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What I most miss about England

14th November 2007 by Helena 7 Comments  

We have just come back from Venice where we were invited to the launch of a joint venture between the estate agents Savills and a local company called Views on Venice. We stayed in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Grand Canal. The weather was amazing, sunny and warm, and we walked for hours on end, discovering parts of Venice that I have never seen before.

Another thing I discovered is what I most miss about living in England. I thought it was M & S or Waitrose or Bendick’s Bittermints. It’s not. It’s the girls. We went out for dinner Monday night after the launch party. There was the Savills PR girl Fiona, Rupert, three other female journalists from The Standard, the Mail on Sunday and Country Life (did you know by the way that it comes out weekly? Amazing, I can’t think what they find to write about. Apparently they have a dog of the week column now, is that animals or women I wonder?) and me.

""Anyway, we sat down to dinner, ordered vast amounts of wine and had such fun. Having lived in France for seven years I have forgotten that all women are not forever counting calories and refusing to drink more than one half glass of wine. These women wouldn’t drink any less than half a bottle each. And OK you might wake up with a hangover, but all the laughing you’ve done must counterbalance the health threat of the alcohol.

English women are great. They are feisty, fun-loving, generous, warm and just fab company. Even Rupert, who was severely out-numbered, had a good time. I cannot imagine a group of French women having such a riot, and they certainly wouldn’t have drunk their way through four bottles of wine. Topics of conversation ranged from journalism (and how crap it can be, but then you do get to go on trips like this), children, men (and how crap they can be, except for Rupert, obviously) and whether to give up your maiden name when you get married. No is the answer.

Had I been out with a bunch of French women, I may have woken up feeling more clear-headed than I did on Tuesday morning, but where’s the fun in that?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Journalism, Travel, Women, Work, blog --> Tagged With: about, england

7 thoughts on What I most miss about England

  • Jules Ritter says:
    14th November 2007 at 11:54 am

    Completely agree with you H. Here in Switzerland especially around Geneva in the land of Calvin, even the men are doing it. After two glasses of wine it’s a very dry “non merci” to the waiter and a hand over the glass like a steel vault shutting. I feel like screaming “We’re a very long time dead, you know”. These types, male and female, are not the ones doing the John Travolta impersonations on the dance floor either, they are so inhibited poor loves and have had a life time of conforming that they have forgotten how to have fun.

    We had a Swiss couple for dinner and within two minutes of arriving they informed us that they didn’t drink – didn’t like the taste apparently…I can’t say we had a bad evening but it was somewhat longer than usual. A telling moment was when they brought up the film American Beauty which they had just seen but not understood. “Ohhhh,” I said enthusiastically thinking that finally we were going to have a good old discussion “didn’t you love that scene where she throws the dinner at the wall?”. Blank looks all round. “Haven’t you ever wanted to do that?” I asked the wife. She looked back at me incredulous. “Not even a fleeting thought entered your head?” I pleaded. She finally, out of want of something to say weakly replied that maybe it was because she was surrounded by such “gentils”. (Nice people.) I think a good drink was much needed by this lady to unleash a bit of real passion.
    julesritter.com

  • Peggy says:
    14th November 2007 at 4:45 pm

    I’ll drink to that!

  • Leanne MacMillan says:
    14th November 2007 at 11:05 pm

    If you ever need me to come to France to drink 1/2 bottle of win with you, let me know. My skills in this regard may have atrophied a bit in our 13 months in France, but I am definitely back to full form now (Canadian women sharing at least this one characteristic with British women!) Cheers, Leanne from Halifax, Nova Scotia

  • lady macleod says:
    15th November 2007 at 11:40 am

    It sounds like you had a grand time.

  • Maria says:
    15th November 2007 at 12:55 pm

    What happened to French women following Mme Bollinger’s creed- ‘I drink it when I’m happy, when I’m sad, etc etc’ re champers. Downright unpatriotic if you ask me! Now us Aussies, well WE know how to partyyyyyy!!!! AND support our wine industry!

  • Rupert says:
    15th November 2007 at 2:02 pm

    I don’t recognise anybody from this photo! It was a good evening though…

  • Arabella says:
    15th November 2007 at 4:53 pm

    I don’t remember there being any footballers’ wives-wannabes/look-a-likes at the table on Monday night (even if we were all sporting wine goggles by the end of it)…but it was great to meet you both.

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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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