Sophie finishing the 10k run in Hyde Park.

Real life runs alongside my lovely time with the horses, and the last month has been typically very busy. Anna and her boyfriend Tom have just bought their first flat in Earlsfield, and so after a rather stressful few months of waiting for all the legal loose ends to be tied up they have been very busy painting and making it their own. Anna is a real homemaker and when Mark and I arrived with a few bits of furniture only two days after she and Tom moved in, the flat was already homely with Anna's photos and possessions.

Mark and I were lucky enough to spend four days in my most favourite place, the Flete Estate in Devon, with our lovely friends Sara and Richard Mildmay-White. This is the most magical place, as a family we have been spending summer holidays there since my Dad was a little boy. It is one of those places that is as little changed as possible by the passage of time, and we had a wonderful time walking in the Estuary and playing rounders on the beach. Somehow we even managed to cheat Hurricane Martha as she came through, only having the tiniest bit of rain during the day. We visited both Anna's godmother Sarah-Jane Tillard and my godmother Vinnie Grant-Ives in their respective new houses on the way down to Devon and on the way back.

Flete Estate - Devon

While Anna has been busy on the domestic front Sophie has been training like mad and recorded a personal best time in a 10k run in Hyde Park, and Mark's lovely niece Fiona has turned 21. As the mother of a 27 year old home-owner and a 25 year old I am reminded that I am no longer quite as young as I feel!

Sadly life's real priorities: friends, family and health, have been brought home to us all too powerfully by the sudden illness of our fabulous friend Stevie Fisher. Stevie and Geraldine have been some of our most constant, loyal and funniest friends for over 20 years, and currently Stevie is in Haywards Heath hospital facing a long haul back to health.

Family & Friends