I am happily installed in the Hotel Alla Noce in Limone, a town on Lake Garda. I am here to finish my next book and have chosen this place due to a gene they have that means they live longer. Apparently ten per cent of the population is between 100 and 110 years old.
So far I have seen no old people or evidence of longevity. What they seem to have though is a control freak gene. Staying at the hotel is a little like boarding school. You can’t eat here, you can’t put your feet there, you can’t sit at that table, you can only eat breakfast inside and so on. Maybe it is their control freak nature that keeps them young, in which case I am going to live to 150.
Good news from a reader in England. She was recently divorced but has found a new man, in part thanks to one of my books. “I think Two Lipsticks & A Lover helped me snare him actually,” she writes. They are now going to move, with her young daughter, to Provence where they will spend the winters; I assume investigating her matching underwear.
It was lovely to get such a nice letter. The past week I have had a lot of hate mail due to the latest Sunday Times column. Even from someone called Reginald. Actually the bitterness of his letter was offset by the joy I felt at the fact that there still are people called Reginald alive and kicking. Maybe he has the famous Limone gene?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007
The Swiss are sinister. I should get out if I were you…
Good to see Miller showing his legendary sense of geography. That will be Italy…
Oddly, my map shows at least half the lake is in Switzerland – so the caution stands. She should be careful of the sinister Swiss, even if she is on the Italian side of the lake. They are undoubtedly watching her, even as I type.
This was the article about buying property on an island near Stockholm? what was wrong with it? considering what you’ve said about the amount of rain I thought you were pretty upbeat about it…. all apart from the last two lines.
Personally I can’t stand the non-stop rose tinted spectacles articles where someone is just ‘perfect’ – nowhere is perfect.
… am very happy to read any of your articles.
My sister is in Lake Garda right now too – keep an eye open for her. Her name is Linda and she’s from Leicester!!
Well, funnily enough Jonathan, even the Italians living up there are considered sinister and more “foreign” by the real Italians anyway, especially by proper southerners!
For us poor souls on the other side of the Atlantic, what article in the Sunday Times? Actually I check your website’s links to all the newspapers and sometimes write comments but those articles are mostly from 2006 so I suspect the last Sunday Times article is not on our site? So I can’t defend you!How do fans in the “new world” keep on top of your latest column in any newspapers?
I think it was this one:
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/overseas/article2063758.ece
Thanks for the site. I read the article and it was terrific. Don’t people have a sense of humor any more? or appreciate satire? Of course I’m jealous as I get ready for another day at the office tomorrow! Does anyone know how I can get either a notice of one of Helena’s aricles or do I just go on line and check every Sunday? Thanks again,Jacqui
Hello Jacqueline
I have updated the Sunday Times articles so you should have pretty much have everything there, and I promise to keep them linked to this site.
Hx
Thanks Helena but I don’t know how to access those Sunday Times articles. I click on the Sunday Times at the top of the website and there are just the same titles as always (I’ve read them all). The archives on the side are all the same as before too so I’m not sure what you mean when you said you updated them all and now I can read them. Sorry to be such a Luddite but I do look forward to reading your columns or anything you write for that matter.
Jacqueline
Hi again Jacqueline
If you click on French Mistress (that’s the name of my column)within Sunday Times you will get all the columns, sorry I should have explained.
Best
Hx