But what do I wear to the party? I have only two looks these days, TV mummy and gardening mummy. I'm couturially challenged, a fashion-free zone

Friends come to see us in the Dordogne for a "break" with their children. They don't get one. Instead of chilling out, we all spend 72 hours enslaved to the kids. I prepare breakfasts of fresh fruit salad, porridge and brown toast, and it's off to the farm one day, a playground the next. My nerves are at breaking point by mid-afternoon when it's time to prepare special teas and play musical statues before bedtime stories. When I was young, holidays were for parents and adults stuck like glue to bar stools shouting: "Go on! Make your own fun."

It doesn't take long for the men to tire of the child-led regime. At the market in Vergt, an English friend tells us that her trailer is stuck in mud, so she can't set up her curtain stall. Heroically, the men go to her aid and are away for three hours, leaving us to cut and stick, glue and colour, cook and cajole. Is there a big scene when our red-faced husbands finally reappear, their speech slightly slurred? No, because we're too envious to be angry.

On the final morning of hung-over slavery, we get a break: an invitation to a party being held by a French stonemason celebrating his first big "expo" in Paris next week. Mark and Natalie's ramshackle house is something of a hippie drop-in centre, a blissful haven devoid of Thatcherite expats and pro-hunt farmers. But what do I wear? I only have two looks these days, TV mummy and gardening mummy. I'm couturially challenged - a fashion-free zone. I finally settle on hiking boots, frayed jeans and a Glastonbury cardigan. The effect is more Spike Milligan than Sienna Miller.

Tuesday is letters day. I settle down with a cuppa to read missives from Mail on Sunday readers. One is from a Mr Leadbetter who congratulates me, on behalf of his "organisation", on my possible "move to al-Jazeera". Which is slightly premature, as nothing is set in stone. He goes on to say that the "organisation" of which he is a member (but fails to name) has been "monitoring" my articles and, thanks to my support for the Palestinian cause, his people are convinced I am "one of a mind with us in your implacable opposition to the poisonous worldwide Jewish conspiracy".

"Oh shit!" I spray tea down myself. There's more. He reveals that the "subtext" to my writings has earned me "the highest compliment we can pay . . . that you remind us of our dearly departed sister-in-arms Unity Mitford both in physical appearance and spirit". "We have already appointed you to our honorary sisterhood and you will be receiving an invitation to a special initiation ceremony later in the year." A special initiation ceremony! I imagine being driven to my knees beneath a photo of Prince Philip, forced to denounce bagels and listen to the "rivers of blood" speech played backwards.

Packing away my family's summer clothes, I find a T-shirt from Ramallah. It says: "Victory to the Intifada". Seeing it again makes me wonder just how many of Tony Blair's relatives (on the Booth side, of course) risk imprisonment under the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill, which allows suspects to be held for up to 90 days without charge and makes "glorifying" terror an offence. Cherie has expressed sympathy for Palestinian suicide bombers. Does that count? (Although she was pressurised into taking that back tout de suite.) Recently my daughters have posed for photos wearing (oh so cute) anti-Bush T-shirts beneath a Palestinian flag giving a black power salute. Will that do? As for me, in the past two years I've spent more time in central London chanting "Bush is a terrorist! Sharon is a terrorist!" than shopping for clothes. I decide not to put the T-shirt from the West Bank away just yet - it's bound to come in handy.

Saturday is paella night at the salle des fetes. Beneath unflattering strip lighting, around 150 locals drink wine and pastis in industrial quantities. By the time the main course arrives at ten, I'm spinning. Partly because of the alcohol, but partly because there's dancing between courses. I get flung from pillar to post by fleet-footed Frenchies, do pointy-pointy dancing to Europop hits (remember "Life Is Life"?) and a fair amount of drunken lalalala-ing. It's the septuagenarian DJ who makes the night unforgettable. He has brought along a three-speed record player from the land that time forgot and LPs, lent to him by villagers, by Depeche Mode and Kylie. The poor old guy clearly has no idea how the tracks should sound. He nervously starts each song at 33rpm and tilts his head anxiously. He flicks the lever until it's Pinky and Perky time and finally, to howls from the rugby team at the foot of the stage, settles for 45rpm.

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