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A perfect birthday

17th December 2009 by Helena 2 Comments  

Apart from the fact that I didn’t get the Ferrari and Marat Safin didn’t call me and offer to become my personal tennis coach I had as brilliant a birthday as  a girl can hope for.

Being born close to Christmas is a bummer, but I think that at this ripe old age I have finally found a way round it. You have a birthday party. People come with presents instead of just bunging you a card and saying “I’ll get you a big present for Christmas instead”.

The children were as nicely behaved as I have ever seem them; Leo’s job was to greet people downstairs and send them up to the terrace where our friend Sandra had created a wonderfully candlelit louche setting with fabric awnings, beanbags and rugs. The girls manned the bar. It is hardly surprising we got through 20 bottles of champagne in a few short hours; once those two get on a mission there is no stopping them. But they were all charming, all evening. Leo eventually fell asleep around 11pm on one of the beanbags. When I said to him this morning that I was so touched they were all so well behaved he said: “It was your birthday mummy, we haded to.”

terrace

The guests were all great. I have a theory that a drinks party is only dull if you invite dull people. And as it was my birthday I didn’t see any need to invite anyone I would resent being stuck chatting to. We had an eclectic mix; two ambassadors and my seriously foxy yoga teacher among them. Rupert has vowed to re-think his attitude to the downward dog.

What surprised me I suppose is just how many really good friends I have made here in just over a year. I don’t think I could have had such a large soiree of people I really like in France after almost nine years. Although of course we have some great friends in France whom I miss terribly. And Norrie and Mary in the Savoie also added to the euphoria over my birthday by sending me a copy of the new ITV Wuthering Heights and singing ‘Happy Birthday to you’ on the phone. But my point is that I think here, because you are so removed from Europe, you make good friends very quickly and there is also a bigger pool of potential friends because there are so many more people in the same situation as you are in.

Whatever the reason, as I surveyed the presents this morning (not one duff one among them; Chanel handbag (almost real), Girl’s Night Out Five CD set, book on Yoga, Clarins bubble bath, Estee Lauder lip plumping gloss, several gift vouchers to spas, lots of bottles of wine, a gorgeous necklace and more) I realised that I may have a hangover from hell and be middle-aged (yuk) but there are a lot of great people living here who really seem to know what I want. Including my office who gave me a huge bunch of pink flowers. I have rarely felt so loved on a birthday as this year. Maybe next year someone will show up with the Ferrari and my birthday really will be totally perfect….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, ageing, blog --> Tagged With: birthday, perfect

2 thoughts on A perfect birthday

  • Phillip Vanderwarker says:
    18th December 2009 at 9:46 am

    Where will you be this time next year, where you would wish the car delivered? As I have no address for service (cards,gifts,etc.) may I wish you, your very lucky husband and simply adorable children, a most sincere and heartfelt Merry Christmas and another successful and most properous New Year.

  • helena says:
    18th December 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Thank you Phillip, and as for the car, I will keep you posted but more than likely in Abu Dhabi!
    Hx

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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 working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in 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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