Janie Millman and her husband Michael Wilson are two of the most life-enhancing people I know. I met them when Janie spoke about her sparkling first novel, Life’s a Drag, at the Purbeck Literary Festival two years ago and they were brilliant company. They regaled us with the story of how they’d bought an 18th century townhouse in south west France on a complete whim after spotting a picture in ...keep reading
Forget Paris in the springtime. Paris in the autumn is far more fun – especially when it gives you the chance to stay at the latest addition to the Hoxton fold. The Hoxton Paris is less than a mile from the Gare du Nord, a half-hour walk if you’re trailing a suitcase on wheels. So after getting the first Eurostar out of London on a dreary Tuesday morning we were ...keep reading
Buying a tumbledown farmhouse in the south of France is probably the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done and even though I sold it two years ago it continues to hold a place in my heart. Every time I think about waking up to that stunning view of La Roche Colombe or drinks under the plane tree with friends the years roll back and I’ve fallen under its spell again. ...keep reading
The cacophony burst out of nowhere. Dozens of car horns hooted at full blast, a motorcyclist did an impressive wheelie in the middle of the street and wedding guests wound down their car windows and bellowed at the top of their voices. Most bizarrely of all, a man in a sharply cut suit gesticulated wildly from the roof of a Mini as it sped along. ‘Welcome to Marseille,’ laughed my ...keep reading
The alarm bells started ringing when my son FaceTimed me from France in the middle of the day. I usually ring him, not the other way round, and we mostly speak in the early evening – so I knew something was up. I was right to be worried. It turned out that his bike chain had snapped when he was cycling at top speed, sending him crashing to the ground and damaging his shoulder, arm and ...keep reading
The French capital fell silent today, in tribute to the 130 victims who died at the hands of the terrorists in the Paris attacks. Blue, white and red flags fluttered from every window as survivors, relatives of the dead and political leaders gathered under a wintery sky for a remembrance ceremony at Les Invalides. It’s still hard to comprehend the terrible events of Friday November 13. But one thing’s for ...keep reading
Three days after the horrific terror attacks in Paris I can’t stop thinking about those who died. Their faces stare out of the front pages – smiling, full of joie de vivre and heartbreakingly young. Like most people, I’ve spent hour after hour listening to the radio, unable to concentrate on anything else at all. The newspapers have done an exemplary job, reporting on the manhunt, interviewing the bereaved with sensitivity and ...keep reading
The discovery of a diary I kept during a family holiday in France is a reminder of how much childhood has changed in the last 40 years. I was in my early teens at the time – gauche, awkward and alarmingly unsophisticated. Forget make-up, boys, sleepovers and texting, my holidays were spent playing endless rounds of a board game called Exploration with my sister, reading Lynne Reid Banks books (The L-Shaped Room was the ...keep reading
Spectacular. That really is the only way to describe the Museé de Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerannée in Marseille – or MuCEM for short. A rectangular building on the water’s edge, MuCEM is the stunningly bold vision of architect Rudy Ricciotti, who studied architecture in Marseille in his twenties. Covered in intricately-cast concrete that’s designed to look like a lace veil, Riccioti’s creation not only looks beautiful but ...keep reading
Virtually everyone I know has an Ottolenghi book or two in their kitchen. My favourite is the first – the eponymous Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, a gorgeous tome with recipes that are surprisingly straightforward and page after page of stunning images. A new Ottolenghi deli has just opened in Spitalfields and I popped in last week, planning to buy some treats. But when I spotted an empty table in the corner ...keep reading