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Hhmmmm, maybe not…..

27th December 2007 by Helena 6 Comments  

We are finally here after what feels like several days on a train. All was going relatively well until the night train was delayed. First they said 20 minutes. There we sat among the alcoholics and the homeless at Nice station (not so nice), praying for our train to arrive. Then it was 40 minutes. By now we were best friends with the down-and-outs.

The train was not much of an improvement on Nice Station. It was dirty, old-fashioned and cold.

“Look at this,” shrieked Bea when she saw the loo with no loo seat and water all over the floor. “Who on earth are these disgusting people?”

Olivia was not impressed with her couchette. “This is the hardest bed I have ever been in,” she complained. If the aim is to reduce the amount of people flying around the globe creating carbon footprints then the trains need to be dramatically improved. So far this is not an experience I am keen to repeat.

The train finally pulled out of the station at half past midnight, by which time we were all horribly over-tired, grubby and generally grumpy. The children fell asleep straight away, despite the basic conditions. I lay there anticipating all the things that would wake me up.

We were practically next door to the guard’s room and the two guards (when they weren’t busy chatting up some rather overweight Italian girl) would open the door and let it slam shut. The door, when it opened, sounded like something out of a hammer-house horror movie. Crrreeeeeeaaaaaak it said and then BANG followed by a loud click as the lock connected.

This happened about 200 times between midnight and 7am. At one stage I went to visit said door and guards, wearing my silk pyjamas and my UGGs, an outfit I must remember to show off more often.

“Could you please shut up?” I asked. “My children can’t sleep. And stop opening and slamming the door for 10 minutes? I’m taking the plane home.”

Two things struck me as I said this. One, how effortlessly I can lie to men in uniform and two, how old I must be. They looked really scared and apologetic, switched off their Italian pop music and said how sorry they were.

At 7.30am Leonardo woke us all up. We had another two hours to go to Rome. By this stage they were getting rather fed up of trains. We sat at some place called Orte for half an hour.

When we got to the station my mother met us and we had breakfast. We had two hours to kill before the train to where she lives now.

“I want to go home,” wailed Bea. We had all had enough. Finally at 11.35 we got on a train bound for Ancona. An hour later my mother announced that after this stop, ours was next. I looked out of the window. ORTE said a big sign.

Geography never was my strong point……

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Italy, Travel, blog --> Tagged With: hhmmmm, maybe

6 thoughts on Hhmmmm, maybe not.....

  • Sharyn G. says:
    27th December 2007 at 8:07 pm

    Just remember that someday you and the kids will laugh at this!

  • Peggy says:
    28th December 2007 at 1:08 am

    Not old, Helena, just very authoritarian.

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    28th December 2007 at 10:31 am

    Trains are a ridiculous form of transportation. If you like I will let you have the number of someone I know at NetJets.

  • Norrie says:
    28th December 2007 at 10:36 am

    I doubt if the guards were scared or apologetic. They were probably gobsmacked at the sight of you in your silk pyjamas. They were not merely silent thereafter – they were dumbstruck.
    Poor guards, a journey to remember.

  • Nigel says:
    28th December 2007 at 9:51 pm

    Do you ever stop complaining?

  • Sev says:
    29th December 2007 at 4:57 pm

    Oh dear. What a terrible experience for you all. I still think that if you have the time there’s no better way of travelling than in your own car! B***er the carbon footprint.

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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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