New look 2012

Posted on December 22, 2011 by helena

When I was buying Christmas presents for the girls this week I was struck by how very different the kinds of things I was looking at were from last year. There is nothing in a toy department that would interest them now, for example. Gone are the pet shops and the furry animals.Their Christmas lists were all about clothes from Forever 21, bits for their BlackBerries and other ‘grown-up’ things, such as fountain pens or new curtains.
Much as I loathe those round robin ‘oh it’s been another frightfully good year in the Frith Powell/Wright household’ I do think it’s a perfect time of year to look back. I am guessing if you’re here in the first place, you must be interested. And to mark the end of 2011, I have a new look, hope you like it.
I will start with work. This year was my first full year as editor of M magazine. It has been brilliant, I love my team and the product, which I feel just gets better and better. It has also been the single most challenging year of my professional life, because of changes to my working environment. But it’s all too tedious to relate here, and quite frankly I have wasted enough time droning on about it.
The latest book is missing around 20,000 words and a satisfying ending, I was hoping to get it done before Christmas but that is not going to happen. Still, I am happy with it so far if rather nervous about the proposed title: How to turn your husband into your lover. My publisher, whom I utterly adore, believes in the old adage of ‘sex sells”. He is right of course.
As I said, the girls are growing up at an alarming rate. Olivia is quite the most elegant creature I have ever seen, and is doing really well at school. We had a letter from the head of her year congratulating her on her great report. Bea is becoming more and more beautiful but now I sound like a ‘smug married’ so won’t go on. She has a boyfriend, he is sooo cute and plays football and piano (grade 8). I fear it’s all downhill from here….Leo is still the sporting superstar, utterly obsessed and determined to join Chelsea FC and turn their fortunes around. The sooner the better frankly.
I started with work and return to work. As I write I am having my hair blow-dried in preparation for Rupert’s leaving party. He has resigned from the National and as soon as I can I will tell you what his next move is. It’s really exciting and may mean we stay here for a few years to come. Which I am actually beginning to like the idea of. As long as we have La Belle Maison to escape to when the heat sets in….
Happy Christmas and a very Happy New Year

The Big 4-O

Posted on November 29, 2011 by helena

No, not me you fool, the country. The UAE, the country that has been our home for the last three and a bit years turns 40 on Friday. It is odd to live in a country that is younger than me, and of course it does make me feel rather old, but I am trying to get into the spirit of things.
The streets are lined with flags, the houses are decorated and the cars, well, the cars are a sight to behold.
I think this outpouring of national pride for National Day is rather lovely, and I wish the Brits had more pride in Blightly. But what I find fascinating is the fact that the population of this nation made enormously wealthy by oil, shows its affection through its four-wheel drives.
One of the main events is the National Day Parade. Unlike parades in Red Square, for example, this involves locals in their elaborately decorated vehicles driving around the part of town where the F1 circuit is.

The rest of them will be driving around the centre of town beeping their horns and throwing streamers. The traffic will be almost stationary there are so many revellers. Last year I made the mistake of leaving the tennis court at 6pm to drive home, it is normally a 15-minute drive max. Three hours later I was still in traffic. But the girls made plenty of new friends along the way.

I think this year we will be on a boat with some friends and watch all the celebrations from the relative calm of the sea. It will be interesting to see what effect turning 40 has on the country. Not much I should think. A bit like humans.

Solvitur Ambulando

Posted on September 27, 2011 by helena

When we lived in France, we would go for around three walks a day. One mid-morning, one late afternoon and one after dinner. Mostly we would up to “the cross”, as we called it, the end of the small road we lived on, marked by a metal cross at the edge of a vineyard. On this walk we would walk over two small rivers and pass our almond orchard. We would often (on the mid-morning walk) run into the postman, who would stop for a chat but then take our post home anyway to save us carrying it.

I hadn’t thought about these walks for a while until Rupert woke up the other morning and said “I’d like to go for a walk to the cross.” It was the weekend and I think he was wondering what we could do for the day. The heat is still pretty unbearable and so there really is a limit. It’s basically the mall, or stay at home or drive to Dubai and go skiing, in a mall. Faced with those options, a walk to the cross seems like heaven.

I think one of the most unsettling things about living abroad is the constant question of ‘when are we going to go home?’ It is becoming more and more difficult to make any kind of decision. The longer we stay here, the more complicated it becomes. The kids are now all in the British School where they seem to be blissfully happy. In fact Olivia says she won’t leave here until she has finished school. Bea is literally blossoming and comes home every day with house points. Leo is just about to get in to (fingers crossed) the football, rugby and cricket squads so will be utterly content.

As for us, well things are fine, obviously we can’t walk to the cross, but we do have more time to hang out with our children because the lovely Nirosa does all the domestic stuff, leaving me free to read Winne-the-Pooh (genius book), play tennis and write. I remember my stepfather once advising me never to move in with a boyfriend “because you won’t leave until it gets really bad”. Which I suppose is the case with us and going home. And unless we fall foul of the (sometimes less than predictable) law or disaster strikes, I can’t see it ever getting really bad.

There is that Latin saying, Solvitur Ambulando meaning ‘it is solved by walking’. I remember we used to chat about problems on our walks and often come up with solutions. When I walk alone I come up with plots and ideas for the book. We do walk now, but instead of rivers we cross major road intersections and instead of our almond orchard we walk past a royal palace. And of course one of the major topics of discussion is how long to stay here. Most often we come up with the same conclusion. A while longer.

The cross will have to wait. The good thing is, even if we don’t go back for another ten years, chances are it will still be there.

La rentrée

Posted on September 5, 2011 by helena

I am at home today in order to focus on what the French call la rentrée and what we know as going back to school. It is a big day for the Wright/Frith Powell children. Olivia moves up to Year 8, Bea starts senior school (Year 7) and Leo moves to the same school as the girls, the British School Al Khubairat, joining Year 4.

When we moved here three years ago they were in the French system. That seems like a different world now. A world full of hideous French homework and no school uniforms. Much as I love a bit of liberté, the thought of the girls fighting over a pair of leggings for the next ten years is enough to make me lose the will to live.

Rupert and I took them to school together. I used to hate going to new schools, mainly because of my stupid surname, which the teacher would invariably get wrong and everyone would laugh hysterically. See how well I married? Not much to get wrong with Wright. If any of ours were nervous, they didn’t show it.

There was one dodgy moment when we walked into the main reception along with a few hundred other children and I saw Bea wobble, but then her best friend bounded up to us and all was well.

The girls quickly went off with their friends and we took Leo to the gymnasium where the new primary school children were gathered.

“What year are you?” asked the friendly organiser.

“Year 4,” I replied.

“You might do quite well this time around,” said Rupes.

We left Leo in the hands of his teacher Mr Jones and came home. I am trying to imagine how they are getting on, and what they will have to tell me when I collect them. I am also so excited at the prospect of time alone that I have planned several hundred things to do in the few hours they are away such as have coffee with a friend (this is how some people LIVE), write my book, watch the US Open, sort out my emails, wash my hair and have a sleep.

But mostly I will be thinking about my little English schoolchildren, and hoping they are having a good rentrée.

Travels with a yogi

Posted on August 25, 2011 by helena

We went on holiday with four children and a yoga teacher. Ria, as our teacher is called, is also a good friend. I have known her since we first moved to Abu Dhabi. It was Amanda, a friend I was in touch with via email before we even got here who suggested I go to her class.

“She’s amazing, and has the best body ever, you just look at her and you’re motivated.”

So off I trotted to Ria’s class and she was right, I was motivated. But not just motivated to change my body shape. Ria is a true yogi in the sense that she is also very keen on the spiritual side of things. At the end of every lesson she would tell us to focus on our innermost desire, something we wished for, and visualize it happening. I would think about the novel, to the extent that when it finally came out, I gave Ria a copy of it. She very sweetly burst into tears. Maybe it was the prospect of having to read it.

I am pleased to say that this spiritual influence has now affected my children. We did lots of yoga there (see above) and since their week with Ria, not a negative thought is allowed. “Look for the positive,” Bea urged me the other day when I got woken up at 6am by Leo slamming a door. “Maybe you were meant to wake up early to do something special.”

“Don’t worry about the future,” said Olivia when I told her I had been fretting in the night. “Live in the now.”

Leo is similarly smitten, and the most dedicated yogi of them all.

Hugo and Rupert seem less convinced, but I am hoping that eventually this new zen-ness will get to them too, and we can all live blissfully ever after. With Ria, of course.

Celebrity sweating

Posted on June 9, 2011 by helena

Twitter, facebook and all that is all very well, but if you really want to know what’s going on, read the Daily Mail. That’s how I found out, literally seconds ago, that John Terry (Chelsea and England Captain) is here in Abu Dhabi, staying at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

There are pictures of him and his family frolicking on the beach, which is totally empty, despite the presence of a premier league player. Funny that as it’s about 50 degrees Celsius today and I can barely walk from my car door to my front door without breaking into a hideous sweat.

These pics are clearly staged. After his Giggs-like behaviour last year, he wants to make it clear all is well in the Terry household. Does he really think we’re stupid enough to fall for that? And also, why has he picked Abu Dhabi? I’m amazed he found a paparazzi brave enough to join them on the beach in this heat and humidity.

Anyway, my point is this – how do I get him to meet Leo, spot the talent of the young man and sign him up for the Chelsea Academy? Hang out on the beach with the young footballer and his favourite (blue) football I guess. If only it weren’t so hot……

An expat Royal Wedding

Posted on April 30, 2011 by helena

My day was totally dominated by the wedding yesterday. I woke up at 5am and counted the hours until it was due to begin. Then I started getting ready for the party, inbetween trips upstairs to watch every detail and every person arrive at the abbey. At around midday, we headed off to a garden party hosted by BP at the Hilton Hotel here. Of course it is already too hot to be in a garden here, so we were in an air-conditioned marquee, with a HUGE screen and lots of English food such as toad-in-the-hole and Pim’s to drink.

It was just heavenly. I don’t know why, but this sort of English feast makes me so very happy. I sat there, gazing at the screen, praying the rain would hold off in London and feeling thoroughly proud to be British – even though I’m not.

When they sang God Save the Queen we all stood up and I noticed many shed a tear. I wondered how many would rather have been back in Blightly for the big day than in the Middle East, pretending to be in Blighty. I guess that is the fate of the expat, always to be trying to recreate home, which I do endlessly by shopping at M & S, for example, and educating the children in the British system and reading the Daily Mail online several times a day.

“I want to live in England,” I wailed to Rupert when I got home after the balcony kiss. He had gone back for a kip some three hours earlier.

“No you don’t,” he said. “It’s a ghastly place. Have a cup of tea.”

I suppose the reality is that the England I am so in love with doesn’t exist any more, except for maybe in some parts of Chelsea or pockets of the countryside, all places I can’t afford to live in. So perhaps the best thing is to live here, and visit those places as often as possible.

But I would like to be there for the next royal wedding, however lovely the marquee on the lawn in Abu Dhabi was.

Things I might never have experienced

Posted on April 26, 2011 by helena

There are many things I would never have experienced or seen had we not moved to Abu Dhabi.

For example, I would probably never have tasted the steaming hot Iranian bread a man bakes for one dirham a piece around the corner from the office. I would never have skied in a shopping mall. I would probably never have experienced the sensation of sweating profusely while just standing still, or ever known what life is like with a full-time maid (blissful).

And I would certainly never have seen one of these lurking around the streets of Gabian in rural France…..

I am a sofa…..

Posted on April 15, 2011 by helena

I went to a baby shower last week, and just to give you an idea of how they tend to do these things in Abu Dhabi, I am uploading a photo.

Understated, eh? My first thought as I walked in was of the film Batman, when the duck turns out to be carrying gun-toting madmen. But happily it was peace and cup-cakes all round.

There was a fortune teller there so I decided to see what the future has in store for me. The good news is that I will write a best-seller. In fact I am soon to sign some mega-deal, possibly with a production company. What a relief, the amazon rating is teetering and sales are steady but not good enough to ensure I can afford to rent a giant duck for my next party.

The Russian fortune teller also told me that there is a man from my past (isn’t there always) who is going to reappear and try to take me away. Apparently my husband will react as a man reacts when someone tries to take their favourite bit of furniture away.

“He doesn’t say much, but he needs you, like his favourite sofa, and when someone comes to take it away, he will notice when he tries to sit down, and he will protect his world. He is a strong man and it is his right.”

So there we have it, I am a sofa, but at least I’m the favourite one. Am intrigued to see who this man from my past is and why he would want another man’s old sofa…..

I’m in the money

Posted on March 21, 2011 by helena

Well, not really, but for the first time since I started this blog in November 2006 someone has paid to advertise on it. And I still have to set up the PayPal account to actually get the money, but I feel this is a bit of a breakthrough.

Rupes will be most impressed. he has been complaining that the books and the blog are a “luxury”, because they don’t really make any money. The other day he showed me a brilliant cartoon from the New Yorker with a man telling his agent he wants to write a book.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says the agent. “If you really want $800 that badly, I’ll just give it to you.”

I think though that for books (and the blog) money is not really the point. I am already thinking about the next novel, in fact I have started it, and I am thinking about characters, plot-lines, themes, names and so on. The one thing I am not thinking about is money. Or lack of it.

I have also been given a bit of a helping hand with the new novel as my first love showed up in Abu Dhabi this week. Regular blog readers will know him as Heathcliff. I first met him when I was a teenager and was madly in love with him (unrequited, nach) for too many years. Obviously this theme has been done before, look at the hugely successful novel One Day, for example or Turgenev’s novella First Love. But as my father says: “There is nothing original since God said ‘let there be light’”. So watch this space.

Am looking for a good title if anyone has any ideas, just don’t expect to be paid….