In Melbourne

I was in Australia when Isabelle was born. My normal procedure for visiting a newborn grandchild is to storm the maternity hospital, whatever the hour, push through the doors marked ‘Private' and grab the child to my bosom and welcome it to the family. I'm normally quite polite when it comes to the social conventions, but when the family are involved I lose all constraint. I think I must have Mafia blood in me. I haven't inherited the drug-dealing and contract-killing gene, but I think I may have inherited the ‘family-first' gene. I've probably passed it on to my sons. Last year my youngest daughter's potential boyfriends had to pass a series of scrupulous tests of character and have their past histories examined. The poor girl was like a princess in a fairy tale. Suitor after suitor was rejected. She would often return from a night out with a sad story about the Townsend brothers escorting yet another hapless youth away from her side on the dance floor. His crime was sometimes very trivial (he was known to habitually wear white socks), or more serious (being a serial womanizer with several children scattered around the East Midlands).

My sons assured me that they were saving their sister a lot of heartbreak, and perhaps they were right. She now has a very nice boyfriend who has the full approval of all the family. My eyes lit up when I heard that he was a plumber. I have spent a fortune on the mad plumbing in our house over the years, so it will be marvellous to have a plumber on tap. I am encouraging the girl to have a long-term romance.

Isabelle is two-and-a-half weeks old now, and I haven't seen her or held her yet. She looks beautiful in the photograph my husband brought out to me. I can't stop showing this photograph to strangers. So far I have shown it to a woman I spoke to in a toilet in Sydney, a Greek taxi driver, an assistant in a dress shop in Melbourne, and anybody else who will slow down long enough to look. I'm already grateful to Isabelle because she gave her mother so little pain. Four gentle contractions and she was born, which surprised everyone present – especially the mother, who asked, ‘Is that my baby?’ So take heart, pregnant women everywhere – it could happen to you.

I am in Melbourne at the moment publicizing the opening of The Queen and I, my play about the Queen and the royal family being exiled to an outer suburb of Sydney. I did a live radio interview last week, and a woman called Sylvia rang in and said I should be thrown off the top of the radio station building (twenty-two storeys). She then calmed down somewhat and said I should be hanged by my neck from the flagpole. But ardent monarchists such as Sylvia are quite thin on the ground here in Australia. In fact, Britain has very little influence on the everyday life of Australians. English fashion is the exception, but one wonders why: Australian designers use wonderful fabrics and cutting techniques, and make their clothes for all ages and sizes of women – not just for teenage stick insects.

It is winter here and Australians are walking around in an incredible variety of clothes. Somebody wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops can be followed down the street by a person dressed in big boots, moleskin trousers, a sweater and a greatcoat. The only dress rule I have seen on the window of restaurants and bars states: ‘Shoes must be worn’.

I was having breakfast in a hotel this morning when I looked up and saw my name in big letters outside the theatre opposite. I almost choked on my boiled egg. To succeed in persuading a thousand people a night to leave their homes and go to a theatre to watch a play seems an impossible thing to do. At this moment I am beset by fear and anxiety. This makes me clumsy. The director, Max Stafford-Clark, purses his lips in the rehearsal room as a pile of my rewritten pages slithers to the floor. I know I am the writer from hell and I wouldn't work with me again for a million pounds.

I think the editor of this magazine must be cursing the day he invited me to be a contributor. ‘Where's Townsend's copy?’ I can hear him shouting (though he is the mildest, most even-tempered of men). The fact that I am 12,000 miles away is no excuse for the fact that this article is now four days late. Fax machines have made such excuses redundant. So, what can I blame? Jet lag? No, I'm over that now. Laziness? No – if only I had the time to be lazy. No, it's the fear of putting words down on paper. I think I am suffering from wordaphobia. I may have to consult a doctor and ask him or her to send a sick note to the editor.