The light coming round the door of the shipping container I sleep in wakes me at 5.30am. It’s basically a box encased in concrete — we call it hardened accommodation — so if there’s a rocket attack we can withstand a direct hit. I lie in bed for half an hour, thinking through the day. Everything’s in my head at once. The children — six, including two sets of twins — have been in my mind since the moment they were born. The eldest girls are at Oxford; the others, three boys and a girl, are at boarding school in England. I’ll be mentally preparing for a meeting with the governor of Basra province and at the same time thinking: “On Wednesday the 10-year-olds have an exeat. I must let the school know their godmother’s picking them up.”

I have not knowingly taken exercise for 30 years, but two days into this job, Ditchy, one of my close-protection team, said: “Will you be running, ma’am?” So at 6.30am I run 4 kilometres. It’s a chance to see what’s going on. The British mission inhabits a one-acre site in the middle of Basra air station, where the American military are based. My office is in the snug behind the bar, complete with Union flag and a portrait of the Queen. My team — three diplomats, three police officers and a forensic expert — work in the bar and the storeroom.

I’m aware of the need to maintain authority and dignity, so even though it’s very hot I like to be properly covered. I shower and put on a floral shift dress — with heels, unless I’m going into town in a helicopter, when I wear £2.20 white school plimsolls and floral cotton gardening gloves to protect against the heat and dirt. An American pilot presented me with a camouflage pair, saying: “Ma’am, please wear these on my watch.” He felt my pink ones made us vulnerable to snipers.

Breakfast is poached egg on toast, cooked by the canteen. Bliss. The food is the best on the air base. It’s our secret diplomatic weapon, and I make the most of it, inviting people to lunch whenever possible. If I’ve got meetings downtown there’s an elaborate security structure. I get a briefing from my close-protection officers, who carry side arms and machineguns. And we set off, in full body armour, either in a helicopter or in convoy with US and Iraqi military. I’m learning Arabic but I don’t go anywhere without my interpreter, Sadiq. We move discreetly. Lots of eye contact, smiling and thanking people. But we don’t hang around. I weighed my body armour — it’s 11 kilos. When I take it off for meetings my dress is glued to my skin. I could win a Miss Wet T-shirt competition.

I talked Basra through with the children and if anyone had said, “Don’t go, Mummy,” I wouldn’t have. My whole career has been “How can I make this work?” When I arrived at the UN in New York — a big mission of 100 people, half of them women — I was the only mother. The Foreign Office is run on a shoestring; it isn’t all about maids and housekeepers. So I’m extremely organised. I’m quite capable of sewing nametapes into socks during meetings, but the trick is to make sure that when I’m in England we get everything sorted.

I do six weeks in Basra, then two weeks at home in Oxfordshire, which I don’t think works, quite. It’s nice for the children, but two weeks is a long stretch to be away from the mission. We have a special relationship with Basra province because it was the focus of our military engagement. It’s also an area of fantastic commercial opportunity; Iraq has the world’s third-largest oil reserves. We’re establishing a local youth-employment scheme and a museum, and I’m working with BP and Shell. Diplomats have to be instant experts, so I do a lot of reading, a lot of listening and I ask a lot of questions. But there’s always ambivalence about having foreign military on your soil, and our US hosts are a target — usually on Thursday nights, our outdoor-film night. You hear “Incoming!” over the Tannoy, then a bang and a shudder. Local people are tired of the insurgency and the Iraqi military usually gets to the launch point before the third rocket is fired.

If it’s an admin day, I’ll build in a little post-lunch lull between 3 and 4 when I sit out in the sunshine and read a book, but it’s so hot, the glue in the spine melts. When I arrived, everyone was working a seven-day week, which was very debilitating. The challenge was how to fill two days off with no amenities apart from a pool table. We now play cricket: mission against the brilliant Sri Lankan kitchen staff. And we challenged the US military police to volleyball. We had an extended fag break while they limbered up and we still managed to win.

Most evenings I entertain visiting representatives from British companies or charities. We have a Saturday-night barbecue and a Chinese night. I only have to say to the chef: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have queen of puddings…” and it magically appears. I phone and e-mail the children, but I’m keen we don’t all retreat into our containers, so I have a quick shower and sit out on the deck with a drink. I read a lot, roaring through fiction I haven’t had a chance to look at for years. And, barring rocket attacks, I sleep remarkably well.

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