Hello everyone, happy February. Am keeping warm by typing like the wind, drinking buckets of coffee and hoovering up the carbs in the shape of piles of toast.
It can be a depressing time of year, this long march between the last of the Christmas chocolates (even the liqueurs) and the Easter holidays and spring. But there is plenty to be pleased about even so. Outside my hut the snowdrops have their white heads cast demurely down and the earliest daffodils are sending green knife-blades up through the frozen soil. But the rabbits have already cut the first fritillaria off at the pass, their shoots are nibbled to nothing, so none of those again for another year.
As I write, it is a beautiful winter morning with sun glittering on the rhododendron leaves and a milky mist filling the valley below the frosted fields. The bright chill has an exhilarating glass-of-champagne quality, it tightens your nose, burns your fingers and settles coldly on your hair. The birds are singing bravely and rustling distractingly about in the dry leaves by my hut door. Every now and then I hear the thud of a squirrel above me, running along my hut roof. Read on…
'One of the country's greatest comic authors' ★★★★ The Mirror
'Tapping into the nation's joyous embrace of April's royal wedding, the witty, wonderful Wendy Holden has assembled a dazzling cast of bronze-legged socialities, highly cheek-boned princes and Cinderella lookalikes to entertain her army of fans this summer.'
DAILY MAIL
MARRYING UP
is getting rave reviews
★★★★ No 1 Entry 'a brilliant juicy Cinderella tale' HEAT
★★★★★ 'This fabulously witty story of love, social-climbing and downright snobbery is a riot of a read.' CLOSER
'Pin-sharp social-climbing comedy' GRAZIA
'Social snobbery and barefaced ambition... a modern fairytale that chimes perfectly with our post-Wills-and-Kate world' GLAMOUR
★★★★ 'Love moves in mysterious ways…' STAR MAGAZINE
'Light as a feather royal romp' Bella
Radio Interviews
Hear me on BBC Radio Leeds One on One - me, my music and Rupert Murdoch's sword!
I also appeared on Radio 4's Women's Hour – Sea Shanties, Social Climbing and Birth Control
Hear me talk to Radio Derby's Andy Potter – Wendy Holden, waterways and open gardens.
Recent Cakes
Summer's a paradise if, like me, you love nothing better than sinking your teeth in inches of buttercream. All those fetes and garden parties! My first stop is always the cake stall. Find additions to my collection of confections in Recent Cakes.
Galleries
My Glorious Autumn Garden
Have a wander in our Derbyshire paradise in My Garden
What I'm Reading
Venice by Jan Morris
A travel classic which I'm reading to feed my Serenissima addiction. I'm currently obsessed with the idea of living in the celebrated lagooned city – call it Venice envy. Jan's majestic ramble through history, culture was also really useful on our holiday – she boils down the sights to about five essentials, which is why I went up two belltowers.
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Heidi is an adorable moppet who is kind to old people and likes nothing better than romping around on the pastures marvelling at the sunsets and wild flowers. Her best friend is nice but dim goatherd Peter and she lives with the original grumpy grandfather in a mountain hut where she has a bed made of straw in an attic. I adored this book as a child (and still do) and am trying to get my own children interested; the idea of a child who sleeps in old sacks and gets excited about goats is proving a challenge, however…
See what I have been recently reading