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Peas in a pod

11th November 2009 by Helena 1 Comment  

There is a rather old-fashioned English expression to describe two people that are extremely similar. They are peas in a pod.

I think one could safely say that Olivia and I peas in a pod. She looks like me (or rather like I used to) and we have scarily similar personality traits. For example, we have both been described as control freaks on numerous occasions. In fact the first time it happened to Olivia was at her christening. Mrs Miller, her godfather’s wife, held her in her arms and said: “This child is a control freak.”

Olivia told me last night on the way back from playing tennis that she remembers her christening, if not Mrs Miller’s early diagnosis.

“I thought you were trying to throw me in the lake,” she said. “And all around me there were people crying.”
It is very possible that there was weeping, due to the auspicious occasion, but there was no lake.
As I mentioned we were driving home after playing tennis. It seems even on a tennis court we are peas in a pod.

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“Every shot I hit either goes out or in the net,” she yelled at one stage.

“Welcome to my world,” I told her.

Having said that, if she continues to have lessons at the rate she is (yes, somehow she has managed to convince me to arrange private tennis lessons, as well as the group ones she has, because she too wants to see Rafa and Federer and her big tournament is on the 21st), she will at least be able to hit the ball over the net when she gets to my age.

I suppose you could call that evolutionary progress. But it’s not cheap.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Children, Sport, blog -->

One thought on Peas in a pod

  • Helena says:
    12th November 2009 at 10:18 am

    I have just seen that Marat Safin has retired after losing in Paris. Maybe he would like to be Olivia’s tennis coach? Safin – if you’re reading this please call us….
    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. 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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