Well here’s an absolute treat of a little place to stay: The Gunton Arms in Norfolk. It provides what is, arguably, the perfect low-key country escape. If you yearn for remoteness and the chill whip of an autumnal wind as you stomp across fields with your hound in tow then you will love The Gunton….
This post is what it says in the title: a post about my family holiday to the Lake District. We actually went in June and I meant to write it up then, but it takes me half a year to do anything these days. And it would have been completely forgotten had I not gone…
As I began to write this hotel review I realised that I’d talked about the London Edition before; a rather extensive (completely fantastical) post about the story behind the creepy portraits that hang in every guest room. You can read that post here: The Woman In The Wall, but to precis, I said that I although…
What’s this thing with loofahs in hotel bathrooms? It seems to have become a standard thing, now, to provide one along with the cotton wool pads and buds and complimentary shower cap. And sometimes there’s a loofah even when all other basic commodities are conspicuously absent – no q-tips, no toothbrush, just a flat, rectangular…
I went away for six whole nights (I went for the days too, obviously, otherwise it would have been a logistical nightmare) and I took my little vlogging camera with me to document the trip. I’ve called the resulting video – wait for this, because it’s an absolute triumph of creativity and took all evening…
I’m still very much undecided as to whether holidays abroad with babies and toddlers are a good idea. There are so many considerations, so many logistical problems and non-relaxing hurdles to jump over. Trying to get through airport security with two cartons of milk and an unmarked medicine bottle (it was antibiotics, the label had…
Ah, two days Off Grid. And I know that I’m grossly misusing the term “off grid” here, but it sounds exciting and dramatic and you all know how I love a bit of over-dramatisation. What I mean to say, really, is 2 Days Away on Holiday, but online reviews of The Scarlet Hotel promised patchy WiFi…
Never before had I been in such dire need of a break. Avid readers will have heard me bang on about my desperation to go on holiday many times, this year, but somehow – what with work commitments and baby stuff and Mr AMR never being free at the right moment – time for a…
I flew back to France this week for a really lovely job. The 4am start wasn’t so lovely, but the shoot itself was brilliant – my first proper bit of filming, with full hair and makeup and so on, since having the baby. The stylist shoehorned me into the smallest corset that mankind has ever seen, which was quite nerve-wracking, as I’m…
Bonus post! Here’s what I packed in my new suitcase for my trip to France. (The first one. For the second I might well be taking my little carry-on case, so that wouldn’t be an interesting video. It’s only large enough to hold one pair of shoes, one book and one frugal, fair-weather sort of outfit.)…
I’m back from “South-of-France Round One”: and what a brilliant trip. Chanel hot air balloons, dashing men opening doors for me and a gorgeous new No5 fragrance to tell you about, once I get a moment to write things up. I now have just twenty-four hours at home before I need to jet off back…
Spend a week at Tregoose, a light and spacious house on a hill looking over the beautiful beach at Polzeath, and you’d quite literally have the thighs and bottom of a Victoria’s Secret model. The road to the beach is short but satisfyingly steep; one return journey each day and you’d be doing some serious toning-up…
Goodness, what an incredibly lazy post to begin the week with; but if I don’t post this vlog up now I’ll forget and then where will we be? Vlogless! A word which in English means without vlog and in Klingon means prepare for light speed. Vlogless. I had a wonderful time in Cornwall (nearly two weeks…
This rather funky gift card from Mr & Mrs Smith came through my letterbox the other week – a “dummy” version, sadly, but it did whet my appetite for a spot of overseas travel. I’ve been a member of the Mr & Mrs Smith hotel website for years now – I book nearly all of my…
I went to afternoon tea with my Mum last week, very kindly organised by the ladies at Karen Millen after we had finished our mother-and-daughter styling session. We went to The Capital hotel in Knightsbridge, which is (literally) a stone’s throw from the side entrance to Harrods but somehow manages to be very peaceful and…
If I didn’t have a house renovation happening (aka “the money pit”) and a baby about to emerge, then I would one hundred percent be going on holiday right this very minute. You know when you get to the end of your tether and the only thing you want to do is run away and hide on…
The wisdom behind hoisting a heavily pregnant woman up onto a narrow, high table that’s been fitted with a slippery water-filled mattress seemed questionable to me at first; I must have looked like a very pink, slightly anxious whale trapped in low tide as I clambered aboard. But then, at around three minutes into my New Beginnings massage…
I had the great pleasure of staying at the Pig Hotel near Bath, last weekend. It was a bit of an impromptu booking; I was going to a wedding in the area and my sister was supposed to be putting me up, but her husband came down with something unknown (man flu?) and I didn’t want…