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Monday morning commuting dance

16th April 2007 by Helena 2 Comments  

It is Monday morning and as I start my stressful commute down the stairs to my office overlooking the pool, I am reminded of all those poor people stuck on trains, buses, tubes and trams. But I have a cunning plan to make their morning commute less painful.

Geneva tramIn Geneva (and what a great city it is) we all took a tram from the hotel to the cathedral one morning. About three minutes into the tram ride a glamorous lady with masses of dark curly hair started to sing, accompanied by a man on an accordion. The children did what children do when they hear nice music; they got up and started to dance. I gave them some money to give to the performers who then launched into that brilliant Gipsy Kings tune that we can all hum but can never remember the name of. Now I wanted to dance as well. But the tram was full of commuters looking grumpy.

So what did I do? I swayed rather pathetically in my chair, not daring to get up, despite encouragement from my three little dancers who have yet to acquire inhibitions. I still regret not getting up, although my husband did later confirm that I would have looked like a mad woman, which is something I try to avoid.

But imagine this: what if everyone on the tram had got up and started doing the salsa? How much more fun would their commute to work have been that morning and how much happier would they have been when they arrived at their desks?

So my advice is, if you feel like dancing, go for it. Maybe you could start a trend, a sort of commuters’ equivalent of laughter yoga. I wish I had.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Children, Travel, blog --> Tagged With: commuting, dance, monday, morning

2 thoughts on Monday morning commuting dance

  • Drunk Mummy says:
    16th April 2007 at 9:34 am

    You should have grabbed the opportunity to dance while your children are still young enough not to be mortified by it. My daughter cannot bear it if I even sway along to her music. I have told her repeatedly that I haven’t started on the ‘really embarrassing parent’ stuff yet – just give me time.

  • snusmormor says:
    17th April 2007 at 5:55 pm

    Once when on the underground in London a couple of people were playing music, a loudspeaker announcement said: do not encourage beggars and buskers by giving them money. I of course immediately got up to give them money and thanked them for the entertainment. In my opinion they brightened up a very boring journey, but judging by the other passangers I was the only one who thought so. Keep dancing!

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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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