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A bad day in the office

28th April 2009 by Helena 2 Comments  

This morning during the hour I spend with my children before they go to school it occurred to me that the difference between working and being a stay at home mother is that at least in an office you have some control over events.

OK so things can go wrong in an office, especially on a magazine. You’re about to go to press and you realise you have five less pages of ads than you had that morning. Or someone files some copy that is unreadable. Or the cover story about Jennifer Aniston is suddenly out of date because she has turned lesbian and moved in with Jodie Foster. But at least you are dealing with (normally) rational people and chances are you won’t have more than a few disasters a week.

kids-pic.jpg

This morning was an orgy or problems. Leo woke us all up at 6am by putting the TV on full blast. Then Bea lost her homework, then Olivia went semi-hysterical because she didn’t want to go to school, then she calmed down at which point Leo called her a doughnut which sent her into another frenzy and then she started playing the piano which Bea wanted to do and so on and so forth.

“What if daddy and I behaved like this?” I yelled.

But we don’t. Mainly because he was out playing golf. Mental note to self: take up golf.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: blog --> Tagged With: office

2 thoughts on A bad day in the office

  • Unexpected Traveller says:
    28th April 2009 at 5:16 pm

    Hi Helena,

    Why would being called a doughnut freak Olivia out? I must congratulate Leo for his choice of insult but did he add anything to that? Was it a frosted doughnut? Filled with cream or jam? Sticky?

    U T

  • mimi says:
    1st May 2009 at 9:45 pm

    And the thoughts of having to go and do a day’s work after all that! Sometimes it’s good to escape to the office though, isn’t it? mimi

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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