I’m rather partial to stately homes and beautiful gardens. So a trip to the Borders to visit Mellerstain House, home to the 13th Earl and Countess of Haddington, was just what the doctor ordered in a rather fraught week. It’s about thirty years since I last went, and it more than lived up to my [...]
This weekend I watched the film, Becoming Jane. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it depicts Jane Austen’s own ill-fated romance. The heroine is rather more feisty, and definitely more beautiful, than I always imagine her to be, but many of the other players in her personal story are instantly recognisable as prototypes [...]
Whenever I prepare for a lot of travelling the thought of my death flashes across my brain. Not in a morbid way, you understand, but just as a possibility. As someone once told me in my teens, always make sure you’re wearing decent undies when you go out in case you end up in a [...]