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Grandparents reunited

28th December 2008 by Helena 2 Comments  

""My father came for Christmas. He is 84 and wrote a novel last year which won a major literary prize in Italy in September. He is an incredible character. Despite the fact that we have never lived together (my parents split up when I was two) he has an uncanny ability to work out whatever happens to be worrying me and giving me good advice.

This Christmas his travelling companion was my mother. It was lovely to see them together; amusing and rather unusual. They act a little like an old married couple. One morning my mother noticed his flies were undone.

“Your flies are undone,” she said.

“Of course they are,” he replied. “I left them undone for you to tell me to do them up. Otherwise what use are you?”

Rupert asked my father if he thought I am more like him or my mother.

“I ignore anything that is not like me in Helena,” he said. “I have the impression that I made her all myself.”

My mother, who has a generous nature and plenty of humour, lets this kind of comment slide.

But it is an odd thing, that when I look into his eyes, I have the impression that I am looking into my own.

They have gone now. My father is on to his next novel and wants to take my mother with him to Poland where he needs to go to do some research. I’m not sure she’s tempted by the idea of Poland with a literary genius who forgets to do his flies up, but you never know. And they were such fun to be with, I might go along myself.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Family, blog --> Tagged With: grandparents, reunited

2 thoughts on Grandparents reunited

  • Wendy says:
    30th December 2008 at 9:15 pm

    Tell us more about your Xmas – what did you eat? where have you been?…. when do you have to go back?

  • helena says:
    30th December 2008 at 9:28 pm

    Can you believe of all the exotic things we ate….turkey! We have been here the whole time which has been lovely, we go back the day after tomorrow. Have fallen in love with France and Sainte Cecile again, but happy to have it as a holiday home for now.
    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. 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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