Home Thoughts Weekly

March begins with our wedding anniversary - St David’s Day - we take ourselves off for an overnight stay in a very comfortable hotel at Deganwy. Our room has magnificent views across the estuary to snow-capped mountains beyond, the sun shines, the food is glorious and the spa and swimming pool’s free to guests so we make the most of every second of our visit. After starting the year with so much illness, it’s wonderful to feel well at last! Coming home , I find the latest (April) edition of The English Home waiting for me, with my words to Nick Carter’s gorgeous photographs of a sweet, nostalgic seaside cottage. Each commission presents a different challenge, but it’s always very satisfying to see the finished article in print. I’m currently working on two commissions for the magazine which are due to appear later in the year. Fiction-wise, of the novella I submitted in January, there’s no word. Perhaps with the current appetite for ‘grip-lit’, stories about two people overcomin...

Those of you who warned me about the stubborn nature of sinus infections were right as I now wade my way through a second course of grim antibiotics. Not much fun, especially in a week which has highlighted the ‘ticking time bomb’ of antibiotic resistance. My daughter, Lily, has sent me some interesting news about an alternative treatment for sinusitis which can only be described – look away if you’re eating – a bogeyectomy. Nice. I shall look forwards to that then. On a happier and far more aesthetically pleasing note, we made it to see Matthew Bourne’s amazing production of Sleeping Beauty at the Millennium Centre. Just. Wet weather, road works and farm vehicles added an extra frisson to the timings of our journey, but we arrived at the venue with ten minutes to spare. Enough time for a comfort break, certainly – but, quelle surprise - I have to run up to the third floor before I find a queue for the Ladies that doesn’t have ten women in front of me and even then it seems...