John D Rockefeller said “I have tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” So I tried yesterday to overcome the disaster of losing our dream apartment by buying a car.

“Wouldn’t a dress do the trick?” suggested the charming man who is going to rent our house in France.

Not compared with a red convertible Porsche with leather seats. Sadly the fantasy lasted about five minutes. I can just about get away with a four-seater (it’s mainly just me or just me and the children I drive around) but the only Porsches I can afford have only two seats. And although I am willing to squeeze the five of us into a two-bedroom apartment if I need to, three children in one car seat is probably pushing it, even if it is leather.

So instead of Porsche-buying I went Pole dancing. Yes, Abu Dhabi may seem like an unlikely place to learn to gyrate around a metal pole, but there are classes here (diplomatically called Vertical Flex) and as it is something I have always wanted to try (don’t pretend you haven’t as well, if you’re female that is) I went along.

It was great. Once I got the hang (pardon the pun) of actually swinging around the pole without falling off I totally loved it and am going back for more next week. Assuming I can move that is. One of the reasons people swear by pole dancing is that it is such good exercise. I can vouch for that. Today my arms are a shaking shadow of their former selves. I could barely lift them to brush my teeth this morning. But at least the pain has taken my mind off the lack of housing. And I didn’t even need to buy a Porsche.

I can now save that for when the next flat falls through. If the global meltdown continues, they’ll be even cheaper by then.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

One of the most brilliant flashing motorway signs I ever saw was in France on the road from Paris down south. “Restez Zen” flashed above us in big neon letters as we sat in a traffic jam on our way home.

It is this attitude I am trying very hard to adopt as I come to terms with the fact that our dream apartment has fallen through.

There is something almost lyrical in the inevitability of it. We were due to move next week; we had organised the money (well, almost); I was just about able to cope with leaving the beach villa in Dubai as I thought we were going to have our very own kitchen; my stepchildren Hugo and Julia are coming to stay soon and I was relieved we weren’t going to have to put them on the floor in our hotel bedroom; it was five minutes from the school; every time we drove past it the children shouted “there’s our house”; it is a one-minute walk from the beach; it was all furnished thus saving us that hassle….the list goes on.

But the landlord has got wind of our contact leaving the country and wants to do everything by the book. So our contact has to stay on for another two months at which point his contract will be terminated and the landlord will be free to hike the rent up to a price we will not be able to afford.

Anyway, onwards and upwards, or as Homer Simpson says “forward not backwards, upwards not forwards and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom”. Or failing that: Restez Zen.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

When I was a teenager I had a friend who owned a Porsche. It was white, sporty and made a hell of a noise. A nice noise though. A sort of deep sexy roar. I vowed that one day I would have one.

I don’t know if it’s being part-Italian, but I do like a fast car. Not that I like going fast, that terrifies me, but I just like the roar of an engine and the knowledge that there is all that power there, should I ever need it.

The children have picked up on this. Every time we see a Ferrari or a Porsche they yell “Ferrari” or “Porsche”. Leo is the best at it. The other day he even recognised the Porsche logo on a flag above a garage.

When Rupert first told some friends about our plans to move to Abu Dhabi they said “you’ll be able to buy a really cheap second-hand Porsche. They throw them away there”. Finally my dream was going to become reality I thought. Obviously now I have three children the sporty convertible is not an option, it would have to be the four-wheel drive. I started fantasising about abandoned Porsches littering the roads with notes stuck on their windscreens reading ‘please look after this car.’

This has not happened, although we did see one brand new BMW for sale at a knock-down price. The explanation? “Unwanted gift”, read the ad. How could you not WANT a brand new BMW?!?

Every time we see a Porsche Cayenne (the four-wheel drive) Leo shouts “there’s the Porsche we want.” This happens every ten minutes, because here they seem to be the car to have. They are even more ubiquitous than the Swedish flag in Sweden.

He has even decided that we need the sporty one as well. “The good thing about Porsches,” he told me very seriously yesterday, “is that you can get a big one and a little one.” Now there’s an idea which would send our bank manager to an early grave.

Clearly it’s unrealistic. We can get a perfectly decent car for less than a third of the price of the Porsche and we’re here to consolidate, not race around the Corniche pretending to be as rich as everyone else clearly is.

But if there was ever a time when we just maybe could do it, it’s now. They really are cheap. Well, cheaper than at home. And so lovely. And as the advertisement rather cleverly says: “You have to ask yourself. Do you want a car, or do you want a Porsche?”

We all know what Leo wants.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Things are, as Leo would say, much more better. It is a strange thing, but getting to grips with life here is notoriously difficult. When you tell people you have been here for a day, or a week or even a month they look at you as if you are recovering from some serious illness and tell you things will only get better.

I really feel as if we’re finally settling into life here because I now find myself telling people who have just arrived and have that ‘I have been weeping all night’ look I used to have that things will get better.

Today I have been busy. It is only 3pm and I have already been to the bank (where they gave me two new credit cards which I am course not going to use), had the final blood test I need for my visa and been into the office. Not bad for a Sunday eh?

I am going to take Leo to ballet any minute now and can you guess what I can just about see from his ballet studio? OUR NEW HOME. I can hardly bear to be excited about it just in case this one falls through as well but I think we may FINALLY have somewhere to live. And not just somewhere to live; an apartment with a (bit of a) sea view, right on the Corniche, bang in the best part of town and for a (just about) affordable rent.

I have been trying to stop myself but am as pathetic as a girl with a new boyfriend, constantly imagining us in the apartment, cooking, reading, watching TV, just doing normal things. I have even been wondering if Max might be happy there.

Added to which an old university chum of mine who is moving out at the end of the month has offered us his villa in Dubai on the beach. So now we have a weekend home too. I told you things get better……

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Here is the first of my special guest blogs, it is an email from Bea, aged seven, to her grandmother…….

dear mormor

lots of love beaxxxxxxxxxxxx

It is a well-known fact that no one outside Sweden speaks Swedish. I have found this particularly useful when it comes to dealing with the children. To outsiders they seem seamlessly polite, with their pleases and thank yous and please may I get down from my delicious lunches. Little do they know that I am constantly whispering instructions in Swedish. It also means I can threaten them with unspeakable things in public when they misbehave. Not that it seems to make any difference.

It is most useful should you ever want to talk about anyone in the same room, or even leave a party early. Rupert now knows enough Swedish to understand “jag vill ga hem” - I want to go home.

Imagine my surprise then when I was in the locker room at the Hiltonia Beach Club on Friday and a woman asked me, in flawless Swedish, if I was Swedish. It turned out she had lived there as a child and still spoke it. She is from Switzerland and also has children at the French school. I was jolly pleased to have made another friend here, especially one I can gossip with about the other women around the pool.

By the time the girls and I went back into the locker room to get changed I was less jolly. They had been awful again, insisting on spending their time in the adult pool even though I had asked them not to, Olivia lost her shoes, all the usual stuff. A woman came in carrying a screaming child.

“Oh God,” I grumbled in my grumpiest Swedish. “Who on earth is this now with a screaming child?”

Then I heard the woman speak. In Swedish. I mean, what are the chances of meeting two Swedish speakers in the same locker room on the same day? About a trillion to one I’d say.

“She’s speaking Swedish,” whispered Olivia in French as I hid behind my locker, well aware that our secret language would not work with the Swedish woman around.

“What’s going on?” said Bea. There was only one thing for it. I leapt out from behind the locker and gave her my most charming smile, saying how lovely it was to hear my mother-tongue and shouldn’t we swap numbers. She agreed and smiled and the baby even stopped crying, but I’m not sure she was convinced.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

This is the conversation the children and I had in Suda’s car yesterday.

“Are you all happy to continue our adventure, or would you prefer to go home?” I asked.

“I’m happy to continue my adventure,” said Olivia.

“Abu Dhabi is my best village ever,” said Leo. “I want to go back to the Emirates Palace hotel.”

“I would like to rewind my adventure,” said Bea. I knew what was coming. I turned around to see her bottom lip trembling and then the tears came. “I miss Max,” she wailed. “I want to go home and see Max.”

“But darling girl,” I said. “We’re going to see lots of really interesting things, like India and Oman and the desert.”

More tears from Bea. “There’s nothing more interesting than Max,” she said, looking wistfully out of the window.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Here I am again in the middle of the night wondering why I am awake. Yesterday was not a great day. The flat fell through. I would have wept but was unsurprised by the inevitability of it.

Rupert, as always, looked on the bright side. He suggests we use the money we save in rent to join the most beautiful and exclusive beach club here. The children agree. I, sensibly, think we should use any money we save to pay off debts. But then again there will always be debts and just how happy is reducing them going to make me compared with strolling along the beach at the Emirates Palace Hotel in a pink bikini?

So I sat in a chair after the call informing me that we don’t in fact have anywhere to live having just had my eye-brows threaded (cheaper than Harvey Nicks by a long way) and thought; we are back to square one. But then I remembered square one. We were in a horrible hotel, we were dazed (no change there), we had no friends, the children weren’t at school or at ballet or football or rugby (starts tomorrow) and I had no idea where in Abu Dhabi to get my nails done or where Marks & Spencer’s was. We had not discovered the marvels of the various gyms, yoga classes and other things you can do if you live in a city.

So I am trying to adopt a Life of Brian approach (always look on the bright side of life da da, da da da da da) and remembering all the good things about life here; our new friends, the view along the Corniche, the kindness of the people (one man got out of his taxi to let me have it the other day declaring that “you have children, it’s not fair” I couldn’t agree more) and the vast shopping possibilities open to me if we chose to live in a caravan (possibly on the Emirates Palace beach).

But it would help if I could sleep.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Proof, if it was needed, that my neural pathways are well and truly blocked comes from the fact that I am finding it impossible to get my head around Sunday being Monday. Today (Monday), for example, feels like Tuesday and I woke up thinking about all the things I am doing Tuesday. Because yesterday (Sunday) I was in the office.

When I first realised my week was about to start a day earlier I just thought ‘oh that’s fine, it’s a day earlier, I’ll easily cope with that’. But no. I am like a senile old person constantly having to ask people what day it is and wondering if tomorrow will be a work day or the weekend.

That’s the other complicating factor. Friday is the new Sunday. And Saturday is like, well, Saturday at home.

Good news from Leo. He declared his day at school yesterday “much more better” but still misses his teacher from home and of course Louis or Los as he writes his name. But he does have a friend, a Canadian boy called Oscar who also showed up in tears yesterday so they bonded, especially after they were told they have “the right” to speak English together by Leo’s teacher. His ballet class went very well, he showed me the moves last night and I think he’s a shoe-in for the Royal Ballet School.

The girls start their ballet tomorrow (Tuesday) and not today as I was convinced when I woke up this morning and prepared their kit. I can’t wait. I have also signed up for a class called vertical flex dancing - yes I had to ask what it was as well……Heaven knows what day of the week it is on, but I have until September 30th to work it out.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

I am hoping I have hit the low point. After yet another night of no sleep, a bean-bag exploding all over Amanda’s flat and no response from my high-powered contact, I was told the ballet class I wanted the girls to go to was full. I did what any normal balletomane would do and burst into tears, then I thought about calling Etihad and arranging flights back to France. But decided against it due to the fact that the ballet class there is probably full as well.

Then a knight in shining armour appeared in my inbox. It’s amazing how emails can change your life. He is involved in property in Abu Dhabi and had read my tale of woe in the Sunday Times. I am not going to say too much about it for fear of jinxing it, but the flat is perfect, the location divine and the rent, although astronomical, totally normal for here.

An hour or so later I had a call. “Madame Helena? This is the Expressions of Dance studio,” said a friendly voice. “Are you still interested in your girls joining the Grade I ballet class. We have two places.”

“Interested?!!!” I leapt so high I hit my head on the roof of the taxi. It turns out one girl had pulled out, the head of the school didn’t want to offer a place to one sister and not the other so asked the ballet teacher if she would, just this once, take eleven girls instead of ten. She agreed. I love her. It seems ridiculous that something like a ballet class can change your whole outlook but it has.

You’ll be pleased to hear that Leo is starting too, on Sunday. His kit has been ordered, white leotard and blue shorts. But he too has hit a low point poor little love. After his first day of school I asked him how it went.

“It’s my worst school ever,” he told me. “I didn’t make any friends and they don’t speak English.”

He is sleeping peacefully as I write. When they all wake up we will take them to the Club where there are activities all day(it’s the weekend here) from Nintendo Wii (whatever that is) to cooking to tennis and bouncy castles. This is an amazing place for children and last night as I watched him and the girls play on the beach I thought that things must get better for him as well just as they have for me. Especially once he discovers ballet…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008