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Heaven knows we’re miserable now…

18th November 2008 by Helena 8 Comments  

""This was the conversation on the way to school today.

Olivia: “Mummy, I don’t want to tell you this but I have to tell you something.”

I assumed Bea had eaten my lip gloss or Leo had been wearing my bras. But it was worse.
“We want to go home to France.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We miss everything.”

“Yes,” Bea chipped in. “This was supposed to be an adventure, but it’s just been terrible.”

I was at a loss for words. And depressed. Fact is there i no going back, not in this economic climate. I listed all the things that are good about life here; the beach, the yoga (they started yoga yesterday), school finishing at 1.30, all the help at home, the malls.

“Won’t you miss all that if we go back?” I asked.

“Wherever we go, we will miss things from the place we have just left,” said Olivia in her most grown-up and patient manner.

She is right of course. So we will be miserable wherever we go….there’s a cheery thought.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, Children, France, blog --> Tagged With: heaven, knows, miserable

8 thoughts on Heaven knows we're miserable now...

  • Miller says:
    18th November 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Such is the colonial service.

  • Arthur Burland says:
    18th November 2008 at 6:03 pm

    Tell them stories about how their grandparents were sent “home” to boarding school at eight, spent their holidays at school or with horrible strangers, and did not see their parents for years. That might put things into perspective.
    Ha! No joke. AB.

  • helena says:
    18th November 2008 at 6:26 pm

    And you still ended up being lovely. Somehow I can’t imagine sending little Leo away at any age, although I think Olivia would quite like boarding school, she would be running the place in no time.
    Hx

  • Ghinch says:
    18th November 2008 at 9:29 pm

    I can see them now, under the sheets with a torch, whispering and hatching a dastardly plot to escape the land of never ending sand and voting for Olivia to be spokeswoman. All very Famous Five or maybe Just William’s Black Hand Gang. Don’t ever believe that little children have short memories. Mine are 30 and 31 and they still remind me of the terrible sufferings they had to
    experience on family holidays.

  • sharyn g says:
    19th November 2008 at 4:48 pm

    Poor babies! This was such a big change and its hard for them to understand the economics involved. Wish there was an easy way to ease their adjustment.

  • mimi says:
    21st November 2008 at 1:23 am

    Bless them, aren’t they lovely; innocent and yet wise!
    Looks like a brilliant life to me, it’s cold and wet in Dublin if that helps them. mimi

  • xOx says:
    22nd November 2008 at 4:38 pm

    “This was supposed to be an adventure, but it’s just been terrible.” what your child said makes me think of an issue that always bothers me.. i hate foreigners like am talking about grown ups here who lives in the uae and always critisize things around the country. no offense to you in particular but most of the people who lives here and keeps on critique-ing lots of issues in the UAE well its not your country and your living, working , having a good life here so you better shut the hell up or pack and go to ur own country!
    thats just frustrating me x_X

  • helena says:
    23rd November 2008 at 7:27 am

    Hi xOx – you probably don’t understand how much my children complain and how little it means. They are much happier today you’ll be pleased to hear and will probably spend the two weeks we are going to be in France grumbling about the weather. I think they are settling in well, I certainly am, and am very happy to be here. Of course there are downsides but there are everywhere.
    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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