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Near disaster

29th June 2010 by Helena 2 Comments  

Just had this note from our tenants at home…

‘The house is OK but we had a serious fire here yesterday and had to evacuate the area. The hill opposite the house (to the north) was affected with the fire coming over the top from the other side and then travelling along this road towards Gabian. It even crossed the road in a couple of places. All very worrying at the time. Horrible black landscape now.
The fire services disconnected the electricity & therefore water etc but all working again today. However, all the phone lines have burnt down. The cables are molten and some of the wooden poles have been burnt down. Who knows when it will all be reconnected as it looks like a big job.’

I can’t bear to think about our lovely home in such peril. It seems there is a fire every year now. We don’t get there until the end of August, maybe some of the grass will have grown back by then. I have been dreaming about walking up that hill to Julia’s lookout (as we have named the top of the hill) for months and looking out at this view….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010


Filed Under: France, Languedoc, blog --> Tagged With: disaster

2 thoughts on Near disaster

  • Cate in Cetona says:
    29th June 2010 at 10:29 pm

    How utterly dreadful, Helena, summer fires are the nightmare of every home owner on the Mediterranean coast. The grass should grow back quite quickly, it only takes a few summer showers and then more sun. Just be very thankful that the house is safe. Phew!
    People really should learn to be more careful and not throw cigarette stubs out of car windows or dump barbeque coals in fields after lunch. Do you see signs in your area warning people about this? I remember once renting a house in the Var where we were told it was illegal to light a BBQ even in the garden due to the fire risk.

  • Paul Stanyer says:
    30th June 2010 at 5:13 am

    Thank God your house is ok, not least, and very selfishly, because renting it for a family holiday is still on my ‘wish list’. A few years ago we rented a beautiful farm house just off the N9 between Beziers and Pezenas on the outskirts of Servian. Whilst Servian itself was of little interest, the Languedoc and Herault pushed all the right buttons for me. We were obviously lucky because there were no fires when we were there despite the arid conditions. Having witnessed raging forest fires spread at an alarming rate along the coast outside Dubrovnik a couple of years ago, I’ve seen just how destructive and disfiguring they can be.

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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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