Likes

Music - (who doesn’t?) I learnt most of what I know about music from BBC Radio Three which I used to listen to avidly on crackly old mono radio sets until my spouse introduced me to the joys of stereo. Actually, those old valve radios had a lovely warm tone to them, don’t you think? I like Baroque and not-too early music (I can’t get too excited about plainchant) and authentic performances. Emma Kirkby and Christopher Hogwood were early heros, but I like the new, folk feel authentic performances, done by people like the Baltimore Consort, and Andrew Taverner’s wonderfully gutsty Christmas Carol recordings. I also love English music of the late ninteenth and early twentieth century - Elgar’s second symphony is about my favourite big orchestral piece, followed hard on the heels by Vaughan William’s Fifth and Third. Also people like Finzi, Butterworth and Walton. I also like modern style folk (Altan, The Rankin Family, Johnny Coppin and Clannad). Mozart Opera is another passion.

I love cooking but only when I’m in the mood for it! When I was writing Green Grow the Rushes, which is about an Edwardian cook, I had great fun researching the food. My favourite sandwich filling at the moment is bacon and avocado - I think an Edwardian cook might have found that a little odd. However, Edward VII did eat lobster salad at tea time.

I try to be domesticated, and do needlepoint, and crafty things like that, but the novels always seems to get in the way! I love going to patchwork and quilting shows and really admire people who manage to design, make and finish such lovely things.

I did an Art History degree at St Andrews but despite that I still like art. In fact, I like it much more now, knowing I don’t have to respond to it in a correct, critical fashion. I think it’s much more important just to look at pictures in a wordless way and enjoy them for exactly what they are: pictures. Favorite painters are the Scottish portraitists, Allan Ramsay and Henry Raeburn (I’d like to do a book on him), John Singer Sargent, Botticelli, Carpaccio - I’d better stop - the list could go on and on.

I also love going shopping with my female friends (including my mother and sister!), gossiping in coffee shops and people-watching in general.

I suppose as a writer I ought to say what writers I like and have found influential?

• Jane Austen - although her morality is so severe I can’t read her very often.
• Proust - just because there’s so much in it.
• Georgette Heyer - she took the idea of popular fiction into a different league - and she’s just such fun!
• Henry James
• Edith Wharton
• Stephen Potter

But my favorite book of all time is The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

My favourite places are Edinburgh, East Lothian, Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, Cragside in Northumberland, Devon, Paris, and Salt Spring Island, B.C. (Bald Eagle and otter spotting paradise).

Dislikes

• Dust and dusting (bit of a problem that one...)
• Serial music (Schoenberg et al)
• Cereal packets