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La rentrée

5th September 2011 by Helena 3 Comments  

I am at home today in order to focus on what the French call la rentrée and what we know as going back to school. It is a big day for the Wright/Frith Powell children. Olivia moves up to Year 8, Bea starts senior school (Year 7) and Leo moves to the same school as the girls, the British School Al Khubairat, joining Year 4.

When we moved here three years ago they were in the French system. That seems like a different world now. A world full of hideous French homework and no school uniforms. Much as I love a bit of liberté, the thought of the girls fighting over a pair of leggings for the next ten years is enough to make me lose the will to live.

Rupert and I took them to school together. I used to hate going to new schools, mainly because of my stupid surname, which the teacher would invariably get wrong and everyone would laugh hysterically. See how well I married? Not much to get wrong with Wright. If any of ours were nervous, they didn’t show it.

There was one dodgy moment when we walked into the main reception along with a few hundred other children and I saw Bea wobble, but then her best friend bounded up to us and all was well.

The girls quickly went off with their friends and we took Leo to the gymnasium where the new primary school children were gathered.

“What year are you?” asked the friendly organiser.

“Year 4,” I replied.

“You might do quite well this time around,” said Rupes.

We left Leo in the hands of his teacher Mr Jones and came home. I am trying to imagine how they are getting on, and what they will have to tell me when I collect them. I am also so excited at the prospect of time alone that I have planned several hundred things to do in the few hours they are away such as have coffee with a friend (this is how some people LIVE), write my book, watch the US Open, sort out my emails, wash my hair and have a sleep.

But mostly I will be thinking about my little English schoolchildren, and hoping they are having a good rentrée.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2011


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, Children, blog --> Tagged With: rentree

3 thoughts on La rentrée

  • Julia says:
    9th September 2011 at 2:18 pm

    I thought Olivia was at boarding school? I remember a post about her going away and you settling her in…..or am I going crazy?

  • Helena says:
    10th September 2011 at 1:47 am

    She was, it was a disaster, they hadn’t got the boarding accommodation ready and all the girls were in a bling villa with pool but had to bus to and from school 40 mins each way. Added to which she was surrounded by girls who had been thrown out of every other school in the world so not great influences….

  • Ma_lYf_Is_a_RoLlacOsta says:
    13th April 2012 at 5:15 am

    wow i go to the same school and i was new at the same time and i know all of them but unluckily before i came to this school i only knew people in older years and i am in bea’s year

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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 working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in 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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