I was prepared for all eventualities. Well, everything which can be solved via Calpol and Pooh Bear plasters. Also head lice shampoo and tummy bug medicine. These have all been useful. But the most important thing of all has sometimes been in short supply, and that has been a problem. I’m talking about Parental Attention.

We chose to go around the world doing the day job at the same time, you see. Mr Millard is the director and I am the reporter. For six TV shows. “How on earth will you manage to do this?” inquired friends when we launched this idea back in civilisation.

“What will the children do while you are doing the filming and reporting?” We laughed, proud to be free of any assitance from nanny or aupair.

“They will run about at our feet,” I said, with an assurance which now seems quite mad. “Learn French. Help with the filming. Join in.”

Ho hum. Although there has been a modicum of French going on, examples of helping with the filming has been zero and Joining In has also proved rather sporadic. Nobody’s fault, but there you are.

Which means that on this trip, the Junior Millards, (aged 12, 9, 6 and 4) have been somewhat left to their own devices. As any parent will know, this is a recipe for potential mishap.

At infrequent times I have left Phoebe, our eldest, in charge. With a clearly written list of phone numbers, a big piece of paper reading AU SECOURS (just in case) and a easily memorable mantra “No Knives, No Matches, No Windows Open”. And she managed brilliantly. But because of school, she could only join us half way through, after we had encountered without doubt the most dangerous moment on our trip.

This was in the savage, sticky  wilds of French Guyana. We were interviewing a teacher, James Pritchard, on the banks of the giant Maroni river which marks the border between French Guyana and Surinam. It was about 90 degrees in the sun. All the children were in the back of the car, which we had stupidly parked up on the slipway above the vast, brown waterway. The engine was idly running, because, you know, we wanted the air conditioning on.

Just as I got to a particularly key moment with James, we were distantly,  yet distinctly aware of the  car engine  furiously revving up. Gabriel, 9, had moved into the driver’s seat. His younger siblings were still strapped in the back. His foot was on the gas. It would have only taken a slip of the handbrake  for the car to inexorably start rolling down the steep slipway into the murky depths of the Maroni. Would we have been able to stop it? Of course not. Would they have been able to get out? Ditto. It still makes me lose my breath to think about the unthinkable.

So, a lesson learned. Pay more attention. But not so much so that you focus entirely on one to the disadvantage of the others. Two weeks later, we were in the sandy heaven of Bora Bora. And while I was taking one child to our  bungalow, Gabriel (again), managed to somehow spin himself over a rope bridge and crash down about four feet onto a coral shelf above a lake. Mercifully, only a nasty series of  grazes ensued. But again, what if he had hit his head, what if he had fallen into the water? and so on.

So, pay more attention. But also give your charges a LOT of things to do. Shouting and yelling in the back of vans/speedboats/traditional Polynesian canoe boats has nearly driven Mr Millard and I to complete insanity,  during which we have seriously considered murdering the lot of them.

Simple, cheap and portable remedies such as packs of cards, paperback books,  colouring books, and pads of lined paper (great for Boxes, Hangman, Consequences) have been total saviours here, as are games such as I Spy or Charades. These all last a lot longer than (say) keeping a single child quiet with a Game Boy, which in my experience will only be fought over and ultimately broken. You don’t need to take vast amounts of games from home either, since you can pick up a pack of cards almost anywhere on the planet.

Also, although it sounds incredibly dull and middle-aged, keep off the sauce. Once they are all in bed, fine. But even though we’ve been travelling around the French overseas empire, where a decent supply of Appellation Controllee is regarded as crucial to life as oxygen and clean water, I’ve been careful to keep a sober head in the day.

What’s the message, then? If you are going somewhere vaguely civilised, don’t bother taking an entire chemist’s shop of  medicine with you. It’s much more important to keep a clear head,  pay attention, particularly at busy times (most accidents happen at arrivals and departures),  and remember to have that pack of Happy Families always at hand. And then you will continue to be one.

Come and see these men, girls. They sail boats! They play the ukelele, sing folk songs brilliantly, dive to depths of about 40 feet dressed only in thongs, cook majestically and without aprons, harpoon fish and er, have astonishing tattoos over nigh-perfect bodies. What is it about Polynesian men and what’s more, how have they got this way? Oh, they also speak French, wear jewellery and sarongs in a remarkably cool way and are quite easy about lifting you out of a boat and carrying you bodily over a few metres of lagoon and coral.

The other interesting thing about these chaps is that they seem remarkably contented. Take Marcello, long blonde tresses, nut-coloured body covered with tattoos, a jawbone from a manta ray and a black pearl around his neck and a hibiscus behind his ear. He picked us up in a flower-festooned boat and took us to a deserted, Robinson-Crusoe style beach with a trestle table in the water. A small barbecue was on the go beside the table, on which Marcello began to grill six or seven langoustine. Had he bought them fresh from the Bora Bora market this morning? Hell, no.

He had harpooned them himself just now on the coral reef. Of course, they were delicious. After lunch, Marcello drove us out to the ocean. With his feet, because his hands were busy playing the ukelele. Just in case we got bored. When we arrived at the diving spot, he stripped off to a bright pink thong and dived in. While we weedy British types hovered around the boat, snorkeling, Marcello plunged down about 30 foot and patted a nearby lemon shark (circa 10 metres long) on the head. Need I go on?

Anyway, the point is that when he was taking us back to Le Meridien, (our fabulous hotel which clearly knows what a star old Marcello is, and sends him out with guests almost every day), he pointed out his house. It was on the other side of the lagoon. “Born there, brought up here,” he said, gesticulating to a distance of about 100 yards. Well, why bother going anywhere else? When we arrived at the jetty, his wife was waiting for him to take her home and cook her supper, I guess. An extremely middle class looking French woman who works at the hotel spa, she clearly knows where her bread is buttered.

Postscript. At a Mini-Heiva (local sing & dance show) in Tahiti tonight they had a Miss Mini-Heiva. Usual stuff. But then they had a Mini Mr-Heiva!! With another of these gorgeous hunks up there on stage. Sadly his ambitions were “to do something with electricity”, but never mind. He was young.

I now know this to be true.

My children, ever challenging, lived up to form yesterday when one of them casually tossed the beloved and newly-purchased snorkelling mask of his elder brother into the swimming pool. The deep end. Which, being French, is naturally equally challenging and reaches 3.5 metres, or around 10 feet. “Oh Maman!” went up the cry. “Cherche le masque!” And I, never wanting to seem weak in front of my hatchlings, duly dived into the pool. At 6  feet I felt very unhappy. At 7 feet I felt rather like Tanya wotsit, that woman who goes underwater on a ‘weighted sled’, a more horrendous fate which I cannot  imagine. At 9 feet I gave up. “Oh Mummy, you failed!” they shouted. Alright, so I did it again, and again. Eventually, feeling like an extra from Das Boot, I gave up, and got the mask out by the dramatically dull method of using a long-handled broom to sweep it out. But not before my ears had started complaining.

In the morning I was almost deaf. The water had done something wierd to my ears. By that night one was hurting somewhat and I felt like my entire head was encased in a sock. There was nothing for it.

“Je voudrais le medcin,” I announced to the reception at our lovely hotel, the Hotel Bateliere. 20 minutes later, one turned up. Knocking on my hotel bedroom door!

Alright, he looked a bit like one of The Monkees, but Docteur Phillipe Bauchet clearly knew his stuff. No, he did NOT go down the classic French route and give me an enema, but he managed everything else. Pulse, blood pressure, heart beat, throat, ear and eye inspection. And FOUR prescriptions  - antibiotics, the lot. I have a small ear infection caused by diving down THREE atmospheres. Yep, every metre down is one atmosphere of pressure on your ear. The children looked mightily impressed as Dr Bauchet imparted this information. He left us all feeling rather amazed. And ever so slightly poorer - the cost of Dr Bauchet’s personal visit could have bought my son TEN new snorkeling masks. Never mind.  My ears are ringing with pleasure at my bravery.

Hence, it went in the hold along with everything else. Hence, when we arrived in Martinique, after a 20-hour journey involving three connecting flights, with our luggage booked right through, it did not turn up. Hence at the moment my wardrobe is currently a toss-up between my son’s gym kit and a dirty black dress. I’m only ramping it up a little if I say I rather hope my suitcase of clothes doesn’t turn up. It’s a blessed relief to be without Clothes Choice. No choice is a certain sort of freedom in my view. I have discovered that being 4000 miles away from home has meant worries about what to wear have dwindled with alarming speed. Maybe Trinny and Susannah should try it. Furthermore, since I have no meetings to go to or lunches with important employers or would-be employers, I don’t need to worry about impressing anyone with my fashion sense.

The only dull point in all of this is that the fashionable French, with whom I am amongst, and who are usually several notches above us Englanders in style, are currently in a different stratosphere from yours truly. “Er, je porte le costume de sport de mon garcon,” I explained casually at breakfast today to a French banker with whom I happened to fall into conversation.

He is leaning up against a wall beside the swimming pool stylishly glancing over a copy of Le Monde. Clad only in bathing suit and glasses. The trunks in question are long, and light blue, with a print of promenading camels. There is a large linked watch on his wrist and a gold chain around his neck. These pieces of jewellery are not flashy, but carefully chosen. They adorn a body which is of course ideal; small in stature, lean in proportion, hairy enough to be manly, but by no means covered with something which closely resembles a pelt. He is a banker. Yes, in France even those with the most urbane of jobs are things of beauty.

And although we were discussing the fiscal problems currently facing France and her overseas territories, I felt the need to tell him why I was standing there in a PE kit consisting of a white M&S T shirt and a pair of Nike shorts (stained). Whereas this sort of information might have excited an Englishman beyond compare, I don’t think it impressed him one bit.