Hello and welcome to the usually hectic, sometimes glamorous,occasionally emotional, often sophisticated, but never boring and always hugely enjoyable world that is my Berkshire and Chilterns life!
If you're a regular reader of the magazine, you'll already know a bit about me through my editor's letter. I've been married to Simon for 23 years and we have two children, a boy and a girl aged 16 and 11 respectively. We love living in Sunningdale, which has been our home for the last 19 years, and enjoy going to the races, polo, walking in Windsor Great Park and along the Thames, looking around art galleries and museums, eating out and going to the cinema and the theatre.(Sound just like a B&L rader don't I?)
What you don't know, however, is what goes on behind the scenes to bring you your favourite monthly magazine and that is where, I hope, you'll find this blog illuminating and amusing. There are so many great little titbits of gossip and nuggetts of information that I pick up along the way, talking to all the fascinating people I meet - or listening to them on the phone - that I've decided I just have to share them with you. So here goes......
I had such a fun day yesterday. It was lunch at Stoke Park Club where they announced that tennis ace David Nalbandian (one of top ten in the world) would be playing again at the Boodles Challenge. I've been to the event a couple of times and it really is a great - very English! You're even closer to the players than you are in the Royal Box at Wimbledon apparently! I met James from Guards Polo at Smith's Lawn, who updated me on their new clubhouse which will be opened by HM in April.
Then in the evening it was off to Reading to meet the members of the Reading chapter of the Romantic Novelist's Association.We met at the Great Expectations pub - apparently Dickens himself gave a reading there - and had a jolly evening - it was their Christmas party. So many of them are published writers and they all encourage each other. They all brought along their books and Jeff Hopkins took some great photos, which you'll be able to see in the Februrary issue. One of the writers, Julie Cohen, told me that Asda had given away 50,000 promotional copies of her latest novel! Apparently she's very popular in Malaysia, too!! In all, they've had nearly 30 novels published between them, so if there are any budding novelists out there you know where to turn for help, support and inspiration!
As a result of yesterdays' jolly jaunts I've been chained to my desk today - IT playing up too! It's a love/hate relationship that we have! Time to sign off and go and cook the supper. A woman's work.......