Mrs Alis much loved home is suddenly under threat
- a road widening scheme threatens to destroy both it & the family business the
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When Uncle Cosmo buys himself a motorbike & gives Mrs Armitage his boring old car it soon becomes obvious that her driving skills leave a lot to be desired. Mrs Armitage & Breakspear cause havoc bumping into bollards bedsteads lorries a crane & bedoinging over some extremely uneven roads. As the bumper the doors the mudguard & even the roof disappear along the way the car is transformed into a mean machine & Mrs Armitage becomes Queen of the Road! ...

Poultry is a big part of our daily diets
- but how adventurous are we with our cooking? Mrs Beeton brings together those dishes
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Isabella Beeton was born in 1836 the eldest of twenty-one children & died at the age twenty-eight. Despite the shortness of her life she managed to produce not only her world-famous book of Household Management but also this lesser known but equally comprehensive book of Garden Management. The subjects covered are familiar to all those who read modern journalism & books on gardening or watch gardening programmes on television: soil structures manures & compost planning & landscaping walls & fences ornamental features tools sowing planting & transplanting. There are chapters on trees shrubs flowers vegetables herbs & fruit growing; on frames & glasshouses; & finally twelve chapters covering the gardening year. Mrs Beeton first published Household Management & Garden Management in the 1860s at a time when Victorian middle-class families had money to spend but little or no previous experience of owning or managing houses & gardens. Mrs Beetons guidance proved extremely useful & popular. Her information & wisdom were so sound that many of her precepts remained rules well into the middle of the twentieth century. Mrs Beetons Garden Management is not only packed with horticultural advice on the use of traditional methods
- always with an eye to new ideas
- but it is also a social document providing an insight into the art of gardening as it was so enthusiastically practised in the past.

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A classic of domestic literature Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management is both an entertaining curiosity & an important social document providing an invaluable insight into the day-to-day workings of a Victorian household. Encyclopaedic in its range the book contains 2 751 entries covering (besides its countless recipes) advice on childbirth fashion home remedies animal husbandry & the management of servants & even dealing with the sensitive subjects of violence cruelty illness & death & contentious issues still current such as factory farming. Born in 1836 the eldest of twenty-one children Isabella's upbringing was far from conventional & she was never the stately matron of our imaginings. She was already a working journalist when at the age of twenty-one she began to write her epic work in the form of magazine supplements; these were published in the famous single volume of 1861. When she died at only twenty-eight her book had already met with phenomenal success & to this day it remains legendary the world over. ...

Catherine Glynne was born in 1812 in the same year as Charles Dickens. An earl's daughter she married the son of a self-made merchant William Ewart Gladstone who became Queen Victoria's Prime Minister on four occasions. While the Queen & the PM loathed each other they both loved Catherine Gladstone's wife. After a long & indecisive courtship Gladstone said of his new wife that my Cathie forever twinkles. Society remarked that her beauty showed a profound intelligence. Catherine loved being in the main stream of action but disliked politicians fashion & social niceties. Unusual for the time Gladstone was present at the birth of each of their eight children & Catherine insisted on feeding them herself. Mrs Gladstone's primary concern was support of the poor in particular those suffering from cholera near-starving mill girls & homeless orphans. She established the concept of free convalescent homes & her common-sense influenced the Poor Laws. To maintain her genius for charity she took every opportunity to approach Gladstone's friends for financial support for her good works. In return she found places for her husband's rescue' women young girls forced into prostitution as a result of poverty. When her brother's ironworks failed Catherine & her family faced poverty. It was Gladstone's financial skills that saved the family from bankruptcy. Catherine died on 14th June 1900. Pertinent to this biography is the letter the author wrote to the Church Times about the reasons behind the riots in London & elsewhere in the United Kingdom in August 2011. The letter header Mrs Gladstone! thou shouldst be living at this hour" drew attention to a personality who in her time confronted severe social need through community action (the letter text is reproduced on the Press website)." ...

As Mrs Dalloway works on the preparations for a dinner party her thoughts throughout the day wander from memories of the past to interrogations about the present & lead her to assess the choices she has made in life & love. Her monologue interweaves with the account of the distress on that same day of the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Warren Smith whose trauma & hallucinations end in tragedy as the links between the two characters unfold. ...

Elegantly interweaving her characters' complex inner lives in an unbroken stream of consciousness Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway" continues to enthral readers with its exploration of the human experience; of time space madness & regret. This " Penguin Classics" edition is edited by Stella Mc Nichol with an introduction & notes by Elaine Showalter. Past present & future are brought together one momentous June day in 1923. Clarissa Dalloway elegant & vivacious is preparing for a party while reminiscing about her childhood romance with Peter Walsh & dwelling on her daughter Elizabeth's rapidly-approaching adulthood. In another part of London war veteran Septimus Smith is shell-shocked & on the brink of madness slowly spiralling towards self-annihilation. Their experiences mingling yet never quite meeting Virginia Woolf masterfully portrays a serendipitous unity of inner lives converging as the party reaches its glittering climax. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author & essayist a key figure in literary history as a feminist & modernist & the centre of " The Bloomsbury Group". This informal collective of artists & writers which included Lytton Strachey & Roger Fry exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 & 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces from " Mrs Dalloway" (1925) to the poetic & highly experimental novel " The Waves" (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism short fiction journalism & biography including the playfully subversive " Orlando" (1928) & "A Room of One's Own" (1929) a passionate feminist essay. If you enjoyed " Mrs Dalloway" you might like James Joyce's " Ulysses" also available in " Penguin Classics". " The book's celebrated stream of consciousness is one of the few genuine innovations in the history of the novel." (" New Yorker")." ...

Stephen Frys secret wife speaks out at last... Enjoyed a nice cuppa this morning with a Hob Nob & Jeremy Kyle. There was a woman on there whod been married 16 years without realising her husband was gay. Extraordinary! Which reminds me its our 16th anniversary in a few weeks. What a coincidence. Stephen Fry
- actor writer raconteur & wit. Cerebral & sophisticated a true Renaissance man. Or is he? Finally his secret double life
- the womanizing the window-cleaning the kebabs the karaoke
- is exclusively revealed by Edna his devoted wife & mother of his five six or possibly seven children. These diaries take us through a year in the life of an unwitting celebrity wife & are rumoured to include:
- scandalous nocturnal shenanigans
- advice on childcare
- 101 things to do with a tin of Spam. A good diary should be like a good husband
- a constant companion a source of inspiration & ideally bound in leather.
- Edna Fry twitter.com/ Mrs Stephen Fry







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Behind every great man there stands a great woman so the adage goes
- & never does it apply more wholeheartedly than in Barry
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