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Tweaks for a better life

22nd February 2008 by Helena 7 Comments  

So the international conspiracy to keep me awake goes on. The perpetrators will stop at nothing. Now they have a gang of highly-trained mice that at 5.30am every morning scuttle back and forth across the roof. It sounds like there are 50 of them racing to get to a big piece of Emmental.

Of course that hour when the rest of the house sleeps (damn them) is horribly lonely. I lie there worrying about everything and anything. This morning I worried about my new spa retreat. ‘What on earth do I know about spa retreats?’ I asked myself as the mice reached the finishing line. ‘Who do I think I am? I have been to plenty of spas, but what the hell do I know?’

""Unable to get back to sleep I got out of bed and into the tree pose. This is one of the poses our spa yogi Anna taught us on our dry-run a few days ago. Since then I have found it indispensable. First and foremost when you need calming down this is ideal. Got an email that makes you want to punch your computer? Stand up, lift one leg and balance against the other leg just below your groin. Stretch your arms up and breeeaaaaathe. Stand like this for a few seconds before doing the same on the other side. After that sit down and the email will seem irrelevant. The other thing the tree pose is excellent for is calming the children down.

Yesterday all three of them decided to start a fight (thankfully only with each other) in the supermarket. Did I yell and holler like every other mother in the middle of the school holidays? Nooooo. I did the tree pose. Right there, in the middle of the shop-floor. It sure as hell shut the children up.

So as I was standing there at 5.45 this morning in said tree pose I realised that my spa has already been a success. Among other things I have learnt how to relax when I most need to, I have learnt that eating Wild Alaskan Salmon makes my skin glow and I have learnt how to walk like a supermodel. And that was just after a day and a half. Now what I want to do is share all this and more with other women.

The other good thing about the spa retreat is that there will be no mice there to keep me awake. And even if the international conspiracy comes up with something else, I will be able to outwit it by standing on one leg and breathing serenely.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Beauty, Women, blog --> Tagged With: better, tweaks

7 thoughts on Tweaks for a better life

  • Amber Lee says:
    22nd February 2008 at 3:42 pm

    I absolutely wish that I could get to enjoy your spa retreat. Alas and alack being me means you don’t have enough money for rent! Coming to your website does remind me to check my bad american posture, though. So you are giving me a better back. Thank you 🙂

  • helena says:
    22nd February 2008 at 3:50 pm

    That’s my aim Amber! Am thrilled.
    Hx

  • Oliver says:
    22nd February 2008 at 4:18 pm

    Darling Helena

    Having trouble eating the Salmon whilst on one leg…
    have i got this right?

    God luck with the mice, sounds like a call to the pest control.

  • Jacques says:
    22nd February 2008 at 5:14 pm

    Wild Alaskan Salmon makes your skin glow?
    I thought you hated fish… Maybe the glow is the first stage of an allergy?

  • Sharyn G says:
    22nd February 2008 at 10:01 pm

    Okay! I noted the American bashing from Jules’ on your last blog and wanted to get my two cents in. I think there are enough celebs on TV (American and Brits) who display an appalling amount of bad taste in music, costume and behavior. The fact that they are on TV and that people actually watch them stuns me! I’ve got to tell you that between the reality TV and the game shows, I have abandoned network TV in favor of PBS or reading a book. It’s hard enough to maintain one’s brain cells without exposing it to the lowest common denominator of public taste. American TV is no better or worse that British TV. Most of these fowl shows came to us from their British TV versions. This only proves that shit floats east. I believe that you (Brits) should stop judging Americans like we’re your lower class neighbors. You have plenty of your own problems to solve without being so snooty. So take that!

  • helena says:
    23rd February 2008 at 8:40 am

    Hi Sharyn
    I was merely pointing out that the Osbournes shot to fame in a TV show in the US. I would never criticise a country that gave me Dr McDreamy and Laura Mercier lip-gloss.
    Hx

  • jules ritter says:
    23rd February 2008 at 11:05 pm

    Do you mean me? Last comment on H’s blog involved Amy Winehouse (British) and Madeleine (British) Where’s the American bashing Sharyn?
    Jules

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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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