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Running in the rain

10th August 2009 by Helena 3 Comments  

This morning I went for a run around the lake, not the whole way round, it is 18 kilometres, but for about 15 minutes. Suddenly it started pouring with rain. My instinct was to shriek and call a taxi. But then I thought; rain, there’s a novelty, let’s see what it’s like. And you know what? It was heavenly. I had the same feeling I sometimes have on a sunny evening wandering through a green field. It was really lovely soft warm rain that moisturised my body and soul. I am not sure after however many years we will spend in the desert, I will ever complain about the rain again. Which is almost genetically impossible for someone brought up in England.

Last night at dinner Leo announed he wants to be a “popular singer”. I wonder if it is possible for someone who calls it that to ever make it, but feel sure his rendition of ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ will help him enormously. The girls are so grown up and beautiful after their Roman holiday – they are speaking Italian and seem so much bigger than the boy. Olivia is in love with Europe and calls Abu Dhabi “the onion, because it makes me cry”. Bea is at her happiest with her favourite people in the world Norrie and Mary. My mother has been staying with them and today we take her back to Geneva and her flight to Rome. After a month with the ferals she is looking forward to sleeping for several days.

onions.jpg

Unlike our last holiday, I fear we will not be losing weight. Here at the dreamy Chalet du Lac we have breakfast then a three-course lunch followed by a three-course dinner, all washed down with fine wines. We stay here until Friday before heading back home to the Languedoc. Although it doesn’t really feel like home any more. It will be interesting to see what we think of it and whether Olivia changes her mind about the onion. I hope so, because we are quite happy there.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, France, Italy, blog --> Tagged With: running

3 thoughts on Running in the rain

  • Lloyd says:
    10th August 2009 at 3:26 pm

    I think Leo already is a “Rock Star”

    He is awesome, i can’t wait to entertain him when he is around 17

  • mimi says:
    10th August 2009 at 10:44 pm

    Ah well, you can’t keep losing weight.
    BTW, I tried that thing of not eating after 6pm (well,7 if I’m honest!) and it did work! Says she who has just eaten 3 chokladflarn from the newly opened Ikea in Dublin. Guess who won’t be losing weight tonight!
    Anyway, glad to see you’re happy in Abu Dhabi, and have a lovely holiday.

  • Cate Dubai says:
    11th August 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Oh, poor you, but we’ve all done that with flights in this part of the world to the extent that my travel agent now writes on the e-ticket “check in evening of….” ie the day before. But lucky you with RAIN! How wonderful. Where are you precisely, lac d’Annecy? If so, beautiful beyond words. Know Talloires particularly well.

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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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