Hello!

I’m so happy to be here in your inbox today. I've had a fun horsey day and experienced some proper magic take place - read on for more!

I love the preparation for the festive season. Iris and I have been very busy crafting and making this week. We also went to our local National Trust property, where the theme this year is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Iris is captivated by the story – I’m going to try and find an illustrated version this weekend at our lovely independent bookshop, The Book Nook.

I also managed to squeeze in a whistlestop trip to Bristol to see my middle daughter.

At work I’ve been creating the next issue – the theme is Adventure and I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to some brilliant people this week, doing really powerful things. Watch this space!

Here's what we've been up to this week

Reading

I’ve read some storming books recently. My sister gave me a copy of 26a by Diana Evans and Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal. 26a won many awards, including The Orange Award for New Writers. The story is about identical twins, Georgia and Bessi Hunter, who live in the loft of 26 Waifer Avenue (which they’ve called 26a). With their Nigerian mother longing for home and their angry, inebriated father wandering the streets of London, life is full of challenges for the twins and their two sisters. The characters have a lot of depth, and to be able to tell the story of the twins from birth to adulthood in only 230 pages is so deft. Thoroughly recommend, but be prepared for hard ending.

Without Warning and Only Sometimes is Kit de Waal’s memoir about growing up in a household of opposites. Her mother was a Jehovah’s Witness, rarely cooked and forbade Christmas and birthdays, while her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean and cooked elaborate meals at random. Caught between three worlds, Irish, Caribbean and British in 1960s Birmingham, Kit and her brothers and sisters knew all the words to the best songs, caught sticklebacks in jam jars and braved hunger and hellfire until they could all escape. Sometimes heart-breaking, but also funny and vibrant.

I finished Storm Pegs: A Life Made in Shetland by Jen Hadfield, which is a love letter to the islands, about one poet’s journey to put down roots and make a place for herself in this ‘remote’ corner of the earth. Heartwarming and lilting, the perfect winter read. I have to admit to stretching it out as I didn't want it to finish - it's a very calming read.