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Back to Blighty

10th May 2008 by Helena 2 Comments  

The almond orchardAfter a lovely trip on the Eurostar (now my number one way to travel anywhere due to the opening of not one, but TWO, Marks & Spencer’s at St Pancras International, I am on the TGV speeding towards home.

I am desperate to see the children, Rupert, my dog etc but I have to admit that something approaching depression hit me as soon as I walked off the train and into Lille Station.
Suddenly all the signs were in French, people were speaking French and it all seemed horribly unfamiliar. Obviously after almost eight years of living in France it is familiar, but the fact is it is not home.

But if I am going to get over this depression I have to change my mind-set. When I go to England I stay in Chelsea (somewhere we would never be able to afford to live), I am able to be supremely selfish (I have no children in tow) and I spend most of my time shopping, applying fake tan, having my eyebrows threaded, seeing friends or painting my nails. This is not life. This is a holiday. So from now on, France is going to be home and England my number one holiday destination.

I am going to make an effort to feel more French by listing things I like about living here.

The weather
The countryside
The girls’ ballet school
The straight, empty roads
The TGV
The fresh food
The sense of civic pride
The view from our house
Our house and garden (especially fig trees)
The vineyard at the end of our road with a cross in the corner
Our almond orchard
My new beauty column in Sante Magazine
The lack of people falling over drunk in the street (yes, even in Chelsea)
The lack of women showing less clothes than flesh
The fact that they stop for lunch

And talking of lunch, it is now at least 15 minutes past the allotted eating hour of midday so I need to get my picnic out (from M&S of course, where else? I’m not completely French yet).

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Britain, France, blog --> Tagged With: blighty

2 thoughts on Back to Blighty

  • Norrie says:
    10th May 2008 at 5:08 pm

    All this travelling.There has to be a gypsy in you somewhere.

    Oh! And you forgot to mention in your list that you live only a
    few hours from this little corner of paradise. The children will never forgive you.

  • helena says:
    10th May 2008 at 8:56 pm

    You’re right Norrie – how could I forget that. I always feel at home there.
    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 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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