The Trials and Pleasures of Camping

I am a woman who likes a hot bath, a comfortable bed, and a flushing loo. I am also someone who is prone to feeling cold in June and I am not the best sleeper, even in the comfort of my own six foot wide bed. Not the ideal candidate for camping then.

“You’ll hate it,” my husband repeated over and over again, as I suggested a camping trip a few times last year. Secretly I thought he was right, although I protested thinking that the children would have deprived childhoods if we didn’t let them sleep under the stars. But last November my friend Sophie announced that she was having a camping party for the August Bank Holiday Weekend, and because she always does things brilliantly, I said we would go. And then I promptly tried not to think about it or do anything about buying a tent, or a blow up mattress or a pump or a torch or all the other things I later discovered are needed for a camping holiday.

Then two parents from my sons class asked us to join them for a June camping weekend and because we were new parents at the school, and keen for Jude to bond with his friends, I rashly accepted. The time drew nearer and suddenly we realized we had nothing to camp with. We borrowed two small tents and a gas cooker and taking the advice of friends, we packed our car with duvets, pillows, blankets and sausages. I also telephoned my doctor and asked for sleeping pills. Packing for two nights took five hours!


Things I liked about my first camping trip: Eating a ton of bread and sausages and not caring.
Drinking quite a few glasses of wine.
Getting to know my camping friends: The lovely Jane and the gorgeous Emily.
Waking to the sound of bird song.
Children out all day from 7am
Grownups out all day from 8am
Swimming in the river
The cream tea café on the camp site.
The camping glow
Watching the Stars.

Things I don’t like:
Blow up mattresses
Taking sleeping pills
Queuing up for a shower
Washing up without gloves or a dishwasher.
Putting down and putting up the tent.
Not being able to find anything when it gets dark
Piling up the car with almost all the contents of a house.
Feeling exhausted for two days after getting home.
Having to walk across a field to pee at night.

But it can’t be that bad. We have since been camping to Glastonbury, Dorset and just back from Yorkshire for the bank holiday camping party which was the best four days ever.

My tip: Rose hip moisturizing oil is perfect for rough skin that’s been out in all weathers and the oil is extracted from rose that grows in the Andes Mountains. It’s in a roll on bottle so won’t spill if you are travelling. I used it on my cracked heels and on my dry legs, although you can use it on your hair and face. I wish Aubrey Organics would make it in a bigger bottle!

The need to Diet and Rest after a Tuscan Holiday

I am just back from an Italian hamlet near Cortona where I spent 10 days in 40degrees heat. We stayed in a beautiful tumble down farmhouse, the garden was exquisite, but I have returned exhausted and with a desperate need to diet.

I couldn’t sleep; it was too hot. I also had constant headaches, and was on full alert as one of the other guests had told me my room was haunted.

The lunches were huge. We thought nothing of tucking into parma ham and melon, tomato and mozzarella, fine thin bread, bread in the shape of a disc, figs, cheese, and variations on that theme. Dinner could be pasta or pizza at the local tavern or grilled pork in Cortona. I started off with a keen need to swim 100 lengths a day, like Maggie Fergusson another guest, and author of the brilliant biography, The Life of George Mackay Brown. But by day 10 my girth had ballooned but my will power had slipped and I was only swimming about 4 lengths a day and at best 10.

Sure I read a few great books and saw some heart-stoppingly beautiful Piero della Francesca murals in the Basilica di San Francesco, Arezzo, and more stunning frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in Florence on the way home. I also managed two half a mile walks up a hill but other than that spent most of the time supine.

I have just finished a first draft of my new novel, The Summer Holiday, set in a house party in Italy, so no doubt some of the details, like the different kinds of bees that buzzed across the lavender and the church bells striking the hour of day, will find their way into the new book. Please if you haven’t already, buy my current novel, a great summer read, The Seven Year Itch.

Beauty Tip: I was sent a travel pack by Incognito, who specialise in deet free mosquito products, which also smell really good. Their moisturizer doubles as an anti mosquito cream is great because it cuts down on the exhausting effort of piling on moisturizer and then anti mosquito - http://www.lessmosquito.com One less thing to do in the heat.

Giving Birth

I wrote an article for the Daily Express about the horrors of giving birth to my two children and it came out yesterday: My birth stories
Actually they have cut some of what I wrote and it doesn't quite cover the absolute horror and fear of that time.


I know of a woman who just had time to take a painkiller before she gave birth and the baby popped out really easily.

What are you experiences like? I went to a yoga prenatal class where those who had given birth would come back with their newborn babies and regale us with the experience of giving birth. I don't remember anyone returning who had had a lovely easy time. There is always the woman with the painkiller, but she is the only one I know of.

If you happen to read Vogue, there is an article (August Issue) on climate activists. There is a huge photograph of our group Wecan and we are really pleased with the story.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Am ridiculously thrilled. The Seven Year Itch has been chosen under the romance category of recommended summer reading in Prima Magazine. I have never bought Prima Magazine, but Luke's aunt cut it out and saved it for me. Yeh!

My five year old daughter Belle was ridiculously thrilled to receive some pink Bratz accessories for her hand me down bicycle. I won them in competition run by fellow mummy blogger, Denyse (I have spent at least fifteen minutes trying to tag her blog, but it just keeps not working) I will come back to this. Anyway there was a seat, a hooter with a very annoying blast, a helmet and a bell. Brilliant. Christmas an birthday all over again.

I cried when I read the children's reports. They were so good. Luke spoilt it by saying he was sure everyone got really good reports. The formidable Miss Shaw, reception teacher, said the Belles behaviour was excellent both in the class room and around the school and she was a model for other children. Wish she was the same at home when we are trying to get her dressed in the morning.

On Saturday I was photographed by the Daily Mail along with the family for a piece about why women marry and then I stood dashed to the school fair in full make up to stand by the apple bobbing stall.

Then back home to prepare dinner as the vicar, Bob and his wife were coming along with some parents from belles class and Sam the piano player at church who also happens to be groovy and in a band called the Hoosiers. I'm not sure if Ive spelt that right. I had invited a date for him and then he turned up with his own, which was a bit odd. But anway!!

On Sunday Luke took the children to visit his aunt for the day and I slept, dozed, read, and watched Roddick and Federer. Roddick deserved to win. But then Federer makes it all look effortless.

Are you Expecting?

The three words you really don't want to be asked if you are not and I'm not. Admittedly I was thinking this morning my stomach looks a bit bloated and hardly surprising, I've been stuffing myself with sausage sandwiches and baked beans on toast around the camping fire. This always happens when I eat too much wheat and that is why I usually avoid it. We went to camp in the garden of my friends inlaws. They live on Glastonbury and we were there for the festival. But really!! The poor woman who serves at the chemist was more embarrassed than I was. She turned a very bright shade of red and then mumbled something about how she was looking.....but didn't really have the heart to finish. I mean what could she say? Where can you go from there? This has happened twice before, once at a party when Belle was four weeks old, and once around the same kind of time, when I was sitting slouched in a bank. And I made the mistake of once asking a friend, who'd recently had a baby, what was her due date. I wrote and apologized and she took it really well. My rule now is never to ask a woman, unless she offers the information, even is she is about to burst!

I walked home in the searing heat and told my neighbour about what had happened in the chemist. He is a man in his fifties who is a cox in a rowing team and weighs just 8 stone 8. About two stone less than me, though I am taller. He says he hardly eats for the rowing season as he has to be a certain weight to compete. He has mango for breakfast and melon for lunch. He told me where to go and buy the Pakistani mangoes in season for just four weeks. That is where I'm heading as soon as Ive picked up the children. Oh God!!!

A kitten is saved

I had a heart warming email yesterday from a woman I met in Essaouira about a kitten my son Jude and I rescued from the main square over there. She was a tiny kitten with a broken back leg and can’t have been more than two or three weeks old when we found her. We couldn’t bear to leave her, but returned that evening to find she was still there, crouching outside a café, where someone had left her a saucer of milk. She has now been given to new owners and christened Canelle. What a relief. On the day we found her Jude asked if we could take the kitten home, but instead we tracked down an English woman called Suzy who loves cats and spends quite a large chunk of time finding strays in the streets of the walled city and rescuing them. You could rescue all the cats, as they all look malnourished and dehydrated but some manage to get by with scraps from the fish market and old guts and offal that the stall holders in the meat market throw out. I saw cats with infected eyes and sore looking tails, and half starved. Susie is in touch with a British charity that goes over to Essaouirra www.hsam.org.uk and neuters the strays and gives them medicines. It’s a never-ending job. – Suzy took ‘Canelle’ home that evening, after we showed her where the kitten was, and took her to the vets, and then found her the new home.

We stayed in a wonderful traditional house done up in a funky style and called Da Baida www.castlesinthesand.com .Graham who owns the house with his ex partner Emma says that the cat people should be concentrating on the helping the pregnant women from Essaouira who can’t afford to have emergency caesareans and die giving birth. He has a point, but each to their own and the women who run hsam are vets, so their interest is in animals. I say three cheers to anyone, who has the time, and makes the effort to help.

Post Holiday Blues

Am just back from Essaouira in Morocco. I was desperately in need of a break after the launch of my novel, The Seven Year Itch. There was a party and several articles to write and photographers who came to photograph the children and me. I was so nervous during the party at Daunt Books, my heart was hammering in my chest and I felt spacey and strange. During the launch I beamed and signed books, picked at nuts and probably drank too much. I had bought a gold dress for the occasion and had my hair done and the dress was so tight, that it was quite an effort to sign 70 books. It was all very heart warming and fun. There is another launch at a local café, Cupboard Café in Oaklands Grove, W12, on June 4th. The café is a haven from the souk that is the Uxbridge Road, and the owner, Natalie, the woman who gets things done brilliantly, has started a series of parties for local authors. Please come.

Essaouira is the most beautiful walled town on the coast of Morocco, where the houses are mostly painted blue and white. It is two and a half hours drive from Marrakech. We have been on really safe holidays since the children were born, so it was great to go to a town that looks and smells medieval where the streets are cobbled and narrow and overrun with cats and where the smell is of mint and sardines and the occasional drain. There is a working port also overrun with manky cats, and fishing boats. I am still thinking of colourful souks, sweet mint tea and the beautiful light. The children started school again today, and I have that sinking feeling, too, as though I am back at boarding school, shivering by the cold radiator.