As part of the launch of WebVivant Press - web-based publishing venture set up by my DH and myself - we're making available a limited number of signed copies of my book, Living in France.

The book was published by Harriman House in 2008 and has received some excellent reviews. Sub-titled 'A practical guide to your new life in France', it's a hands-on, nitty-gritty guide for Britons who have bought a house in France, either for holiday use or as a permanent new home. It covers everything from the practicalities of the move, to considerations such as tax, work, marriage, children and the healthcare system, through to the simple savoir-faire of local life and tips for ensuring a happy relationship with the locals (including the rules on how many times you should kiss our new neighbours on the cheek!).

"A great read - entertaining, witty and richly detailed - as well as a really helpful practical guide."

— Heather Leach, writer

» Find out more about Living in France »

I got a fun press release from Lifesworth this morning.

Apparently, in the UK at least, you're 'worth' the most at the age of 46.

They're talking in terms of personal possessions, of course, not your real worth (don't get me started...). The average mid-life Brit apparently owns about £40k's worth of goods and chattels - more than you ever have in your life before or afterwards. Interestingly, though, that same average Brit also believes their personal possessions amount to about £28k and underinsures them accordingly.

This, of course, is Lifesworth's objective - to get you to up your insurance premiums, but I must confess the idea of being 'worth' £40k made me laugh out loud. I doubt I am 'worth' half this now, and it's very definitely by design.

Over the years, I've come to the belief that people are at their most free and creative when they're not burdened by possessions. Sure, it's great to own things, but once you've got them, you have to worry about them. Clean them, dust them, store them, take care of them, insure them. Is this really a good idea? Better to have plates you can afford to break, clothes you can afford to ruin without there being any heartache involved. Then you don't have to work so hard to support a lifestyle. Maybe you can just have a life instead.

The DH and I, some 10 years ago, were forcibly relieved of much of our burden of possessions by a burglary. After the initial relief that no-one was hurt (the house was empty at the time), came the absolute fury about what had been taken - our wedding presents to each other, the Victorian writing box my parents gave me when I was 16, Steve's favourite watch, the World War II marching compass I'd bought him in six instalments, his entire collection of aviation memorabilia, my late father's clock. There were also our computers, all of our coats, the throws off the sofas, the curtain tie-backs - a strange assortment of finds. It was Christmas, and they had gone shopping in our house. 

A wealthy friend patted me on the head and said: "Trish, they're only things," which only incensed me more because a: his parents subbed his lifestyle and he'd never had to work, and b: many of them were things that I had bought and paid for, worked many hours at a job I hated in order to own. They were MINE, for God's sake.  

And then I thought again. Why exactly was I working all these awful hours in horrible jobs just in order to buy stuff? None of it was necessary stuff - it was pretty, it was nice to have, but it wasn't the roof over my head, it wasn't food on the table. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't make a difference. Sure, it's nice to be surrounded by pretty things, but it's not necessary to fulfilment.

Some of the items had sentimental value, but this too is an imaginary construct. I didn't drop dead for the loss of any of them. And the truth may be something else, too. Every time I looked at that clock I remembered that my mother wouldn't give it to me when dad died but had made me pay £200 for it. Whenever I looked at the writing box, I was chastened by the split it had picked up when I placed it too close to a radiator. Steve had bought his favourite watch the same day as a near-identical one for his ex-wife, which coloured my view of it somewhat. 

A couple of years went by and although we sometimes winced when we thought of what had been taken, we found we didn't need to replace much, other than the work computers. When we did buy, we hit on a strategy of buying only things we could use, not things that were purely ornamental. And gradually, gradually, we began to divest.

I can't remember now what went first, but every year that goes by, we have sloughed off more of our belongings, and every year we feel better for it. We've got rid of clothes, books we'll never read again, ripped all our CDs into I-Tunes and chucked the discs, put item after item of furniture into the local depot vente. The house feels bigger, emptier, more spacious. There is less cleaning to do, less maneouvring around things. Both our lives and our souls free freer for it, and I hope, in time, to get to a stage where nothing I own has ANY monetary value at all. 

I wonder where this would put me on the Lifesworth scale? Probably a complete loser. But I frankly I have no truck with a society where a person's worth is calculated by what they own and not by what they contribute. If the latter was calculated, where on this scale would the average lawyer, PR executive or stockbroker be? A damn sight further down than the lowly-paid nurse or cleaner or ambulance driver.

If you want to calculate your worth on Lifesworth, click here (only relevant to UK residents).

Average age and value of possessions in the UK
20 - £24,548
30 - £34,823
40 - £40,125
50 - £40,454
60 - £35,810
70 - £26,192

That's according to the US's Public Library of Science.  

Oh lovely. What kind of warped thinking is that? Let's allow people to get fat, then - save cash in the long run. 

However, leaving the obesity issue aside, which is well worth a full-scale argument, it's that further little twist in thinking that I note - that it's assumed that as you get older, you start getting sicker and frailer, as if this was something to be expected. That age inevitably means heart disease and hip replacements and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

We take so much of that thinking for granted in the UK that we hardly notice the assumption - just look at this British road sign for 'old people crossing' compared with the Namibian road sign below, depicting the same societal group.

But I don't think the French feel that way. When my mother died last year at the age of 83, in the UK the perception was that she'd 'had a good innings', but the comment I most often heard from French people was: "Oh dear, that's no age, is it?"

Well no. Not here it isn't. The French are the longest-lived people in Europe, and French women outlive their men by four years. The average age at death is 83, but the fact is, my village is full of hale and healthy people in their late 80s and 90s, living on their farms, breeding their own chickens - living full and independent lives. They do not, to me, look like people who are costing the health service much, and I know for a fact that when they get sick, they're treated the same as younger people, which is not the case in the UK.

When I had physio after a car crash last year, one of my companions in the waiting room was a woman in her mid-80s who had undergone surgery and radiotherapy for breast cancer. 65 sessions, she said, and now she was on a three-month physio course to help her mobility. Try getting any of that in the UK once you hit 70. She bumped into a friend who asked after a mutual third party. "She's very well," my my companion. "She's busy looking after her neighbour's house at the moment..." That third party was 93 years of age. 

One reason for this state of health, I'm sure, is that the French eat so much better than Brits. One quick look round the supermarket tells you who's British before they open their mouths - it's the lard-arses waddling round the place, loading up their trolleys with booze and fast food. Next to the skinny French, we are a disgrace.

But another reason is that they're simply better cared for. There is a huge emphasis on preventative medicine here. After the age of 40, women go for a mammography every year, and every citizen is entitled to a full health checkup every 5 years, to nip problems in the bud before they start. French women all have a gynecologist, separate from their GP, and annual cervical smears etc, are considered normal. One way or another, I see a medical professional for checkups three times a year, even when nothing's wrong with me.

Perhaps it's time that UK health service focused on preventing sickness rather than treating it. And on teaching patients the value of a balanced diet and a modicum of exercise. And perhaps it's time the Government banned junk food advertising on television altogther, not just before the watershed. And required schools to reintroduce games as part of the curriculum. Annd home economics, so that people know a protein from a polysaccharide. 

Not that there's a snowball's chance in hell of that, of course.

She was certainly one of my icons.

Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey van Heemstra Ruston in Belgium in 1929 to an English father and a Dutch mother who was a former Baroness. Her father later appended the family name Hepburn to his name Ruston and the family became known as the Hepburn-Rustons.

Hepburn went to school in Belgium, Holland and England, and, after her father walked out on the family, from 1939 attended the Arnhem conservatory in Holland, where she studied ballet until the outbreak of war. Like most European families, the Hepburns suffered a great deal during the conflict, and Hepburn herself had malnutrition, respiratory problems and oedema during these years.

After the war, she resumed her dance training but her height of 5ft 7 told against her and her constitution remained weak from the malnutrition. So she turned instead to acting, which paid better money than ballet - important when she was the family's chief breadwinner - and started small in educational films and bit parts. She was lucky enough to be spotted fairly early on, scoring a hit on stage in Gigi, and made her major motion picture debut in Roman Holiday in 1952, which made her a star.

Her debut as a style icon began shortly afterwards, when she made the film Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and the film studio sent her to fashion designer Hubert Givenchy to create a wardrobe.

Givenchy would later recall that Hepburn "knew exactly what she wanted. She knew perfectly her visage and her body, their fine points and their faults". This is typical of dancers, who are trained to regard their bodies with a critical and objective eye.

Until the end of her life, Givenchy's clothes would be part of Hepburn's signature look. She wore them both onscreen and off, and the two of them became firm friends in private life. He once said that he had never had to alter her 110-pound mannequin in all the years he designed for her - her stick-thin figure never changed one iota, although she bore two children.

Hepburn was a style groundbreaker principally because she looked like herself and that made her a new type of beauty. She kept her hair short and dark in an age where blonde was more fashionable. She was flat-chested when the current trend was voluptuous (Monroe and Mansfield were the celebrated stars of the era, along with Loren and Lollabrigida). She celebrated her dancer's frame with black capri pants and turtleneck sweaters that showed every inch of her svelte figure. She outlined her dark eyes with even darker eyeliner to create an innocent, doe-eyed look that was totally new.

Hepburn changed her fashion sense very little during her lifetime. Her astounding youthful beauty morphed into a mature elegance and at the age of 59, when she appeared in the film Always, she was still sporting her signature clean, neat style (but in white rather than black, as she was playing an angel). She still looked very much the dancer - hair scraped back, a small head on a trim body. The style influences she has left are manifold. Capri pants, ballet flats, full skirts, the little black dress, short strings of pearls, button-down mens' shirts, big hats and even bigger sunglasses are all Hepburn trademarks that remain in fashion today. So are cinched waists, trenchcoats and short scarves worn at the neck. Her classic elegance can be copied whatever your age and whatever your budget - all you need is class (though a rail-thin figure doesn't hurt). Keep it neat and clean and simple and you can't go far wrong. 

Hepburn withdrew from films in 1967 in order to raise her family and thereafter worked only sporadically in cinema, preferring to follow more substantial pursuits. She became a Unicef goodwill ambassador and was tireless in helping refugee children as she herself had been helped at the end of the Second World War. But perhaps, in the end, it was the war that finally conquered her, and in 1993 she died of bowel cancer aged only 63.

1 Jali neti

The Indians have done this for centuries - salt water nasal lavage. If you’re at all asthmatic or wheezy, have a persistent cough, hay fever, suffer from bronchitis or colds in winter, or simply live in an area where the air is polluted, jali neti is invaluable. Since I started doing it, I’ve not had any feelings of breathlessness from my asthma and this winter got right through the season without a cold, which for me is a miracle.

Nasal lavage cleans the cilia - tiny hairs inside your nostrils that constantly wave back and forth, keeping your airways clean. This reduces the amount of pollution or irritants, such as pollen, that get as far as your lungs. Your cilia can dispose of pollutants in about 15 minutes, whereas your lungs may hold onto them for weeks, so by keeping the cilia in good order, you improve your whole general health.

The procedure is simple - basically you tip warm salted water up through one nostril and it comes out of the other (it may take you a bit of time to get the right position, so you have to practise a bit - lean over the sink and tilt your head to one side. You’ll know when you get it right because to your surprise, water suddenly runs out of the other nostril). Rinse for 20-30 seconds, then blow your nose gently and do the other side. It feels a bit strange at first, and you may worry that you’ll choke, but you don’t - you can continue to breathe just fine through your mouth while you do it, and you can even hold a conversation. The action is only gravity-fed, so you don’t ‘flush water into your brain’ or anything daft like that either. The first few days, you’ll get a disgusting amount of gunk out of your nose, but once you’ve acquired the daily habit, the water just runs clear.

To do jali neti properly, it helps to have a neti pot, though I am still cobbling along with a teapot with a baby’s teat stuck on the end. Pots are either ceramic or metal and the different types have different advantages - a ceramic one can be warmed up in the microwave, but a metal one is better if you’re clumsy, as it’s easy to break a pot on the edge of the sink. It’s best to use neutral mineral water rather than fluoridated tap water, add enough salt so that the water tastes salty (it’s a matter of preference but use sea salt if you can, so there’s no anti-caking agent in it) and choose a temperature that you feel comfortable with. About half a pint of water and a teaspoon of salt is a good general average, and that’s enough water to give your nose a good cleaning.

Afterwards, bend forward and backwards to flush out the last drops, and walk around with a tissue for a bit, as you do tend to get a bit come down afterwards. Get into the habit of jali neti each morning and you won’t know how you managed without it. I do it before breakfast, while the coffee’s brewing.

2 Oil pulling

This is another Indian technique and works as a kind of mouthwash that keeps your mouth healthy and clean, and reduces tooth decay and gum disease. It’s also meant to increase the body’s resistance to infection because it stops you from swallowing so much bacteria. The recommended oil is organic sesame, but most oils will work - however, you want one that doesn’t have a strong flavour, because it’s going to be in your mouth for quite a while.

First thing in the morning, before you eat, put about a tablespoon of oil in your mouth and swish it around, in and out of your teeth etc. Pretty soon, it starts to feel foamy (I’ve therefore reduced the amount I use to just over a teaspoon, as it also increases in volume). The viscosity of the oil pulls the nasties out of your teeth and gums, and gradually the oil turns white and opaque. You’re meant to pull for 20 minutes but I’ve never managed more than five (it’s actually quite hard work on your jaw and tongue), but when you’ve had enough and the oil has gone good and bubbly, spit it all out (it’s now full of rubbish, so you don’t want to swallow it). Clean your teeth with water and bicarb of soda, then go eat your breakfast.

Ordinary mouthwash probably does exactly the same, and quicker, if you can tolerate it (I can’t).

3 Drink more water

Most of us don’t drink nearly enough water and mild dehydration is the leading cause of headaches, tiredness, constipation, dry skin and a host of other ills (for more details, read the book ‘Your Body’s Many Cries for Water’ by Dr F Batmanghelidj). Scientists also now know that thirst is a very poor indicator of dehydration - you need to train yourself to drink more, not just drink when you’re thirsty.

Personally, I find it difficult to remember to drink during the day, especially if I’m out and about, so here’s one trick I learned - drink a pint of warm water first thing in the morning, last thing at night and before lunch and dinner. Do this and you’ll have drunk four pints throughout the day, which is nearly 2 litres - quite a lot of water for the average person, especially if you’re also sipping throughout the day. Warming the water up makes it easier to glug it down, which is something I find particularly difficult, and the morning dose also has the advantage of kickstarting your digestive system and keeping you regular.

Whenever you do get thirsty, try to drink water - not coffee, tea, hot chocolate, wine, beer, fizzy drinks etc. If your body’s telling you it needs water, give it what it needs.

4 Shut your mouth

In other words, follow step one of the Buteyko breathing method. Invented by a Russian doctor, the Buteyko breathing method (Google for more info, and read ‘Close Your Mouth’ by Patrick McKeown) is designed to help asthmatics, but it also works to improve the health of anybody, making your breathing more efficient, deeper and slower (which keeps your heart slow, your blood pressure down and hopefully means you’ll live longer).

Although the more advanced techniques require some practice, and you’re advised to attend a class, the first step is very simple - from now on, no matter what you do, only breathe through your nose. That’s both the in breath and the out breath. By breathing only via the nose, you filter out pollution and bacteria, and prevent your lungs from losing too much moisture.

Breathing through the mouth is a habit that we all pick up, and we’re especially bad at it while eating, exercising, laughing or holding conversations. But as anyone who has asthma knows, a deep breath in through the mouth can cause an asthma attack or a coughing fit, especially when the air is cold. Many people also feel hoarse after an evening of conversation or laughter - the reason is that you’ve dried your throat and lungs out by breathing through your mouth. By breathing only through your nose, you’ll find that you become quieter in conversation, but learning to listen instead of talk might be no bad thing either.

Many people worry that they won’t be able to follow this technique because their nose gets blocked, but it you follow the jali neti procedure, your nose is very rarely blocked. It’s quite natural, though, over the course of the day, for your nostrils to take it in turns to breathe and to rest, swapping every four hours, so even if one nostril is blocked, you should be able to breathe through the other perfectly well.

Learning to breathe out only through your nose is harder than learning to breathe in, but it is especially useful when you’re exercising, to maintain moisture in your throat and lungs. If you’re not sure about this, try exercising with a scarf over your mouth instead.

Your Body’s Many Cries for Water is available from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Close Your Mouth is available from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

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