Today is my father’s birthday. Or at least it would have been, but he died in January 2014. I didn’t really know him until I was a teenager. My mother and he split up when I was two. She and I moved to Sweden then England and we had no contact with him …

Tomorrow is my birthday. The older I get, the less obvious birthdays become. When you’re a child they’e something you yearn for and look forward to and you just know the whole day will be special and involve everyone around you doing exactly what you w …

To paraphrase Camus, I thought my father died yesterday, or was it the day before yesterday? Two days ago, I had an email from my mother telling me he was in a coma. After frantic chats with the doctors the news that he was unlikely to pull through. At …

Have had the best birthday ever and it’s only half past eight. Slept through the night until 5.30 then went back to sleep and woke up to find the girls by the door singing Happy Birthday carrying tea, blueberries and cards and presents and this video o …

I was a stepmother before I was a mother, to the lovely Hugo and Julia, who were still little enough to really mother and look after. “This is perfect,” I used to say to Rupert. “Two beautiful children and I still get to keep my figure.” Then something …

We are back from Italy and gearing up for Christmas. Apparently real Christmas trees are not readily available here, which came as a surprise to me. The thought of a fake one was too depressing. I considered several options before coming up with this.. …

Today was Bea’s ninth birthday. I took the day off work to be with her and do all the things she wanted to do. This included being hurled around in some simulator machine that literally had us upside down and to each side and all over the place. Appare …

Today is Easter Sunday. I have memories of Easter in Sweden with lovely cardboard eggs filled with sweets and goodies. We would dress up as ‘Easter Hags’ or witches which meant painting our faces and wearing head scarves. The idea is you go from house …

When a publisher first wrote to me offering me a book deal after my first Sunday Times column, I assumed it was a vanity publisher, keen to make a fast buck. This morning I had an email that I read four times before I was convinced it wasn’t my best fr …

Stefania Prestigiacomo, minister for Equal opportunities in the Italian government, has come up with ten commandments for female happiness: * Consider motherhood a value – it is the greatest experience for women * Follow your childhood dream * Keep fal …