We are home. I spent much of our last day skulking in the woods while my estranged aunt visited the children. As usual, she was two hours late, so by the time she finally arrived my planned “walk” had turned into a mini-marathon, it was pitch-dark outside and I was wearing sunglasses. Now here’s a dilemma; in that situation do you ditch the glasses and rely on myopic vision to get you home or do you keep the glasses and wait for the moon to come out?

As I walked around the woods I was reminded of one of the highlights of our trip, a walk Bea and I had together. We were wandering along hand-in-hand chatting when we suddenly heard a gun-shot.

“I hope he doesn’t shoot us,” said Bea. “I’ll tell him, dear Mr shooter, we are only here visiting my grandmother who lives over there, please don’t kill us. After all I’m only a little girl, I’m only seven years old, and my mummy, well she’s not THAT old.”

As you can imagine, we were spared.

After a week away with my children I have learnt some new things about them. One is that they’re better when they’re not all together. Alone they are actually very easy. A joy in fact.

Olivia didn’t cease to amaze me during the week with how clever she is, as well as clumsy. It seems her brain works faster than her body. Bea is quite the most talented linguist I have ever met. She picked up Italian like other people pick up flu. Leo is a sweet, caring little boy, something you don’t see much of when he is trying to keep up, or fighting, with his sisters.

Travelling with them was a bit like travelling with film stars. Everywhere they went they were noticed and people were totally intrigued by them. Piera, the estranged aunt, was so enamoured she has invited them to stay with her in Italy. One at a time. She’s obviously not as daft as I thought……

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

My journey home was marvellous. We got on the Eurostar at the newly revamped St Pancras Station. When the train stopped I thought we were in Ashford in Kent or at best Lille. Turns out we were at the Gare du Nord.

Here at home it is a winter wonderland. The lawn is white and the rivers frozen. I am also frozen as am too posh (or maybe too poor) to have any central heating. Leonardo has developed an alarming habit of waking at 5am. “Talk to me mummy,” he shouts in my ear. So for fear of waking the others I bring him downstairs where the temperatures are hovering around zero.

While he watches Scooby-Doo wrapped in several blankets, I work. I wonder who else watches children’s TV at what would be 4am UK time? Other insomniac children I suppose. Top Cat was on this morning, which takes me back. Amazing (and rather comforting) that children’s TV is so consistent. But is that hapless cop ever going to get the better of him? My aunt always said that if you haven’t achieved anything by the time you’re forty you never will. So I guess he’s way past his sell-by date.

Talking of my aunt, you may remember she is not speaking to me since the publication of Ciao Bella. I am taking the children to Italy after Christmas to stay with my mother. My aunt has asked to see them but demanded I go out. I am of course contrite and already planning my vanishing act. Rupert is less so. His first reaction was that I should tell her to get lost. When I refused to he gave Olivia a message for her.

“Tell her she’s a silly old trout and that the truth hurts,” he said. I’m sure Olivia won’t pass it on. But there’s a small, rebellious part of me that hopes she will. How are we getting to Rome? Train of course. I just hope Leo sleeps on. We don’t get to Rome until after 9.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

My mother has lived in Devon for almost twenty years but moves to Italy in September. I am sad not to have a reason to come here any more. Despite the dreadful weather (the sun has been out for a total of seven minutes during the last four days which I believe is a record for August, normally it just rains non-stop) I love it here.

I love the countryside, the people, the sheeps (as the children call them), the cows and the fact that everything is so green. I love the little winding roads, the mossy woods, the small streams and the hedgerows.

One of the best things about the trip has been walking around the lanes with the children. Leo has become addicted to blackberries and there is nothing quite as romantic for a girl brought up in England as the sight of her blond son stuffing blackberries in his mouth. On a par with the blueberries in Sweden. What is it with me and dark-coloured berries?

The other evening, when the sun was briefly visible, we lay in a field on our plastic macs and gazed at the view. There were green rolling hills and three large oak trees in a field that looked as if they’d been there for hundreds of years and probably will for hundreds of years to come.

As I drove back from my daily trip to M&S this morning I realised that this would probably be the last time I ever do that drive which made me very sad. Unless of course the Tiverton Film Festival becomes a reality and they make Ciao Bella into a film which has its premiere here. I wonder which is more likely?

My mother had a leaving party last night. It was a great do with lots of food, music and good friends. Leo summed it up so well as we fell into bed around midnight. “They were so nice, the peoples,” he said. I think my mother will miss them, but maybe some of them will find their way to Umbria to visit.

Meanwhile my friendly spy has revealed what Heathcliff thought of me after seeing me again twenty years on. He thinks I am a very nice person (don’t you just hate that?) but he doesn’t fancy me. The reason? “She’s too thin.” I like him more than ever.

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

It was the Duke of Wellington who said: “Publish and be damned.” He was responding to a blackmail threat from Harriette Wilson, the famous courtesan, who was about to publish her memoirs which included details of her lovers.

An article of mine is due to appear in tomorrow’s You Magazine about how my aunt is refusing to speak to me since she read my memoir, Ciao Bella (see publish and be damned blog).

I have tried reconciliation. I wrote her a groveling letter to which I’ve had no response. My father even went to Rome to try to make the peace but got nowhere.

“If you insist on talking about it I shall leave the restaurant,” she said. He tells me she is considering legal action.

It’s not like I used to speak to my aunt every day, or see her very often. But ever since it happened I have had this horrible feeling inside that I get if I think someone doesn’t like me. I used to have it a lot when I was a little girl. I was always so desperate to please and be loved that I was incredibly polite and nice; I would do anything to avoid that feeling of non-approval.

I remember when I was about eight years old in the village we lived there were two girls who had been best friends before I arrived called Alison and Penny. The dynamics were so that we couldn’t all be friends together for some reason. I had to choose between the two. But I was so desperate not to upset either of them I would pretend to be friends with both and often get caught out. It was like having an affair.

I now get that same feeling it if I get a nasty letter about one of my articles or someone posts a dreadful Amazon review of one of my books; although working for the British press I have developed a slightly tougher skin than I had as a little girl.

And of course I don’t go around worrying about my aunt all day long; I have other things to worry about like my hair extensions and what to wear to my book signing this afternoon.

But if I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s often the first thing I think about and I feel just like a little girl longing for approval again.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007