As my final day of drinking alcohol, eating chocolate and refusing to exercise begins, I have been reflecting on how dull New Year’s Eve really is. Not only because you only have a few hours to do a lot of things you like doing such as sipping champagne and eating Bendick’s Bittermints, but the actual ritual of it is just SO tedious.
When I was a teenager I often spent Christmas and New year in Rimini with my father and grandmother. Mainly as she was very old and every year, for about 15 years, we thought it might be her last Christmas.
One New Year’s Eve, as I hotfooted it off to the local nightclub (an amazing place called Il Paradiso, I think it’s still there), my father was getting ready for bed.
“Are you mad?” I asked him. “It’s 9 o’clock. It’s New Year’s Eve! You can’t go to bed!”
He looked at me in my pink satin hot-pants and glittery T-shirt. “You’re the one who’s mad. Nothing is quite such a waste of time as partying.”
Last night I had a similar conversation with my teenage daughter, who is also utterly astounded that I plan to spend this evening at home. She asked me what time she has to be back. I suggested around 1am, which I thought was incredibly generous.
“What?? That only gives me an hour to party after midnight?” she screeched. “The party finishes at 3am.”
I have spent far too many New Year’s Eves looking longingly at the clock on the wall, feeling like I’m in a double maths lesson as the hands inch agonisingly slowly towards midnight. And then once midnight has happened you can’t just get up and leave, that would be rude. No, you have to stay around and chat about the coming year, but without a drink because obviously your resolutions have just kicked in.
Yesterday I spoke to a friend who is also planning to go get an early night tonight. “I mean I can see the point if there’s someone you’re trying to snog at midnight, but otherwise why stay up?” she said.
I agree. So at least three people will be in bed before the clock strikes midnight tonight; my friend Jemma, my father and me.
Whatever you chose to do, have a lovely evening. And don’t feel guilty for saying no to copious New Year’s Eve celebrations. You will be in good company.
New Year? Bah! Humbug!
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. She writes a beauty blog wwwbeautyorbeast.uk.
Her third novel, The Arnolfini Marriage, based on a romance that evolves around a van Eyck masterpiece came out in 2016. As well as writing regularly for newspapers and magazines, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Sweden that will be published in spring 2018. Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and came out in paperback in April 2018.
Helena was educated at Durham University and lived in the Languedoc region of France for eight years, where the family still have a home. She lives between there and London 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
Welcome to Sweden; Gibson Square summer 2018