Spring planting is one of the most enjoyable jobs of the gardening year. Flowerbeds in particular are tapestries that evolve over the years and many of the changes you’ll make to the pattern will be prepared in spring. There are many obvious places to buy plants in bulk, and we wouldn’t for a moment discourage […]
The second in our editor Clare Swatman’s two-book deal with Macmillan is due out on 22 February 2018. Called The Mother’s Secret, it’s a powerful story about family, secrets and devastating lies. Love keeps us together Kate and Georgie are best friends, different in the way siblings always are, united by the bond of sisterhood. […]
David Guest, production editor of Living magazines, has written his first novel A Pressure of the Hand. You can own your own first edition for £7 from d.guest@btinternet.com, or in e-book form from Amazon or Apple iBooks. Berkhamsted author Sue Hampton gave it four stars on Good Reads and said: ‘I considered five stars. As […]
It is light and frothy and some of the bubbles may get up your nose. Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost, 2008 You’re entitled to expect something special from a £12 paperback. From the seriously awful front cover to the absence of an index at the back, this is not exceptionally good value. A Perspective […]
Local pub chains have scored highly as employers in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies Awards 2017. Oakman Inns & Restaurants, operator of the King’s Arms in Berkhamsted and the Akeman in Tring, rises to eighth position in the Top 10 Best Companies To Work For in the UK and are the highest ranked in […]
If you’re looking for a good read, get down to Waterstones and buy Before You Go, the fine first novel from Berkhamsted Living editor Clare Swatman. It is a tale of love, loss and redemption. Zoe and Ed are long-time sweethearts who have had their ups and downs. Their marriage is going through a rocky […]
The Learn by Tony Halker Published by Clink Street Publishing, £8.99 Available from Amazon. This may be one of the most ambitious and extraordinary novels you will find this year. Not many debut novelists will devise an original form of language for their story – even fewer will carry it off. Berkhamsted author Tony Halker […]
As the prospect of a new hospital in West Herts recedes, a private healthcare business has opened a £15m clinic in Hemel Hempstead. One Stop Doctors, two minutes from Junction 8 on the M1, is open seven days a week, with early-morning and evening appointments available. It offers a wide range of medical services and […]
If you Google ‘self-service wine bar’ you’ll find places in all sorts of more or less exotic locations: the West End, Hampstead, Paris, South Carolina… and when the Googlebots catch up, Lower Kings Road, Berkhamsted. The Berkeley wine bar and art gallery opened earlier this week. It’s a conventional wine bar if you want it […]
We are indebted to Beth Scraggs, who responded to the nostalgic feature on food and drink in the 1980s in our summer issue with a few treasured memories of her own. We’d sung the praises of Sodastream among other great names of yesteryear, but we’d got the decade wrong by a quarter of a century. […]
Meet the team from Living Magazines enjoying a leisurely afternoon on the Wendover Arm Canal – part of the Grand Union Canal – with Kerrnal Cruisers, on this video from DeeTV, filmed in May 2016. Featuring: Paul Kerr of Kerrnal Cruisers Sandra Boothroyd-Todd of Living Magazines Ben Marston of Puddingstone Distillery Gary Stringer of Hemel Hempstead […]
Tring GP Dr Rob Schafer with the support of Oakman Inns has launched www.ourstreetparty.org, to help people organise parties on their own streets. The Queen’s 90th birthday will provide a focus for party planners this summer. In Tring the 11 June will see a party starting at the Tring Farmers Market and finishing with a […]