Ladies who lunch

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Helena

Last week I joined the ladies who lunch brigade. Our lovely housemaid went off to Sri Lanka on holiday and so I decided to become a housewife for a few days. The plan was slightly complicated by the fact that I had to finish final edits on Love in a Warm Climate but other than that I behaved pretty much like those women I sometimes slightly despise, but mostly envy.

My days were not hard to fill. Making school lunches, cooking, playing tennis, washing, going to to beauty salons and, of course, having lunch. It’s amazing how quickly time goes when you are out of the office, it’s almost like the day takes on a whole other dimension. I can see how they call themselves “busy”. I mean a facial can take an hour and a half for heaven’s sake….

I wondered if the kids would be nicer/calmer/more like 1950s Mad Men ideal we all aspire to. They were no different really, although at one point Leo did ask me why I couldn’t work at home all the time.

The main difference was me. Even though I was getting up at 6am to do the lunchboxes and running around like a mad woman finding all those things Nerosa magically conjures up at any given moment such as rugby socks and swimming costumes, I felt so much calmer and looked forward to the day with relish because I looked forward to just hanging out at home so much. I love my job, but it was so nice to feel like I had less responsibilities for a few days.

It is now the weekend and I have a slight ‘going back to school’ feeling about next week. But I think once I get stuck in I’ll be fine. And if the book becomes a best-seller I can always try becoming a lady who lunches for a bit longer……..

A young sporting hero

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Helena

In an ideal world, it would be the temperature it is now in Abu Dhabi all year round. As most of Europe freezes under a hideous cold spell, we spend our time outside playing tennis, walking, even doing yoga on the beach.

For the children, especially little Leo, it is a dream. Another day, another sporting activity.

Last weekend we headed off to Al Ain, a town about an hour east of Abu Dhabi, for a rugby tournament and Leo, team captain, proudly carried the cup. Here he is with the other young Harlequins.

This is a great place for a future sporting legend to grow up. Every break at school they play outside. Every afternoon in our compound Leo plays catch, rugby and football with the other kids. Several times a week we head to the tennis courts. On Fridays he and Rupert head to the golf course.

Since we realised Leo is left-handed I harboured a not-so-secret desire for him to become a professional tennis player. I imagined him winning Wimbledon and clambering up to hug me a la Borg. I envisioned myself following him around the world to various sunny spots, proudly watching as he picks up another trophy.

But I fear it is not to be. If he is going to excel in any sport, it is football. His coach told us at training last week that he thinks he is good enough to be a possible for the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Oh well, at least he will be used to the conditions…..

Can Facebook determine our future?

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Helena

As you know from my previous blog, Olivia has a boyfriend. Quite what having a boyfriend aged 11 entails I am not sure, but I am told there is no kissing (“yuk”) or in fact any dates.

As you quickly realise living in this part of the world, once you get involved with one family member, you have to take on the rest. So poor Jack (as he is called) has found.

Bea has added him as a sibling on Facebook. When he messaged her (or whatever it is called) to ask her why, since they are not related, she has added him as her brother she replied that once Olivia and he were married, he would be her brother-in-law. And as there was no category for brother-in-law Bea put him down as her brother.

“But I’m only 12 years old,” came the response. “I’m not sure what I want to do yet, or who I want to marry.”

“Well, could you plz decide,” Bea wrote back.

Jack then announced that he did in fact want to get married, and that he wants to live in Miami and have one child, a boy. And he wants a Jaguar.

When Olivia was informed of her future husband’s intentions she was not impressed.

“I have no idea where Miami is and I want five children and a Ferrari.”

Bea still lists him as her brother though, I feel she has the optimism of Mrs Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. And I suppose at least she has given the poor boy some time to get used to the idea. But of course he will now have to change his life plans before Olivia agrees to the wedding….

Sporting prowess

Posted on November 25, 2010 by Helena

This week Leo has excelled. He has been football team captain, as well as Man of the Match, and he scored a double hat-trick. At school he won not only the Principal’s Award for his project on snakes, but also table of the week in class. Last night he was player of the week at the rugby club.

When we got home and I added player of the week to all his other awards on the bookshelf I said to Olivia: “I’m not being mean or anything, but wouldn’t it be nice if you did some activities and won some awards?”

“Mummy,” she replied. “I’ve only been in school one week and I’ve already got a boyfriend.”

I suppose that’s success of a kind….

We have taken her out of boarding school and she is now in the British School here which she is loving. All her teachers seem to be “the best teachers in the world” at their particular subjects. It’s lovely to have her home again and reunited with her lifelong partner in crime, Bea. One of the worst things about her being away at school was how distant they became.

Now if they could only fuel some of their energy into winning some prizes instead of getting boyfriends I would be much happier.

And talking of trophies, today I am playing in a tennis tournament. I don’t expect to come home with any certificates to add to the bookshelf, but I hope I at least play well. I don’t mind losing so much as playing badly. Something Leo never seems to experience.

A moving experience

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Helena

Last time we moved, and I mean really moved, as opposed to leaving Sainte Cecile with a car full of belongings, I was eight months’ pregnant. Rupert had already gone on ahead to France to “prepare” the new house and I was left with Olivia to pack up our entire home.
Olivia, as you might imagine, was not much use. Aged just over one, her overriding interest was in getting in and out of the boxes I was trying to fill. It is a time of my life I prefer to forget, along with my night in Stoke Newington jail and being pick-pocketed at Victoria coach station (unrelated but unpleasant events).
Two weeks ago we moved house here in Abu Dhabi. At 9am on Friday morning (the day of the move) a team of seven men showed up to pack all our belongings. By 10pm on Saturday most of them were unpacked and in more or less the right place. I spent most of the time telling the removal men where to put things and meeting the neighbours.
Of course it was not totally stress-free; I lost my hairbrush, for example. Quelle horreur. But I didn’t unpack a single kitchen appliance, or even a glass wrapped in newspaper, which has to be a good thing.

The new house is lovely, a proper family villa, with a rent that, though astronomical, is low enough that we can live without lodgers. The house is in a small compound of ten villas, with a cobbled road up the middle, where the kids play endlessly. The other families have children too, some of whom mine have met before, so it has all worked out perfectly. Well, apart from one incident where Leo cycled straight out of the compound onto the main road without looking and could have been crushed by oncoming traffic. Thankfully he wasn’t, and there really isn’t much oncoming traffic, but he has been banned from the bike for a week.
I am not saying I want to move on a regular basis, but I am happy we did and that I have discovered that, when done properly, moving doesn’t have to be, as the saying goes, one of the three most stressful things in life, along with death and divorce.

What a difference four weeks makes….

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Helena

Olivia was away for most of the summer, staying with my mother in Italy. But when she came home, apart from speaking some Italian, there was no discernible difference. After four weeks of boarding school she has become a teenager.

This may sound bad, it is not. She is still my little Olive, but she does things like talk about boys (one of her classmates apparently asked her out, “where do you go on a date aged 11?” I demanded to know. “I dunno,” she replied. “I said no.”), make-up, Louis Vuitton handbags (all her Russian friends have real ones) and she wanders around with an ear-plug in one ear listening to strange music.

“Our little Olive has grown into a big Olive,” Bea said with some nostalgia when I remarked on how changed she is.

She also does things like lock her bedroom door and sleep until 10am. She came home this weekend with her best friend from school, so I really didn’t see much of her at all. But I did feel, at one stage this afternoon, when all three babes (and Abbie) were at home that all was as it should be.

Next week there is more change. We leave our home of two years for a new house. Prices have finally come down so we are moving to somewhere cheaper, closer to the office and with a pool. It is not our pool, but in a compound of ten villas I don’t think it can ever get too busy.

I am excited about moving, about getting to know a new area and seeing the kids swimming and scootering up and down the little cobbled road that runs through the compound. Moving in Abu Dhabi is slightly different to moving anywhere in Europe. We all pack a suitcase of essentials and then the movers do the rest. Including the unpacking. To me that seems on a level with undertakers of nasty jobs. I hate even unpacking a picnic.

Have a good week.

A visit to the boarder

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Helena

We headed up to Dubai yesterday to visit our boarding-school girl. She had a heartbreaking wobble when we first arrived but things went from bad to truly wonderful.

She is a joy to be with and already seems so grown up. I fear though that she may be in the company of some rather wayward lassies. She tells me a few of the girls are there because they need “discipline” and seems to have picked up some new words like “bloody” and “bugger”.

“I could have taught her to swear for half the price,” said my friend Noch.

We went to Dubai Mall to get the boarder a phone and look around. It was while we were drinking green tea at the bookshop cafe when I realised that she really is settling in to school.

“Mummy,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “There’s a boy in my class that I REALLY hate…”

Here they all are, reunited.

Boarding school Dubai style

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Helena

As thousands of Olivia’s contemporaries settle into damp, cold boarding houses all over the UK, she has moved into what is locally known as the ‘Dubai Palace’ for her first term as a boarder at Repton School Dubai.

The accommodation is a vast villa, with pool. As I left her frolicking in said pool with two new friends I thought briefly about poor little Jane Eyre, incarcerated at the clergy daughters’ school, Morton, on a windy Yorkshire moor. I suppose things are different nowadays, well they certainly are in Dubai…

Olivia settled in so well, I could hardly have hoped for a better start. The other girls seem really lovely and it struck me what a natural environment it seemed to be for a young girl (even with the gold flake) to be surrounded by other girls, most of them older. They all seemed to fit together straight away, it was quite remarkable, almost as if they had never lived apart.

The best thing about boarding is that you have a matron. I LOVE the idea of ‘matron’. Olivia’s is just as I had imagined; homely, strict, clean and capable. Matron is the person who sorts everything out from cuts and bruises to what you eat for breakfast. Like a mother, but a paid one, so possibly more motivated, even when she would rather be doing something else.

Olivia called last night and I imaged her in her little room with all her things on her chest of drawers; it was interesting to see what she took with her. Little bits of home in her new world. She sounded so chirpy last night and could hardly wait to get off the phone and back to her new friends, I hope it stays that way.

I made some new friends too, three, in one day, which is actually something of a record. One of them even lives in Abu Dhabi and Olivia has adopted her daughter (aged 13) as her ‘young mummy’.

The little two also had a perfect start; the loved everything about it. Here they are yesterday morning before Rupert took them to school.

I am so happy to have them all in the English system, although slightly worried their French may suffer. Bea tells me her French teacher has an Irish accent. Leo says all his work was “easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy” – a great English phrase that I am delighted he learned on day one.

Return to Sainte Cecile

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Helena

We have been home for a week and are getting ready to leave again. I am not quite sure what to think. Part of me wants to sort out the whole house, unpack all the boxes and just never ever leave again and yet part of me thinks ‘thank God we don’t live here any more’. It’s all very confusing.

Of course it is the most beautiful house in the world, with views to soothe your soul and walks that you never tire of. And coming back this time I really felt at home, the house and garden look lovely and everything is so familiar.

It is amazing that despite the burglary most of our things seem just the same. Rupert pumped up Leo’s bike and off he went as if he had never been away. What was really lovely was how happy the older children (Hugo and Julia) were to be here. It made us think that if we can possibly avoid selling it we should. It is like Howard’s End, but with less rain, a place where they will come to heal broken hearts, get married and nurture their children.

But there is always something TO DO. In Abu Dhabi I can quite happily spend the weekend planning my afternoon kips. Here I am planning how to get as much as possible done in the least possible time. Twas ever thus.

But it has been really lovely. It has been great to see people, to have lunches and dinners by the source and on the terrace and to be reunited with such essentials as Leo’s integrated Atlas with CD, Olivia’s teddy’s jumpers and my curling tongs. The children were also reunited with ‘Mami’ Chantal and ‘Papi’ Gilbert – my old childminder and her husband who have looked after Olivia since she was one and the other two since birth. The girls had their friends over and at one stage with all the kids in the pool, it was like a thousand other weekends.

Now there is no more time to rifle through boxes I realise that by the time we come back again the children will have grown out of all their old clothes. And either I will have done (got to get back to that gym as soon as we get home) or the mice will have eaten them.

Sainte Cecile is now not ours again until the end of 2011. I hope as little has changed here when we next come back. And that I can stay a little longer so I don’t feel I have to do stuff all the time. Maybe I can persuade our ‘bonne’ Schamanee to come along with us.

Sainte Cecile with a maid, now that really could be as close to heaven as I could imagine….

Newspaper Football

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Helena

I am having a nice time hanging out with Leo, while the girls are away in Italy visiting Roman ruins and avoiding my aunt.

Hanging out with Leo means not only learning to love the Beautiful Game. It means learning to live, breathe, dream, think and talk football; all the time.

At the weekend I was trying to watch the box set of ‘Mistresses’. This is the kind of useless thing you can do when you are gainfully employed and have someone else to do the ironing. I made the excuse that it was ‘research’ for my book, and actually it did give me some good ideas. Anyway, Leo was keen to play football. So I decided to combine the two. We came up with a game called ‘Newspaper Football’ whereby I sat with a folded up copy of the FT in front of me and he had to score a goal by hitting it. My job was to protect my goal and watch the TV at the same time.

Then there are the conversations we have. “Mummy, was I born when Zola left Chelsea?” he asked the other day. Thank goodness for the Internet. The answer by the way is 2003.

As I write Leo is at a football camp. Yesterday was his first day. It is in a dome-like construction but searingly hot. He still refused to take his Chelsea shirt off, insisting on wearing the camp T-shirt over the top of it.

We head off on holiday on Saturday. I am hoping we will find some outlets for his football fetish in Geneva, Paris and London. I love the fact that he is so mad about something. If not, there’s always Newspaper Football.