1 I’m not squeamish. Show me what the cat’s brought in – gutted baby rabbit, shrew or rat – and I’ll deal with it. My husband attributes that to studying A-level Biology. However, show me a large spider and I may call for reinforcements.
The Girl Without a Name
2. I kept a small number of sheep for several years, along with Kune Kune pigs and a few hens. I joined the Small Shepherds Club to learn how to select a well-hung ram for tupping and ensure successful lambing. I also adopted an abandoned triplet lamb from a farm one year and bottlefed him to disgust of my ewes!
3. I am partly responsible for the introduction of bar coding in the UK, having worked with a consortium of retailers, manufacturers, technology whizzes and packaging companies in the very early 1980’s. Explaining laser scanning to members of Parliament and the Women’s Institute was an interesting experience!
4. And from that you’ll guess that I’m not in the first flush of youth, but my motto is – it’s never too late! My first professionally published novel, My Name is Eva, appeared just before my 70th birthday last year and I am now completing my fourth book, with two more in the pipeline.
5. If I’m not at my desk, I’m out in the garden. Blow the housework, I’d rather be weeding or digging up potatoes! Since moving to our cottage six years ago, I’ve created five new herbaceous beds, a vegetable bed and a wildlife pond. This year’s successes, despite a hot, dry summer, include a huge crop of rosy apples – all delivered to the Garden Cider Company – a nonstop harvest of runner beans and brilliant flowers in my new rose bed. This year’s project is the clearance of an overgrown wooded slope which will eventually have a carpet of pink autumn cyclamen. And every year, apart from 2020, I’ve attended the Chelsea Flower Show for further inspiration.
6. This summer I became hugely involved in generating publicity for a local environmental campaign objecting to an application to build a gigantic incinerator with 80m high chimneys in the middle of countryside that has been designated as a ‘valued, historic landscape’ by the CPRE. Yes, it’s a nimby thing, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone and given that it would belch 300,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, it would have a disastrous impact on the country’s carbon footprint.
7. I love period properties and lived in a mid-14th century hall house with 17th century extensions before moving to our present home, an 18th century thatched cottage, rethatched this summer by master thatchers during the heatwave.
8. I never draw the bedroom curtains at night as we live within the South Downs National Park which is an International Dark Sky Reserve. On a clear night as the moon moves across the sky, the room is gilded with silver.
9. I am lucky to have my own writing shed at the bottom of the garden, with a view of surrounding fields. It’s very peaceful and I can watch the goldfinches drinking from an old marble font and nuthatches creeping over the branches of the apple tree.
10. If I feel sluggish when I’m about to start writing, I remember what I was once told – make yourself write for twenty minutes and inevitably you can then carry on.