Provence Life was complicated when I fled to Provence in November 2014 with no job and very little money. At first a comedian friend and his wife lent me their second home. The intention was to stay for six months, recover from a traumatic marriage break-up and write a book about my father, who was
Provence The other Monday I hosted the third annual meeting of the Jeremy Clarke Memoir Club on what would’ve been his 69th birthday. At the far end of the dining table, deep in the bare rock of the cliff, there’s a 27-inch high plaster cast of a bust by my ex of our youngest daughter
Valentine’s Day is upon us. I’ve never liked it. As an ugly ginger kid with a beautiful – much older – half-Indian sister, it was torture. Helen was a glamorous air stewardess and never short of cards or flowers. While I sat in my room listening to David Bowie and staring at the Starsky &
Provence It’s difficult to believe that Evelyn will be 90 in a few months’ time. I’ve known her for more than ten years and, because she can converse on most subjects, I look forward to seeing her when she visits. A retired British archaeologist who ran departments in some of the best universities for most
In the early 2000s, academics, philosophers, politicians, members of the royal household and business people – including the CEO and the owner of a newspaper group – sometimes came round to the house for tea, drinks or dinner. Anxious to keep up, I started to read the papers more thoroughly. The Economist and New Statesman
An exhibition at the Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam devoted to the multi-talented and award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, runs until February. Reading about it prompted me to think back to the mid-2000s, when I got to know her slightly. Through work, her then partner, the artist and playwright John Byrne, came down from Nairn to
The flight from Nice to Bristol was packed. As soon as the doors closed I spotted a hummingbird hawk-moth bumping about the lights beside the overhead lockers. Poor thing. I often see them on my little terrace, wings a blur, freakishly long proboscis burrowing deep into the flowers. A woman with a steely bob a
Provence Midnight. In preparation for a 5 a.m. rise I’d been asleep for two sweltering hours under the ceiling fan when the phone rang. It was a video call. Without glasses I don’t see well but recognised the caller as Jacob, a man I’d met in June when I’d been invited to a fancy villa
Provence The canicule broke yesterday, heralding the end of high summer. Wild figs and mulberries litter the path, filling the air with their scent which, combined with lavender, rosemary and thyme, is the smell of Provence. Even though we’ve had more rain than previous years and fewer weeks of extreme heat, we’re relieved – especially
Provence Apart from three Covid years, the German rock cover band Five and the Red One (named, so they say, because one of them has a ‘fire mark’) have played a free concert on the Cours here in the village every summer since 2008. I first saw them in 2009 when my three daughters were
After a 5 a.m. start, I arrived at the departure gate in Nice airport to discover there was an air traffic control strike and my flight had been delayed by two hours. Annoyance gave way to relief when the board turned red and all later flights were cancelled. This was the week of the Spectator
Late spring. Sitting in the armchair in the living room, I was chilly and disconsolate. My middle daughter was seven-and-a-half months pregnant and unwell. The pregnancy had triggered two serious autoimmune disorders. She’d been successfully treated for thyroid cancer a few years before, but this new disease was attacking her lower spine; she was exhausted
Four of us go for lunch once a month. My hippy ceramist neighbour, Geoffrey, is a foodie and one of the best cooks I know. He was born a few years after the second world war and, along with his brother, who went on to become a Michelin-starred chef, developed an interest in food from
Two years ago, at five to eight in the evening of Monday 22 May 2023, I ran into the department store Galeries Lafayette at CAP 3000 next to Nice airport, grabbed two black blazers and rushed to the nearest checkout. ‘Je suis vraiment désolé, Madame, mais nous fermons.’ ‘Please, it’s not eight o’clock yet. My
My youngest daughter and her husband moved to New York last October. Three days after they arrived, she tripped on a step and broke her ankle. ‘So annoying, I was wearing such a good outfit, Mumma.’ They didn’t know anyone. In a boot and on crutches she tackled umpteen flights of stairs in search of
Provence Molly MacCarthy launched the Bloomsbury Memoir Club in the spring of 1920 with two aims. The first was to bring together the old Bloomsbury set who’d been dissipated by the first world war and the second was to encourage her dilatory husband, Desmond, to write his memoir. She was successful in the first but
My eldest daughter and her family are moving from a three-bedroom Art Deco semi with a garden and garage on the edge of a housing scheme to a top-floor tenement flat in a trendy family orientated area of Glasgow. They’re having to increase their mortgage to do so but think that the benefits to their
What hope is there for artists following the sale recently of the robot Ai-Da’s portrait of Alan Turing, entitled ‘A.I. God’, for a cool $1 million? Someone has perhaps paid over the odds for a 3D print with a few marks added by a robotic arm and a few more by studio assistants to areas of
Provence One of my daughters and a few pals, thinking I need company, have been urging me to get Bumble, the online dating app where women make the first move. I’ve thought in the past month or so that I might like some sort of relationship, but contemplating the reality is scary. When someone you
Provence My older, adopted sister came to stay. She suffers from peripheral neuropathy secondary to diabetes and is registered disabled. It’s a worry watching her negotiate the cliff path and the 12 stone steps to the front door with her stick, but she adores it here. Since reversing her insulin-dependent diabetes with an extreme fasting
