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First love…

7th March 2009 by Helena 6 Comments  

As I said, Bea and Olivia could not join Facebook because they are too young. Instead they joined the BBC’s social networking site for kids. This is Bea’s bio, which was sent to me as I had to approve it before it went live:

bea.jpg

my name is bea and i love singging and i love dancing i love watching tele but not all the time i love playing lots of games i have 2 sisters and 2 brothers my little brother is called leonardo and hes five years old he loves spiderman then my oldest sister she is called jullia and she is 15 years old my other oldest sister is 10 she is named olivia then i have my oldest brother named hugo he is 16 years old i live at abu dhabi at 25 strret little 8 street i love shopping my secret is that i love a boy in france he has black hair and he’s like me

It was the last sentence that broke my heart. I asked Olivia if it is the boy I suspect it is, the one she has always loved, a little cutie called Julien who was in her class and is the son of the local woodman (who is also quite cute).

first-love.jpg

“Yes,” she said. “She sometimes thinks she sees him in the street and then she thinks ‘oh he’s here in Abu Dhabi’ but it’s never him.”

I haven’t talked to Bea about it, Olivia says I’m not meant to know.

I feel terrible dragging her away from her first love and even more terrible that I had no idea she even thought about him any more.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Love, Relations, blog --> Tagged With: first

6 thoughts on First love...

  • Stef says:
    8th March 2009 at 9:34 am

    It’s a so touching expression of children deep feelings… The feeling of Love can be strong, no matter how old you are…
    Have a nice sunday!

  • mimi says:
    8th March 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Cute, cute, cute, from beginning to end, and including your feelings. It’s hard to imagine that one so young could be in love, but there you go. Please don’t feel guilty, her (and your) life in Abu Dhabi sounds idyllic, and she’ll still love him when you eventually return to France, mimi

  • Unexpected Traveller says:
    9th March 2009 at 7:29 pm

    And yet, the super-secret is something that is revealed to Mummy before being posted on the BBC’s site … and therein lies the true naivety.

    Young and in love, feeling the air beneath your wings and seeing the sun shine in every morning … sigh …

    UT

  • Irene says:
    14th March 2009 at 12:37 am

    If she thinks she sees him in the street, she is really, deeply in love! Ah, le chagrin!

  • Josephine says:
    24th March 2009 at 10:45 am

    Bea is so stunning. This is just the beginning, Helena. She will break many hearts. All the pain we share for our children. No wonder I have grey hairs! x

  • Mike says:
    28th January 2010 at 4:37 am

    Have you read Turgenev’s “First Love”? It might not be the story you think it is. It’s about a very young man who falls in love with a woman his age, who is then stolen from him by a much older and more experienced lover–I won’t reveal the secret of the plot. But it’s not an innocent story about childhood affection–it’s a story about betrayal and sexual competition.

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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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