I know, I know….it sounds like an author’s dream gig. I’m spending a week in the south of France, talking to groups of school kids, all expenses paid. However, I am not a good traveller, and spend days fretting that something will go wrong. Nor indeed am I a relaxed and confident speaker, so addressing four groups of 80  or so kids in the course of a day leaves me wrung out like a limp dish-rag. 

The canteen at Monaco International School has a view to die for

 On the whole, though, it’s been fine so far. I am in the capable hands of Bookbox, a small UK company that organises book fairs and author visits mostly in France and Spain. We were in Monaco yesterday, at the International School there.

The kids were great: really enthusiastic and engaged. The staff were fantastic, too, especially librarian Barbara who patiently and efficiently made sure that everything ran smoothly.

It was all very ordinary, and hardly different from many British schools… until the end of the school day. Then the parents who came to pick up their kids were fantastically well dressed! Certainly none were in their jim-jams, as a few parents at UK schools apparently are at the school gates. No, most of the mums were immaculate, and looked like they had stepped straight from the pages of Italian Vogue. I was surprised to note that really good clothes don’t have visible designer logos – unlike the “designer” clothes you buy on the high street, which have the label printed a foot high on the front.

On tomorrow to Moulin School, Cannes.