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So that was Christmas…..

28th December 2009 by Helena 5 Comments  

For me it began with my birthday party – fabulous fun – and ended this morning when my in-laws went back home. Christmas Day was great; lunch around 4pm by which time Noch (see self-portrait below) and I had danced to most of the 80s hits on her i-pod.

Noch and me Christmas

This evening our great friends Jean-Claude and Alexandra arrive from France with their daughter Elisa, Olivia’s best friend, and Astrid, Leo’s girlfriend (although he denies it). We will have lots to do including the Capitala Tennis tournament (Rafa and Federer playing), a trip to the desert and a party to see in the New Year. If it is anything like my birthday, it will be a memorable end to the year. In any case I can’t wait to see them, although I worry I won’t be able to speak French any more.

Last night Rupert and I tried to think of the highlights of 2009. Very tricky. Especially after a long Christmas and not much sleep and a lot of wine, but we came up with…..

Olivia winning the two-hole championship and setting a club record

Bea winning the raffle to play with Rafa and Federer

Leonardo getting engaged but not knowing his fiancee’s name

The Savoie this summer (especially watching Wuthering Heights at Norrie and Mary’s and dinner at Mrs Wasta’s with the “talking bush”.)

Our trip to Rome (and especially making friends with my aunt again and watching the children discover ancient Rome, as well as seeing my parents who are thankfully just the same as always).

Interviewing Prince Andrew

and lots more, but the silly thing is one can never remember.

So what are my hopes for 2010? I hope I will get to do lots more interesting interviews and that the job will continue to be fun. I also hope that at some stage I will be able to do a full forward bend. I hope that the children will start to be a little easier to manage and not quite so demanding/difficult; mostly the girls, Leo is pretty easy to deal with most of the time and a joy for much of it.

And I hope inspiration hits me for a book because right now, despite encouraging comments from lovely readers like the one from Nina on the previous blog, I am not really sure what to do next. The novel does not look like it’s a goer and non-fiction is tricky with a full-time job. Added to which, you don’t really make any money from books. So maybe it’s time to stop and do something else? Seems strange to give up on the one thing I always wanted to do, but as Rupes says, at least I did it.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 200


Filed Under: Books, Children, Life, blog --> Tagged With: christmas

5 thoughts on So that was Christmas.....

  • Patricia says:
    29th December 2009 at 4:14 am

    Don’t give up on writing books! Maybe a compilation of your best articles? Something like the book that Carrie Bradshow got published in the show? And with your best photo in the cover of course!

    Or maybe a book about life in Dubai, how to be glamorous in the ugly desert weather…

    I don’t know anything about publishing obviously, but I know what I like to read! 🙂

  • helena says:
    29th December 2009 at 7:49 am

    Thanks Patricia, suddenly this morning everything seems rosier, I have an interview with Nadal, so maybe I’ll just write a book about that!
    Hx

  • Antonia says:
    29th December 2009 at 10:32 am

    Helena, I thought the story for your novel sounded wonderful. Don’t give up on it.

  • Nina says:
    30th December 2009 at 3:15 pm

    Hello again,

    Just to prove to you – you really should`t stop writing books the way you do so well- I just ordered my third book of yours. (More more France please). Purchased all of them just in two weeks!
    Even though you mentioned you don´t make any money of it… here we are, readers of your books 🙂

    Being a new reader of your books but also your blog, it all looks like you and your family have settled just fine there in the UAE.

    Perhaps you could write your everydaylife as expats?
    The way you wrote it with France?
    Surrounded by different culture in a very wealthy country can be so much different from life in Uk or France – or is it after all? I know I would definitely by a book if you wrote one.

    But if not a book, I think at least I will read your blog every now and then. Keep up the good spirit!

    I wish to you and your family Very Happy Year 2010!

    Nina, Finland

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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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