[image error]These are the finest two weeks in Spring. In these fourteen days, all the leaves are fresh, the flowers pristine, the grasses lush and vibrant. Nothing is moth-eaten and tattered, reduced to jagged outlines by chomping mouths and hail storms. There’s a vitality to the countryside, before the hazy, lazy Summer rolls in.

In the West Country there’s a stunning Italian-inspired garden at Ilford Manor, with terraces and wysteria. At this rate, I won’t get there this year, so I’m reminiscing with photographs.

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And my favourite thing at the moment? Grabbing a book and sitting out in the sun for a brief half-hour, between freelance deadlines and manuscript revisions. I’ve just finished The Saxon Outlaw’s Revenge by Elisabeth Hobbes and it was marvellous. A real action-romance-adventure story, with surprises and sensuality, that merged Robin Hood’s rogues with the impressive characterisation of Pillars of the Earth. And I’m eager to purchase her latest title, when it’s released later this month: Beguiled by the Forbidden Knight.