helena frith powell

  • Lifestyle
  • Women
  • Beauty
  • France
  • Contact

Any colour you like, as long as it’s red

6th July 2007 by Helena 4 Comments  

So, the journey started well. We had been driving for three minutes when Olivia announced she wanted to be sick. Once at Stockholm airport (which seemed like a lifetime later) we lost Leonardo. I had that awful pit-of-the-stomach fear that only losing a child can give you. Eventually we found him, chatting to two Swedish girls who made Paris Hilton look like a red-neck.

“What were you doing?” I asked him.

“They’ve got nice gros-gouttes,” he replied grinning broadly. Gros-gouttes in the children’s word for breasts. This boy is three; what he’ll be like when he hits puberty is not worth imagining.

The dreaded meatballAlthough I was partly brought up here in Sweden I feel like a foreigner here. For a start it is 4.15 am and I am wide awake. The sun is shining. What is the point in that? In the winter it is dark all the time and in the summer it’s light all the time. That seems mad to me. Also everyone here eats meatballs; all the time. If you go out for lunch or dinner you will be surrounded by Swedes happily chomping away at their national dish. Now I like a meatball as much as anyone, but every day?

I am no longer surprised that on September 3rd 1967 the entire population of Sweden changed from left-hand to right-hand drive. Most of them live in identical houses painted the classic Falu red. They all eat the same food and they all drive Saabs or Volvos. It would be more of a challenge to get them to do something different.

Falu redNot that I’ve anything against this uniformity, or in fact Falu red which is as nice a colour for a house as you could wish for. It just seems strange to me now.

Yesterday we had a lovely day taking the children around Djurgarden which is an island a short boat ride from the hotel. It is entirely made up of fun things to do like a museum dedicated to Swedish characters from children’s books like Pippi Longstocking (where you can meatballs for lunch), Skansen, meaning zoo but which is actually an open-air museum dedicated to Swedish history and tradition (lots of red houses) as well as home to lots of animals including bears, wolves, seals and the totally mad-looking elk.

We ended the day at Grona Lund, a funfair. This is a name I remember from my youth. It was where you wanted to go and get drunk as a teenager. I never went then but now I have and although I was sober it was good fun. Generally I loathe funfairs but as with everything else we saw yesterday this has been very well done. There is no foul-smelling food but nice hot-dog stands (another national dish, just in case you can’t find a meatball) and lots of trees which give it an almost park-like quality. The rides of course are mainly terrifying. We went on a children’s version of a sort of human falling elevator which was far too much for me. I did enjoy the ladybird roller-coaster though; just the right amount of fear mixed with exhiliration.

So now it is 4.30 and I suppose I may as well get dressed. Luckily breakfast starts early. Meatballs of course.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Sweden, Travel, blog --> Tagged With: colour

4 thoughts on Any colour you like, as long as it's red

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    6th July 2007 at 9:04 am

    J’ai faim!

  • peter says:
    6th July 2007 at 9:38 pm

    Hi

    you ought to tell them that the colour of houses changes throughout Sweden according to the traditional local minerals used in the paint.

    And you could talk a bit about Sybilla, Max, Systembolaget, Apoteket, Abba seafood, telia, SAS, the 5 grades of milk and other national treasures.

    Peter
    Actually looking forward to going back soon

  • Peggy says:
    8th July 2007 at 6:34 pm

    Helena,
    There is much to like in Sweden, as you well know. And much of it is odd, like nowhere else. For example,

    Swedish fences (gärdesgard or something)
    Fermented herring (surstomming)
    Sour milk (filmjölk)
    Vasa museet in Stockholm

    If I had my photos, and I thought about it for awhile, there would be other things as well. The first thing I saw in Stockholm was a Saturday afternoon parade of transvestites, gays, lesbians and other gender benders. They were on floats, many were half-naked, some were engaging in sado-maso acts, all were having a great time. As were the many Swedish families out for their Saturday stroll. They were watching or not watching the show, smiling and carefree, but above all not shocked or judgmental in the least. It was all very “bon enfant.”
    And speaking of fences, how about the national tradition and policy of making your property open to all (I forget the term for that, there is one), even those who want to sleep on it? Indeed, what’s not to like?
    Last but not least, there’s the Nobel Museum, surprising, informative and unpretentious, and all those “outdoor” museums.
    I envy you your half-Swedishness, and would love to be in Sweden right now. This is the lovely season….

  • Peggy says:
    9th July 2007 at 5:08 pm

    Me again. Ever curious, I searched for the term for the concept of free public access to private property, which gives everyone the right–Swedes and non-Swedes–to walk on and even sleep on someone else’s property. It’s “allemansrätten” is it not? Unless that means “all men are rats” in English…
    Anyway, it’s a wonderful concept that the rest of the Western world has a hard time getting its mind around. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau sadly noted so long ago, civil society and all the trouble started with the first guy who staked out a piece of the land, put a fence around it and proclaimed “it’s mine, no trespassing.” So I raise my glass or bowl of filmjölk to the Swedes and say “sköld” or whatever. All the more power to them.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

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. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

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

 

 

© 2023 Helena Frith Powell
Website by Web Inclusion
/* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:3em; -webkit-transition: all 0.8s; -moz-transition: all 0.8s; -ms-transition: all 0.8s; -o-transition: all 0.8s; transition: all 0.8s; margin-top:-100%; padding-top:100px; padding-bottom:50px; margin:0; } .scrolled .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:1.2em; padding-top:30px; padding-bottom:20px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .HFPA-section{ width:100%; background:#eee; } .HFPA-Image{ background-position:center right; background-repeat:no-repeat; height:276px; width:100%; -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); /* Safari 6.0 - 9.0 */ filter: grayscale(100%); } .HFPA-Text{ padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .footIt{ background:#222; padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */