As we speed up to Christmas all I can see is the remains of our kitchen becoming less and less with the new one not being fitted until January 24. We live in a town house so living space is tricky at the moment, it’s a little like camping in your own home, but amazing what you can achieve with a kettle, toaster, Vitamix (makes and heats its own soup) hot sandwich press, single hot plate electric hob and an electric wok. Renovations are always a nightmare worse if you have children to consider but as it’s just the two of us, as long as we can sleep, wash and eat we’re good.

Well, it really is the time of the year when families get together but also that dreaded time you find the words leaving your mouth “Come round to ours for something to eat” and as you say it you know unless you’re an old hand at the art of entertaining and totally set up for fine dining it’s going to take time and effort. Or does it? Thank fully our article about ‘How to host like a pro’ has just slipped in to save your sausage but I’m going to add a few of my own thoughts because once in my life I wrote a book called ‘How to Entertain With Style’

The outside temperature dropped a little this week and I very nearly put the heating on, but as my father’s voice ranging in my ears, decided against it.

In an interview I’m not normally stuck for words but this week I was and although I spluttered out an appropriate answer in the end, I’m still thinking about it.

Hope you’re enjoying the various bursts of September heat. My two favourite months are May and September and both so far have not let me down. But guess who the pessimist was and put her fans, including the dog’s cool matt, in the loft?!

Hope you are enjoying our bumper edition of My Weekly. I’ve done what we all do which is to flick through and get an overall impression, knowing I’m going to return and soak in properly everything our paper treasure box has to offer

 Well, after chatting a few weeks ago about plastering logos all over our clothes and accessories you can only imagine how glad I am to see a much larger article in our magazine which include some of those thoughts.

My chest costs! I don’t mean the two little bags of silicon propping up my boobs, I mean it’s not there as a cheap advertising hoarding.

Last week I sat people watching in one of my favourite locations: Heathrow Airport Terminal 5.

Joy of joys, thank you My Weekly for taking us back to the 1970’s. Born in 1960 I’m a decade baby and these were my teenage years of exploration into music, fashion and life which included the biggie boys.

I know Cher wanted to turn back time but if I could stop for a while, it would be in the summer - and not the summer of a foreign holiday on a faraway beach - it would be our summer, our good old British summer! I love them.

How much do we all love a bumper issue? More of everything, and by the time you read this I’ll be on a plane clutching my mini-mag of travel fiction and can’t wait. I’m the ultimate beach reader, it’s my holiday pleasure and beyond happy under a parasol with my nose in a book.

Do you do what I do, as soon as I see it land on the matt,

I know, unlike other items of post, it’s a treat and like a child at Christmas I rip open the envelope and take my first flick through.

I’m sitting here thinking which of all the things flitting through my mind am I going to pull out and share with you this week?

How many times can we talk about decluttering? Well, every day in my book, it’s an essential part of our wellbeing tidy home, tidy mind, eradicate and radiate. I don’t know anyone who is focused yet has a light open ‘uncluttered’ mind with a healthy attitude to life and seems to get the best out of it who operates back at base camp (home) in chaos because it’s virtually impossible to achieve.

This is a major event for our country, viewed around the world and I’m lapping up everything I can. London is preparing itself and as I live in the centre of the action it would be criminal to miss out. Where I’m going to be on the route? I’m not sure, but the upside of it being shorter than our late Queen’s Coronation and funeral will make position decisions will be less complicated