Dear Readers, First of all I must apologise to anyone who sent me an E mail and has not received a reply, this is because there were problems with my old website, and the new one was under construction. To play catch up, let me explain what I have been doing in the long absence. First of all I was so doom ridden by all the bad financial news last year that I decided to take a sabbatical and write a light-hearted book – well away from my normal stamping grounds. So, I sat down and wrote MUMS ON THE RUN, which is a comedy about Biddy who goes to help her nephew Tom rehabilitate an old house in Somerset – I know just a little about this since I have lived in one for many a long year. At any rate Biddy ends up not just putting the house together, but a great many other things too, not just Tom, but Boris, an eccentric Polish ex-Army batman, several mums on the run from their home life, and even a granny on the run from her greedy relatives.

Harry the Horse

Much refreshed from this experience I have now returned to my normal creative activities and have started writing another novel which, like my most recent THE DAISY CLUB, begins before the second world war, a time which to so many was sunshine filled, and with only an occasional hint at clouds in the sky.

My beloved playwrighting partner, and husband, Terence, is at the moment writing a musical, so the house is filled with the sounds of entertainment. He plays the piano to me every night while I cook dinner, a fair distribution of labours since I had rather cook a hundred dinners than attempt even a scale in C major.

Autumn in the West Country has been a miracle of colour, the weather so warm, despite heavy showers, that the roses in the garden in November are still blooming as if they imagine it is June, and the russet tones of the trees in nearby Stourhead, and even in our own grounds, have surpassed anything we have ever seen, no need to go to New England in the Fall, try the Wiltshire/Somerset borders.

We have been breeding horses here for a long time, but it is only recently that we decided on breeding an Eventer. He is a strapping great chap called Harry the Horse. There are now two rosettes in the hall which he won for his first dressage tests. I never quite understand dressage, or, as one of the young heroines in LOVE SONG writes to her sister ‘but then neither do the judges!’

Our daughter Candida and her husband Titus are both busy with their film company. At the moment they seem to be working on so many projects it is difficult to keep track. Our son Matthew is the artistic director of a theatre company out in UAE and currently making plans to bring over stars from the Royal Opera House for a charity gala in February.

Besides our human family, we have three dogs, a Polish Lowland sheepdog. He should be called Boris after Boris in MUMS ON THE RUN, but he’s actually called Wilkie. Also a Tibetan terrier called Dickon, and a pug called Bertie. To say they are spoilt is to say the least…..

I do hope if you read MUMS ON THE RUN you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it.