Middle class people are apt to live up to their incomes, if not beyond them.”

Julia is off to Kenya on Wednesday and her main concern (aside from catching Malaria) is how hot it’s going to be.

“What were we doing aged 13,” I ranted to my husband last night. “Trying to avoid getting bashed and earning a crust washing cars or mucking out stables.”

But as we all know our children will never be impressed by how tough we had it. And nor will theirs be. But I dread to think just how spoiled they will be if the same pattern repeats itself for the next generation.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

My arrival home has been dominated by cricket. My stepson Hugo has been watching the test match and Leo has become very interested.

“One day you’ll play cricket for England,” Rupert said to him this morning.

“Yes, now,” said Leo.

“You can’t play cricket for England now, you’re only four,” I said.

“But I will be five,” he replied.

The thought of Leo in cricket whites is too dreamy. I have always thought it is impossible for a man to look unattractive in whites; there is something so civilized, so gentle and so very English about them. Cricket whites are right up there with surgical kit when it comes to outfits men look great in.

Even Robert Mugabe, the most uncivilized of people, recognised cricket’s qualities. “Cricket civilizes people and creates good gentlemen,” he said in an article in the Sunday Times in 1984. “I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen.” Shame he didn’t follow his own creed.

This evening we are going to a cricket match. Hugo and Rupert will play. I am so excited about seeing them play and also introducing Leo to the joys of hearing leather on willow for the first time.

As we enjoy this evening, a family in Kent is mourning the loss of a father-of-two after a jeering mob made up of boys as young as ten stoned him to death while he played cricket with his son. It was a completely unprovoked attack.

Can someone please tell me what is going over there?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

It is three months ago since Madeleine was abducted as she slept beside her twin brother and sister in the McCann’s holiday apartment in Portugal. Gerry, her father, has just been to the US to publicise her disappearance. He is said to be keen to go back home to England to rebuild their lives while Madeleine’s mother is reportedly in decline.

Kate McCann refuses to leave Praia da Luz where their daughter vanished. According to her mother she is no better than the day their little girl vanished and just keeps repeating “I need Madeleine back”.

When this story first broke I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. Now I think about it a lot less. But of course for her parents the nightmare is as vivid as it was on day one. I suppose I hoped things would get better for them, that they would start to get on with their lives.

All of us imagine what we would do in their situation. Would we crack up or would we cope? For the sake of the other children you would have to go on. But it would be nearly impossible.

A friend of mine said the other day that in all probability Maddy was taken by a paedophile and killed within the first twelve hours. “That’s the usual pattern,” she said. Just the thought that there are people out there who can commit such heinous acts of cruelty is enough to keep me awake at night. In the UK now a well-known actor is being prosecuted for downloading images from the internet of seven-year old girls being tortured and sexually abused.

All we can do is hope against hope that Madeleine has been abducted by someone desperate for a daughter and not an evil pervert. Let’s hope she hasn’t followed the “usual pattern” and that this unusual case comes to an unusual (and happy) conclusion.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

When we were in Paris last week Rupert and I met a nice couple of child psychologists who told us that our children are made up of 50% us and 50% our parents. We were amazed by this fact, having always thought that our children were a product of us alone.

This weekend my father came to stay and confirmed this fact. “Helena,” he told Rupert, “is just like her grandfather. Always irritated and causes bedlam wherever she goes.”

Last time I saw him, my father told me how one day my grandfather came home to find my father, my aunt, my grandmother and a local farmer’s wife who was delivering some Ricotta cheese in the kitchen. Without saying a word he turned the light out and started beating them all with his walking stick.

“But Mr. Benedetti,” pleaded the farmer’s wife. “I haven’t done anything. I just came with the ricotta.” My father hid under the table but still got bashed a few times. After about three minutes my grandfather left, without turning the light back on.

As I don’t have a walking stick I have tried other methods of getting my own way. Yesterday I left my clothes and shoes by the pool all day. Around five o’clock I said to Rupert: “I am leaving my clothes and shoes by the pool in the hope that someone will come and pick them up for me and put the clothes in the wash and put the shoes away in my cupboard.”

“Why on earth would anyone want to do that?” he asked.

“Exactly,” I said.

As I write my shoes and clothes are still by the pool, now soaking wet due to a storm last night.

“I don’t think your plan worked very well,” said Rupert this morning.

It could be time to buy a walking stick.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

You have to wonder where our priorities have gone when two babies are left to die in over-heated cars by their “stressed” mothers in one week.

We have all done stupid things. I once forgot I had three children shortly after Leo was born and almost left him in the park. The anxiety dreams I have had about forgetting children in supermarkets/at school/in the street cannot be counted. But to forget to take your child to its crèche and come back five hours later to find it dead is worse than any nightmare I ever had.

Apparently this stressed Dutch mother had a pre-school meeting to go to. So she parked the car and rushed in, leaving her 11-month old son in the car. Earlier in the week a five-month old suffocated in a stuffy car after his mother drove to work at a laundry in Belgium and left him there.

“The hectic pace of modern life is the root cause of both tragedies,” said Belgian psychologist Theo Compernolle.

“It’s too much to suppose that a woman can cope with so-called multi-tasking, keeping several balls in the air at the same time.

“The truth is that the brain is not able to cope with both a family’s needs and a responsible job at the same time. The brain can only really focus on one thing at a time.”

Call me old fashioned, but aren’t we all working hard to give our children a nice life? So if by doing so we inadvertently kill them then there really isn’t much point is there? And as for the brain not being able to cope with both things at once, well that’s just nonsense. Millions of mothers (and some fathers) cope every day. OK we may not be perfect and sometimes a school bag gets left behind (like this morning), but we do cope.

And sometimes it’s all worth it. The mortgage may be high, but where would you rather be when a little girl comes wandering into your room first thing, looks out of the window and says: “Aren’t we lucky to be living in the mountains. We got the sun, the sky, the green hills, lovely flowers and trees. Aren’t we lucky mummy?”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

“You are superman,” said Leo as Rupert kissed him goodnight last night.

“What’s mummy?”

“She’s a princess.”

It is true that aged three your world is quite simple. Mummy and daddy are perfect, superheroes really do exist and everyone loves you. I remember I thought that my mother ran the world until I was about seven, I was astounded to find out that she didn’t. In fact it’s a shame she doesn’t because she would do a better job than those that do.

Meanwhile I am going to put on my princess dress and wait for Superman to bring me my morning cup of tea. Normally he’s too busy saving the world to do so, but today may be an exeption.

Still no news on Maddy. Every time I hold Leo I think about her and how similar in size she must be to him and how much her mother must miss her. It’s unbearable. If Rupert really were Superman he could maybe do something. You can donate money or help in other ways by going to www.findmadeleine.com

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

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