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Travels with my in-laws

11th March 2009 by Helena 3 Comments  

My in-laws arrived for a week’s visit yesterday. Yesterday I spent the evening with my father-in-law trying to get his hearing aid fixed. He is an example of how to go through life; happy and charming. We went to the Oxford Medical Centre first.

“Do you think I get a discount having been at Oxford?” he asked me. I said it was worth a try. Then we went into the building and explained the problem to the receptionist.

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“I can see how lovely you are,” said my father-in-law. “But I can’t hear you.”

Sadly they couldn’t help but they gave us the name of somewhere that could. On the way out a group of youths were standing by my car.

“I wish those youths would get away from my car,” I snarled in my typical ‘expecting the worst’ fashion. My father-in-law walked towards them without a moment’s doubt. They moved aside and opened the door for him.

“It’s nice to see the young still have some manners,” he said to them before turning to me. “And I include you in that.”

Told you he was charming.

As I write he is on the golf course, aged 84, probably beating Rupert and our friend James (who is even younger than moi). That’s how to age gracefully.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Family, ageing, blog --> Tagged With: travels

3 thoughts on Travels with my in-laws

  • Jennifer says:
    12th March 2009 at 1:34 am

    How adorable. I enjoy people of that age so much.

  • Irene says:
    14th March 2009 at 12:34 am

    Your fil reminds me of my own fil, hearing aids and nice words to the receptionist included!

  • sharyn g says:
    14th March 2009 at 1:53 am

    You can’t beat old fashioned manners!

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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. She writes a beauty blog www.beautyorbeast.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 contributing regularly for newspapers and magazines, writing short stories and studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Smullö that will be published in spring 2020.

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

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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