This year my relationship with my mother has drastically changed.
I stopped calling her if I needed comfort
When I got sick I suffered alone. When she got sick I worked from her home and took her to the hospital.
She has been a nurturing, supportive and fun mother but she is now in her eighties and it’s high time I took on some of the caring.
It's been confronting for both of us to switch roles; she is an independent and fun spirited woman, but it's been an honour for me to step up and last week there was a massive bonus.
I flew to the French Riviera to be her travelling companion. Mum was last in Nice in 1949 when she stayed at the Youth Hostel. This time we lived it in a lovely hotel on the Promenade Dei Anglais with a rooftop restaurant that had a stunning sparkling view. We roamed medieval hilltop towns like Eze and St Paul De Vence, we wandered through Picasso's studio in Antibes, Renoir's house in Cagnes Sur Mur and the Matisse Museum above Nice.
We had long lunches with wine and we relaxed, recovered and reconnected. As I drove her through the modern day sprawl, she told me what it was like to hitchhike around Europe in the 1950s.
I talk about it on this week's Just Between Us podcast which you can listen to hear on iTunes and below on Soundcloud.
Things then get a little bit sexier as we reveal what mercy sex is and whether you should have it and find out what happens when a woman takes testosterone to improve her sex drive.
Plus, we ask are our forties the most difficult decade and how life is like living in a giant pinball machine.
