Helena Frith Powell

Not since Audrey Hepburn was there has there been such a pretty visitor to Rome. Yesterday Olivia and I took the train (and the strain, it was 30 minutes late) and went into town.

“Do you realise that since we got to Italy we have eaten pasta every lunch and every dinner?” Olivia said to me once we were finally on the train. “We could eat pizza too, you know.”

Once in town we jumped on a bus to the Spanish Steps. You couldn’t actually see the steps for the amount of people there but it was lovely to be there, mainly trying to sell us useless things to throw in the air or fake handbags (actually not a bad buy for 20 euros compared to 1850 euros for the real thing at Gucci down the road).

Olivia’s favourite sight was the Trevi Fountain. I covered her eyes until we got to a peak viewing spot and then lifted her up above the crowds.

“I want exactly the same in our garden,” she announced.

Olivia was amazed by the Pantheon, she thought the ceiling was “drawed” and was most impressed with the irrigation system. I am guessing this is hereditary. Her father has just finished writing a book about water.

We decided against the pizza and ate lunch in a restaurant my parents used to go to called Nino’s when they lived in Via Frattina, close to the Spanish Steps. Olivia had Fettucine al Ragu and I had Penne all’ arrabbiata. It is one of those lovely old-fashioned places with white linen and professional waiters. I sat there gazing at this litte girl, so elegant and grown-up opposite me, eating her pasta with confidence, and felt extremely proud of her.

After lunch we went for an ice-cream in Piazza Navona. Sadly there was a kind of Christmas fair going on with all sorts of dreadful stalls and poisonous food for sale. We couldn’t see the square but the Bernini fountain was covered in scaffolding anyway.

We’ll just have to come back. As Audrey Hepburn’s character says when asked which city she has enjoyed most on her European tour: “Rome, by all means Rome”.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

We are finally here after what feels like several days on a train. All was going relatively well until the night train was delayed. First they said 20 minutes. There we sat among the alcoholics and the homeless at Nice station (not so nice), praying for our train to arrive. Then it was 40 minutes. By now we were best friends with the down-and-outs.

The train was not much of an improvement on Nice Station. It was dirty, old-fashioned and cold.

“Look at this,” shrieked Bea when she saw the loo with no loo seat and water all over the floor. “Who on earth are these disgusting people?”

Olivia was not impressed with her couchette. “This is the hardest bed I have ever been in,” she complained. If the aim is to reduce the amount of people flying around the globe creating carbon footprints then the trains need to be dramatically improved. So far this is not an experience I am keen to repeat.

The train finally pulled out of the station at half past midnight, by which time we were all horribly over-tired, grubby and generally grumpy. The children fell asleep straight away, despite the basic conditions. I lay there anticipating all the things that would wake me up.

We were practically next door to the guard’s room and the two guards (when they weren’t busy chatting up some rather overweight Italian girl) would open the door and let it slam shut. The door, when it opened, sounded like something out of a hammer-house horror movie. Crrreeeeeeaaaaaak it said and then BANG followed by a loud click as the lock connected.

This happened about 200 times between midnight and 7am. At one stage I went to visit said door and guards, wearing my silk pyjamas and my UGGs, an outfit I must remember to show off more often.

“Could you please shut up?” I asked. “My children can’t sleep. And stop opening and slamming the door for 10 minutes? I’m taking the plane home.”

Two things struck me as I said this. One, how effortlessly I can lie to men in uniform and two, how old I must be. They looked really scared and apologetic, switched off their Italian pop music and said how sorry they were.

At 7.30am Leonardo woke us all up. We had another two hours to go to Rome. By this stage they were getting rather fed up of trains. We sat at some place called Orte for half an hour.

When we got to the station my mother met us and we had breakfast. We had two hours to kill before the train to where she lives now.

“I want to go home,” wailed Bea. We had all had enough. Finally at 11.35 we got on a train bound for Ancona. An hour later my mother announced that after this stop, ours was next. I looked out of the window. ORTE said a big sign.

Geography never was my strong point……

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Relaxing, snoozing, reading a book, enjoying a glass of wine by the fire….but that’s just my husband. Me, I am on a train bound for Italy with the three children. As I write (after four and a half hours) they have finally lost the plot and are running up and down the train irritating everyone. It reminds me of the story of a friend of mine travelling up to the Lake District with her two children when they were aged four and five.
“When are you next taking this train?” asked another passenger. “I just want to know so I can avoid it.”
Actually they have been very good. We have played ‘Operation’ (Olivia was Dr McDreamy) about 100 times, Leo has watched Spiderman III (thanks Father Christmas) and we have gone through every interactive Christmas card I was sent this year.
We arrive in Nice in half an hour and then we have a two-hour wait before the night train to Rome. I am planning to take the children to an Asian fast food place I went to last time. There is no menu, all the food is laid out in a glass counter, everything from red Thai chicken curry to stir-fried rice and other unidentifiable dishes. So hopefully they will spend about an hour deciding what to eat and then we can get on our sleeper. I am still trying to decide which child is least likely to fall out of the top bunk.
My mother is meeting us at the station in Rome and then it’s back to her new house in the mountains and pasta and being looked after for ten days.
I am planning to take the children into central Rome, but maybe one at a time. “Are there any shops there?” was Olivia’s first question. I obviously need to introduce her to the joys of eating ice-cream in Piazza Navona, gazing at the Pantheon and walking up the Spanish Steps. And then maybe we’ll fit in some shopping.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

“Are you a goer?” I overheard a man asking at a party the other evening. The man posing the question was my husband. The person he was addressing was my friend and business partner Mary. I agree that with her tight red dress and hair curly as kale she was looking particularly festive, but I did wonder if this question were appropriate. My normal response would have been to flirt outrageously with the best-looking man in the room, but as our kind hosts were gay, all the good-looking men were looking for equally good-looking men, and not wasting so much as a glance in my direction. I resolved to ask Rupert about this comment on the way home.

“I heard you ask Mary if she was a goer?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I know it looks bad. But there is a perfectly good explanation. I was explaining to her my theory of parties. Parties are made up of two kinds of people: those who want to go home early and those who want to stay late. The problem is, they are normally married to each other, which leads to aggravation. So what I wanted to know from Mary was this: are you a stayer or are you a goer?”

Hmm. Neat explanation. Or perhaps I am getting very French in my suspicions. Here we are all agog at the news of the liaison between Carla Bruni and Sarko. She clearly is a goer. When she decided that she must have Raphael Enthoven, a philosopher, it was of little concern to her that a) he was married and b) she, Carla, was living with Raphael’s father at the time. Along with the usual conquests such as Mick Jagger (while he was married to Jerry Hall) and Eric Clapton, she also dated Francois Fillon, the French prime minister. This is probably not the first occasion that the French president and prime minister have shared the same squeeze, but it’s definitely the first time that the French public have been made aware of it. While we haven’t been at too many parties this season – Rupert and I shared an office lunch – no streamers, no dancing, very little snogging – we have been invited to Christmas Eve with our wine-making friends Jean-Claude and Alexandra in their chateau. Nervous as we are about the police and their breathalysers, I phoned Jean-Claude to ask him what time we should book a taxi for.

I was already quite nervous about this: according to one friend, the French go first to Midnight Mass, then party on afterwards. As a girl who likes to be in bed by ten o’clock at the latest, this is disheartening news. Jean-Claude suggested various times for the taxi, then said:

“It’s all too complicated. You must stay.”

So, it’s official. Rupert and I are both stayers. Although he points out that perhaps it is possible to be a goer and a stayer. I will question him further on this issue. In the meantime Merry Christmas!

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In the hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.”

This little ditty from the American writer Clement C Moore may give the impression of peace and harmony in our home. Not true. Once again Christmas has arrived without my permission.

I was going to be so organised this year. Start buying presents in July, get all the Swedish things going like the candles you burn every week until the BIG DAY. Order organic, hand-made advent calenders that the children will love and nurture forever, have the stocking fillers and presents beautifully wrapped and hidden by October.

None of this happened. Instead of writing at my desk I should be hiding in the downstairs loo wrapping stocking fillers. The advent calenders are the cheapest awful chocolate ones from the supermarket bought on December 1st and I still have to buy Bea’s main present.

Christmas comes but once a year. So you’d think I would be prepared for it. Why do I never remember that time between December 10th and 25th goes at double speed.

This year for the first time we are invited to some French friends on Christmas Eve. As a Swede I am not averse to celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. But I have heard that in France one goes to midnight mass and then has dinner AFTERWARDS. Meanwhile Santa will have been and dropped off all the presents. So assuming we have the usual seven courses I should be home just in time to stuff the turkey and pop it in the oven for lunch.

Why Tony Blair has converted to Catholisism I can’t understand. Especially just BEFORE Christmas Eve. You’d think he’d have hung on for a few days, avoided midnight mass and got an early night.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

My journey home was marvellous. We got on the Eurostar at the newly revamped St Pancras Station. When the train stopped I thought we were in Ashford in Kent or at best Lille. Turns out we were at the Gare du Nord.

Here at home it is a winter wonderland. The lawn is white and the rivers frozen. I am also frozen as am too posh (or maybe too poor) to have any central heating. Leonardo has developed an alarming habit of waking at 5am. “Talk to me mummy,” he shouts in my ear. So for fear of waking the others I bring him downstairs where the temperatures are hovering around zero.

While he watches Scooby-Doo wrapped in several blankets, I work. I wonder who else watches children’s TV at what would be 4am UK time? Other insomniac children I suppose. Top Cat was on this morning, which takes me back. Amazing (and rather comforting) that children’s TV is so consistent. But is that hapless cop ever going to get the better of him? My aunt always said that if you haven’t achieved anything by the time you’re forty you never will. So I guess he’s way past his sell-by date.

Talking of my aunt, you may remember she is not speaking to me since the publication of Ciao Bella. I am taking the children to Italy after Christmas to stay with my mother. My aunt has asked to see them but demanded I go out. I am of course contrite and already planning my vanishing act. Rupert is less so. His first reaction was that I should tell her to get lost. When I refused to he gave Olivia a message for her.

“Tell her she’s a silly old trout and that the truth hurts,” he said. I’m sure Olivia won’t pass it on. But there’s a small, rebellious part of me that hopes she will. How are we getting to Rome? Train of course. I just hope Leo sleeps on. We don’t get to Rome until after 9.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I am pleased to annouce that I am incredibly posh. The reason I know this is that none of my friends have central heating. It is a well known fact that the posher you are, the colder your home is. In fact one of the friends I stayed with in London during this visit didn’t even have hot water, so she must be almost royal. Last night I was unable to sleep because my nose was so cold. I’m all for getting into the seasonal swing and all that but do I need to look like Rudolf?

I am now on the train on my way back to France. My final Christmas party was the Daily Mail one. I met Shere Hite there, author of the famous Hite Report on Female Sexuality. I had always imagined she would be rather academic and serious. Not a bit of it. She made Joan Collins look natural.

She had obviously had a lot of work done. At a guess I would say at least one face-lift, lots of lip implants and botox. She looked insane. She looked scary. She looked older than her 65 years. I suppose the rest of us should be grateful to her. Not only because she talked openly and loudly about the importance of the female orgasm, way back in 1976, but because she is a prime example of a truly terrible approach to ageing.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

So I discovered the happy medium the night before last. Two glasses of good champagne and one glass of wine. So pleased was I with my discovery that I drank rather more last night and now remember why I hate drinking. I spent the moderate night with my friend Floss. Back in the days when we all hung out in the King’s Road in our late teens she and I were best friends. We would go everywhere together. In those days this mainly involved going to nightclubs. There were a few other girls in our gang but it was depressing to hear from Floss what has happened to them. One of our close friends was a girl I was always rather jealous of. She had everything I longed for. She was at public School, her parents had a big mansion in Chelsea. She was beautiful; a buxom, raven-haired, startlingly pretty girl with lovely skin. Her sister was a very successful model until she became a drug addict. The sister died of an overdose when I was at university. Floss told me the other night that our old friend was a heroin and crack addict. Another friend of ours called Claire died a couple of years ago of alcoholism. Floss herself has been in recovery for sixteen years and now helps other drug addicts. Two other friends, Billie and Ben, are still drug addicts and Floss doesn’t even know if they’re still alive. These were all rich, beautiful, well-educated kids. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t have everything they had and so was forced to get myself to university and get a job that saved me. Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

It was the American journalist and critic George John Nathan who said “I drink to make other people more interesting.” I would like to add to that. I drink to make myself more interesting. Last night I was so intent on not making a fool of myself and/or waking up with a hangover that instead of piling into the champagne at the Sunday Times Christmas party I drank water.

God I was boring. I could hardly bear to hear myself speak. What happened to the entertaining, witty girl about town I am convinced I am? She was a sober shell of her former self.

There has to be a happy balance. Just enough drink to make you and others interesting but not too much. I am going to spend the rest of the week trying to find that balance and will report back.

Meanwhile I can tell you that the absolute highlight of the evening was meeting fellow bloggers Wife in the North and Rachel from North London. They were great. I only hope I didn’t bore them too much in my sober state. And Pat Cash the tennis player was there. He told me he is now on the “oldie” circuit. He claims to be all of 31. It’s enough to make you reach for a drink…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

While Hamlet was thinking of death, I am thinking only of sleep. Never mind the Diana conspiracy theory, what about the international conspiracy to keep me awake at night? It is now 5.30am and I have given up on sleep for the night.

I was woken at 1am (some wooden letter falling off Olivia’s door), 3am (Bea throwing up) and 5am (Leo wetting his bed). You have to admit the regularity is suspicious.

Johnny Depp once said that when you get to a certain age you begin to view sleep as you once viewed hallucinogenic drugs. I was never one for hallucinogenic drugs but I get his point. Nowadays if I do manage to sleep through the night I wake up feeling like I am on drugs.

I leave for London today. For the first time ever I am driving. A friend and I are driving her car back because she wants to sell it. I have not been looking forward to the journey, I prefer the train and twelve hours in a car is far too long for anyone. But at least while Virginia drives I may be able to catch up on some sleep.

I defy them to find me on the A75 and try to stop me.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007