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Chelsea girl

7th May 2008 by Helena 8 Comments  

I am risking life and limb to head to Chelsea. Some of you may not be aware that police yesterday had to shoot a lone gunman within metres of Marks & Spencer. Can you imagine, you pop out to buy some matching underwear and the next thing you know some lunatic with a gun is trying to kill you.

Apparently he had a fight with his girlfriend. Sadly it seems he served in Iraq. Yet another consequence of that pointless war.

Anyway, the retreat is over and all went well. I came home and tried to introduce the children to the joys of sleeping with lavender scented yoga beanbags over their eyes. It didn’t work last night; Leo woke up due to a “baddie dream” and Bea woke up because she had a “hurtie leg”. Rupert slept through the whole adventure and was amazed when I looked so tired this morning. Gunmen allowing I shall look forward to a good night’s sleep in Chelsea.

I am going to meet some TV people, see some magazines and have my eyebrows threaded. This threading is a very serious business and as I know of nowhere outside Harvey Nichols that does it, I am forced to go there. I wonder if they sell bullet-proof vests.

But for now I am working on the train, speeding through the lovely French countryside. Everyone around me is eating and the conductor keeps wishing them a “bon appetit” – never let a train journey get in the way of lunch.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Travel, blog --> Tagged With: chelsea

8 thoughts on Chelsea girl

  • Rachel says:
    7th May 2008 at 12:57 pm

    according to the times at least, he was in a house in Markham Square, not a lone-gun man on the street. I don’t think he was randomly taking shots at people in M&S.

    Maybe the fact he served in Iraq is relevant but maybe not. We just don’t know.

  • sharyn G says:
    7th May 2008 at 7:26 pm

    Helena,

    So what exactly is threading? I thought “I’d had every beauty treatment imagineable.

    Sharon G

  • helena says:
    7th May 2008 at 7:41 pm

    It’s a brilliant Indian method for removing hair, they take thread between their fingers and pull the hair up by the roots. They always make a lovely shape of my eyebrows, but I was slightly disconcerted last time I went and asked them to remove a “couple of hairs” from my chin.
    “You don’t have a couple Madam,” said the threader. “You have a lot.”
    So I won’t be mentioning my chin when I go in tomorrow to have my eyebrows shaped!
    Hx

  • Kate says:
    7th May 2008 at 10:40 pm

    What exactly is “rsiking”? Is it when wearing too much pink makes your brain go fuzzy?

  • Gail says:
    13th May 2008 at 12:54 pm

    Hi Helena,
    I get my brows threaded in Tooting Broadway at Sajna. No appt necessary and it costs (no kidding) £3. If I splurge and have them tinted too, that’s an additional £5. Not exactly Chelsea/Knightsbridge, but there is a good M&S and with the money I’m saving I could perhaps do another Renew Retreat!

  • Gail says:
    13th May 2008 at 12:55 pm

    Here’s the website: http://www.sajna.co.uk/
    Gail

  • helena says:
    13th May 2008 at 1:08 pm

    Thanks Gail, I will check it out. And please do come again, as our number one client there will always be space for you!
    Hx
    PS I have now added the men’s and couples’ retreat to the website.

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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. 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

 

 

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