When the accountancy firm she was working for in Paris sacked her because of her indiscreet but hugely popular blog, Catherine Sanderson considered “tightening my belt and trying to write something while living off benefits”.

Adding to her misery at the time, shortly before she was sacked in the summer of 2006, the “petite anglaise” had broken up with Mr Frog, the father of Tadpole, her daughter. But the publicity over the sacking brought some 40,000 visitors a day to her blog; publishers came running and she won a six-figure advance for a two-book deal.

When the first cheque reached her account, she went out and bought a toilet brush and matching toothbrush cup. It’s only now that she is planning a champagne party and a move to a bigger home than her two-room flat in Belleville in eastern Paris.

She readily admits that she is a different person from the one portrayed on the blog. She is, she says, “perfectionist, hard on myself and on others, obsessively tidy and organised. I tend to take over in a relationship but I need quite a bit of reassurance. Friends consider me a good laugh and honest”. She also admits to being self-centred: “But I’m not an exhibitionist.”

Living by the internet has not been totally good for her. She doesn’t like readers deluging her with advice – and worse. One particularly virulent young woman accused her of “prostituting all your life to get the approval of strangers”.

She is now working on her second book: “It’s not me, it’s fiction. I’ve changed, I’ve taken a step back now, I show less of myself.”

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