I can’t believe how quickly the summer is passing and I can’t believe how bad the weather has been!  Still, there’s been a lot of fun like the brilliant day I met up with writer friend, Deborah Wright, last week.  We visited the beautiful Wallace Collection in London and then had a picnic in Hyde Park before taking a ride out on the lake in a pedalo.  It was great fun but suprisingly hard work and I’d like to report that the two dodgem-style incidents were due to the lack of skill in others and had nothing to do with us!

The writing has been going well too and I’ve just finished the second book in my Austen addicts trilogy, Dreaming of Mr Darcy.  This is the one set in lovely Lyme Regis and I had so much fun researching it.  The next one, Mr Darcy Forever, will be set in Bath and I’m looking forward to spending a few days there next month when the Jane Austen Festival is in full swing.

And the big news is that we’ll be welcoming home some feathered friends in the autumn.  We’re rehoming some ex-battery hens via the amazing  British Hen Welfare Trust.  I’ve been wanting to keep chickens for ages and can’t wait to welcome them to our little patch of suburbia.  It’ll be like a scene from The Good Life here!