Sometimes, a hen comes into your life and can’t help but make an impact. Dear Viola was one of those hens. She came to us in the summer of 2016, with her flock sisters. The Shakespeare Sisters, we called them, and Viola was named after my favourite Shakespeare heroine from Twelfth Night.
But what a state she was in! We’ve never seen a hen look quite as rough. Her comb was overlarge, floppy and pale, her wings looked like chopsticks and she was missing so many feathers that she looked almost oven-ready.
However, appearances can be deceptive and she soon proved to be a feisty little girl, marching up and down the run of the coop, asking to be let out to free-range for the first time.
And how she loved to free-range! So much so that she was soon laying eggs in the hedge and venturing through the hedge into our neighbours’ gardens! She also loved sneaking into the house whenever the door was open, leaping onto our chair in the conservatory and sticking her head in any bags of food around. She really was an adventurer!
Winter weather didn’t faze her even though she was a sun-worshipper at heart. In fact, I’ve never seen a hen enjoy sunbathing so much and, in the early days of her release, we had to put sun lotion on all those bare bits of hers!
I loved looking out of the kitchen window to see her leaping on to pots and bins and sneaking around the oil tank. One never quite knew where she’d appear next.
Darling Vi. You were such a special girl and I hope you loved your retirement with us as much as we loved having you as a part of our family. You’ll be missed so much.
A huge thank you to Anne-Marie who made us all feel so at home in her special world. Do follow her wonderful 
Which is why we took a much-deserved day off recently and headed to the north Norfolk coast.
We didn’t write and we didn’t paint; we simply walked, paddled, sat and watched. It was heaven!
When you’re self-employed and when your head is full of stories all the time, it’s easy to work right around the clock, but taking time off is so important. I’m learning that now.
We’ve had the great pleasure of staying in a few properties owned by The Landmark Trust, but this was our first castle and what a fabulous experience it was. Situated in the heart of Thomas Hardy country with local walks along the beautiful River Frome, Woodsford Castle lived up to all our expectations.
Of course, it would have been selfish to keep such a special place to ourselves and so we invited some of our writer and artists friends to stay with us and enjoyed good food, good conversation and plenty of country walks.
A highlight of the holiday for me was a visit to Thomas Hardy’s birthplace at Little Bockhampton. I’d first visited as an undergraduate studying his novels, and it was a delight to return to this very special cottage set deep in the Dorset woods.
It had the perfect cottage garden, filled with roses and herbs, and one could easily imagine the young Hardy enthralled by the natural world that surrounded him and which he wrote about so beautifully.
A little bit of a scruff on arrival, Evie soon grew all her feathers back and became a really beautiful hen although, in a recent moult, she lost all her tail feathers and looked very scruffy indeed! But her feathers made a splendid comeback and she looked bonnier than ever!
Always a gentle hen, she quickly teamed up with the younger Viola once she’d lost her long-term pal Gertie. Here’s Evie with Viola enjoying a yoghurty treat together.
We feel so lucky that Evie’s retirement was a long and healthy one with just a gentle slide into old age. But how we shall miss that cheeky face looking in at the kitchen window!
In June, I discovered the very beautiful Beeleigh Abbey in Essex. What a stunner! My Rose Girls would have adored it!
And it had the sweetest kitchen garden too.
In July, we took a trip to Forde Abbey In Dorset and the kitchen garden there quite took my breath away. I could easily imagine Jonathan, Vanessa and the team from Love in an English Garden happily working there together.
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This rural village near Woodbridge was made famous through the 1974 film adaptation of Akenfield from the book by Ronald Blythe. Directed by Peter Hall, it starred a cast of locals and was a deeply moving account of life in an English village, focussing on the fortunes of three generations of men.
The interior of the church is plain and simple, with a very moving roll of honour on the wall which features in the film, reminding us of the sacrifice made by even the smallest communities during the Great War.
This is a beautifully remote corner of Suffolk, dotted with farms and thatched cottages and it looked glorious in the May sunshine.
It was then on to the Amazon Publishing party at the Bluebird in Chelsea where I met up with Matt Dunn and Marius Gabriel…
and chatted about the joys of being a hybrid author with Mark Dawson and Freda.
Now it’s back to the desk. I’m currently planning a brand new series of books set on the Sussex Downs and I can’t tell you how excited I am. I’ve been thinking about these books for years and I’m thrilled to be making a start on them.
