Out and About

I joined a health club last year and have managed very well with my expensive but necessary Brooks Ghost trainers (wide fit), two pairs of leggings and two sports tops. They served me well until mid-summer when I bought and enjoyed the benefit of a pink/black two-vest combo (in a sale) throughout the heatwaves. I felt very up-to-the minute and although I’ve seen only one other person regularly in the same combo (is that good, or bad?) I have observed throughout the year that she didn’t succumb to also buying the other colour-way choice…Read more …

What looked like a bruise on the landscape, vivid and dazzling against the hedges and traffic of Croydon Lane, proved to be one of Surrey’s best-kept secrets.  At £1 entry per person (under 16s go free) and plenty of free parking, that was a small price to pay for the opportunity to enjoy the warmth and aroma of Provence...in Banstead. Mayfield Lavender Farm, Shop and Café is a place for all ages – the children I saw were very happily running up and down the rows and watching the organically-grown lavender being hand-cut…Read more …

If anything is going to put the drudgery of spring cleaning into perspective, it’s a behind-the-scenes look at Ham House’s conservation programme during the winter months.  Filthy filters from museum brush vacuums and bags of dust and dirt, meticulously recorded for study and scrutiny, shared table room with badger and hog hair brushes and pots of furniture beetles.  Two experts in stockinged feet padded around on a 400+ year old carpet, methodically and silently replacing furniture for the imminent re-opening of the house to the public.  Their description of the painstaking and lengthy…Read more …

Guilty of eating too many calories and given up on your New Year get-fit-quick regime?  Glad to have seen the back of ‘dry January’.  Whether you’ve over-indulged over Easter or are longing for longer days and shorter hours of darkness, don’t beat yourself up.  De-stress with a shot of peace and well-being at The Medicine Garden, just a stone’s throw from Cobham High Street. Whether a cold, crisp morning or a dry, rain-drenched afternoon, your visit can still deliver the effect you’d hope for from a place with a name so suggestive of…Read more …

The night had been humid. Storms were expected. The windows were wide, devouring what cool air there was like a frog catching flies. Awoken by the rhythmic notes of bird song, I began to tune in to the regular tap-tapping I’d heard in the dawn hours over the past weeks. In that early morning dozing state, I dreamed that my neighbour was knocking at my door while his wife operated a pneumatic drill in the street. I turned my back on the early morning sunshine, resisting a look at the clock, slipping easily…Read more …

Yes, I know, 1.30 pm on a Sunday is not the best time to go to the supermarket. It’s the window for the weekly shop or for legging-clad girls on a flying visit straight from aerobics. It’s for middle-aged husbands looking for alfresco lunch ingredients, and for young dads, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by the children.  I smile at the hen-pecked husbands, ringing home to check if Greek Kalkidis olives will be OK as ‘they’re out of Spanish Couchillo’. Although just green or black to him, he knows he’ll be for it…Read more …

Ahh, deadheading roses, cutting back Japanese anemones, typing up heavy-headed hydrangeas, all in the dappled sun of a late October afternoon. That’s my type of gardening.  For my DH, gardening is decimating hedges, hacking off overhanging branches, then, knee-deep in the wreckage, shredding every last frond and branch, and covering freshly-weeded flowerbeds with the resulting fallout. This is hardcore to my genteel dabbling, Wickes’ builders grippa  gloves to my floral Cath Kidstons. DH’s gardening usually turns into a two-man job, and sometimes I’m in the mood. Swapping my CK’s for some Wickes’ specials,…Read more …

Each year we watch our grapes grow from hard little green pellets to plump translucent beads of juicy flesh, but...just before we get round to picking them, boof, they've gone.  Whether eaten by birds, destroyed by extreme weather or pinched by the neighbours, we've never experienced a good 'vendanges'.  One year we did pick a couple of trays of grapes, juiced them and enjoyed a couple of bottles of 'jus de la vigne', but after a couple of barren years, we didn't have high expectations. However, a late-September visit to France, combined with…Read more …