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Return to Sainte Cecile

27th August 2010 by Helena 3 Comments  

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….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010


Filed Under: Children, France, Sainte Cecile, blog --> Tagged With: cecile, return, sainte

3 thoughts on Return to Sainte Cecile

  • Margarita says:
    27th August 2010 at 11:18 am

    Moving around is always bittersweet, that’s a lovely picture though!

  • mimi says:
    27th August 2010 at 2:34 pm

    It looks like a really beautiful house, and yes, a beautiful house with a maid would be like all your birthdays coming together! Or like every day being your birthday!

  • Cate Jumeirah says:
    27th August 2010 at 7:03 pm

    Helena, I would follow your Blog irrespective of where I lived but as we both work/live in the Emirates and escape for summers to a much loved house in Europe (France/Italy) I can relate to so much of your writing. “There is always something to DO!” Oh absolutely, but our life in Italy changed hugely when we found a young lady to come in a few hours a week just to help around our huge house whilst we were there and for an hour every so often when we’re not. Would that be possible where you are for it makes such a difference and ensures we can enjoy more of a holiday when we’re home.
    Trips to my European home always remind me of how comfortable our lives are here in the UAE and how much time even busy professional women like us have to ourselves. But I still miss the Old World so much and admire your bravery as you face leaving once more, especially as you can’t return to your beautiful house (“Howards End with less rain” – love it) until the end of 2011.

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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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