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I’m a boy, I’m a boy

7th March 2008 by Helena 3 Comments  

Just call me LeoSuddenly there is no more time for Grey’s Anatomy or the Wham! revival. The serialisation of To Hell in High Heels may happen as early as next week (after a dramatic bidding war between the Mail and the Sunday Times, as usual the Mail won), I am about to be interviewed on French national radio about French women as Two Lipsticks comes out here on March 17th and Leo thinks he’s a girl called Tinkerbell.

To the France-Inter interview first. This may sound significant but when you know it is going to be broadcast between five and six in the morning on Monday you realise that I am not yet what they call over here a “people”.

The Mail is very exciting – they say they are going to do a photo shoot. This time I am choosing my own dress, the last one they put me in made me look like a catalogue model.

And talking of dresses…..yes, Leo. He was last seen wearing a Cinderella nightie and Pocahontas wig. Rupert kept saying; “Repeat after me. I’m a boy, I’m a boy.” He sounded like Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot. To this instruction Leo squealed with delight and said “I’m a girl, I’m a girl.”

I am not too worried. I think it’s extremely healthy to just go with whatever flow happens to work for you at the time. He has spent most of his four-year life being either Spiderman or Peter Pan. This makes an interesting change.

I tried to calm Rupert down. “Fine,” he said, gently removing Leo’s black wig as he slept. “But I’m not going to his wedding.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Children, blog -->

3 thoughts on I'm a boy, I'm a boy

  • Barbara says:
    7th March 2008 at 1:47 pm

    Champagne bubbles to you x

  • Sharyn G says:
    7th March 2008 at 6:41 pm

    Ah, that was the call you were waiting for. Congrats on your serialization! I’ve pre-ordered To Hell in High Heels from Amazon UK. When does it come out?

    I agree that you should let four year olds be free spirits as long as they can. Once they start school they seem to get locked into gender rolls expected by their peers. Besides, I always thought Tinkerbell & Peter Pan were kind of androgynous characters.

  • helena says:
    8th March 2008 at 9:38 am

    Thanks Sharyn, and thanks for pre-ordering the book. It comes out April 3rd. Let me know what you think of it.
    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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