It could have been the 90-minute signature massage with camomile and lavender oils, the Thai cookery lesson which had me wanting to stuff myself silly; the snorkelling trip where we swam with manta rays, or maybe the daily 7am beach-side runs I’d managed to fit in since arriving at the Dusit Thani resort in the Maldives four days ago.

Whatever it was (maybe I should also mention the wine lesson from the resident sommelier) it had wiped the cares of the world from my face.

I don’t do sitting around on a beach, but I had needed to relax. An imminent move away from my family, a wedding in the planning, a redundancy and my partner’s new high powered job had left me so anxious my GP had prescribed me tranquillisers.

Thanks to the hospitality of the Maldivians, not to mention the gorgeous beaches and oh-so amazing cuisine (and yes I did do healthy and gorge on seafood fruit and vegetables all week) I had been able to throw the packet away.

Facing my fear, and greatest challenge though was the diving, which certainly took me out of myself. At the Vivanta resort we managed to encounter, though not at too close a range, reef sharks and sting rays.

I even managed to make use of the underwater camera lent to me by friends. As I marvelled at the colourful parrot fish and took in the coral preservation work by the resort’s reef I took stock of why this place literally seemed a world away.

From feeling literally out of my depth, I was now embracing the open ocean without a care in the world.

At the Four Seasons in Kuda Huraa (meaning little island) I even managed to become a surf groupie for the day; we watched an international surfing championship there.

My sunrise room –  great if like me you want a natural alarm clock but maybe not so good if you’ve over-done cocktails at the poolside cocktail bar the night before,  was simply amazing.

Lulled to sleep by the lapping of the waves, not to mention a very satisfied stomach courtesy of the  Four Season’s award-winning Indian restaurant Baraaburu, I was in some kind of heaven.

As I was packing to go home, an Eagle ray stopped outside my bedroom window; all the rooms are suspended over the sea. There’s not much that makes me gasp in amazement but that was it. Baby or no baby, move or no move, I was ready to embrace life’s challenges again.

Book at the Dusit Thani (www.dusit.com/dusit-thani/maldives). The Vivanta (www.vivantabytaj.com) The Four Seasons (www.fourseasons.com/maldiveskh/) British Airways (ba.com) flies three times a week from London Gatwick to the capital Male.

(A version of this article first appeared in the November 2012 edition of Zest magazine)

But, like several other east-west LA arteries – Beverly, Sunset, Olympic, Pico, Melrose and Venice – Wilshire snakes all the way from Downtown to the coast. And in that near-20 miles it changes character several times, from the rundown Latino playground of McArthur Park to Santa Monica’s Brit-laden beach resort.

I like Wilshire. I use it a lot. Give or take the odd hold-up, it’s usually the easiest ride west, more interesting and less frenetic than the parallel 10 freeway.

I was driving back along Wilshire from a UCLA film show the other night when I was waiting at the lights by the Beverly Hilton hotel – Obama’s preferred LA base and the home of the Golden Globes.

In front of me was a gleaming, black, top-of-the-range BMW. While the lights were red the passenger door suddenly swung open. Out got a glamorous, pencil-slim brunette in a slightly tarty figure-hugging blue mummy dress and the obligatory high heels. With a scowl that would have put Cruella Deville to shame, she slammed the car door shut and waltzed through the parked traffic to the kerb.

The lights turned green. The male BMW driver moved off uncertainly from the middle to the inside lane before taking the next available right turn, presumably with the intention of doubling back to where his ex-passenger might be waiting – if he was lucky.

It was high drama, LA style.

Last Sunday I was heading in the opposite direction not far from there when I realised that the traffic had slowed significantly. For nearly all Wilshire’s length the speed limit is a comfortable 35 mph, which most drivers translate into a steady 40 or so. But we were doing not much more than half that.

I peered ahead, over the roofs of the cars in front, and saw a cyclist, helmeted and in full Tour de France gear, pedalling like fury – in the middle of the middle lane.

No one was hooting. Cars immediately behind took their opportunity to overtake, me included. I was tempted to hit the horn, but you can never be sure that you aren’t contravening some obscure traffic regulation so I restrained myself.

The next lights were red, the biker caught up with us and moved to the front, still in the middle lane. As the inside was free, I moved over there and trod on the gas as soon as we got the green. I checked my mirror and, sure enough, the strange procession resumed.

Was the cyclist trying to make a point? I’ll never know. But he was deliberately causing as much hassle as possible. A distinctively LA tableau.

The sights along Wilshire can be distracting. The LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) is only a couple of blocks from the La Brea Tar Pits, where mammoth skeletons were found.

In the fairly anonymous stretch known as mid-town, a huge aluminium bust of Lenin dominates a shopfront.

Further east is Koreatown, full of BBQ restaurants, travel agencies, yoga centres and Korean churches.

The south side suddenly opens out to reveal the site of the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel, where Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.

Within minutes the drive east goes through Lafayette and McArthur parks, and upscale shops are replaced by a 99-cents store, a McDonald’s and a Home Depot.

Then I am dwarfed by the Downtown skyscrapers and it’s time to take a couple of left turns onto the slip road for the 110 freeway north to Pasadena – and home.

I didn’t even know who she was till she announced her pregnancy, just that she seemed to be in the newspapers a lot. But as well as being pregnant Kim, similarity one, and having a girl, similarity two, she is determined to keep up the fitness regime that has won her fans among both men and women who prefer their celebrities curvy (i.e bigger than a size 6).

As with Kim my fitness regime appears to be attracting attention.  Not the paparazzi thankfully, but most certain not very welcome, attention.  I’ve lost count of the stares I get from older men (normally in their 60s/70s when women were supposed to go to ground when they got up the duff) and women (normally in their 30s/40s normally childless) while in the gym. Okay I’m being super sensitive, and I should ignore it but…

At 29 weeks I’m managing 4/5 visits a week doing the static bike or cross trainer for 20-25 minutes for my aerobics (I used to do an hour of either running of 45 minutes spinning pre pregnancy) then a resistance workout involving light weights (3-5kg) and using my own body weight on the stability and fitness balls.

One of my favourite workouts is using light weights on the static bike. I was given this workout by the fabulous Eva at the Nuffield city gym a couple of years back. It’s a 20 minute workout that saves time but doubles up because as well as using my legs I’m working my arms and back too, with all the benefits that it makes to my baby-tipped posture.

Obviously I checked the workout was safe before doing it during pregnancy, and was told as long as I used lighter weights and skipped the overhead arm movements it was a great way to keep fit and (hopefully) ease my labour and post-birth recovery.

That was until the other day when an older man started telling me how ‘dangerous’ my work out was. Nothing new, one of the reasons I stopped exercising last pregnancy was because I kept being told how I needed to take it easy. But this time round the midwives have pointed out that because I’ve worked out the best part of 17 years’ every week it would be just as bad for me to give up in pregnancy as for a non-exerciser to take up exercise in pregnancy.

This time round though I answered back at the guy and told leave me alone, firstly informing him that my workout had been okay-ed by three of the personal trainers at the gym. Still he seemed to think that going to the gym for 15 years (he was slouched over the cross trainer in a way that was probably more likely to injure him than make him fitter) qualified him to know what was safe and was not.

He’s not the only person to stick their oar in since I’ve got pregnant, everything from my parenting (or more like attempts at parenting in between bouts of exhaustion thanks to my average of 3 hours sleep a night) to my cooking, and even my work; although that’s another blog, have come under the eye of the critic.

Apparently I can claim maternity allowance from 29 weeks, and am seriously considering doing so. But one thing’s for sure – I’ll keep up the gym routine with my middle finger ready to flip the bird should another person dare to lecture me on exercise.

At 28 weeks I’m obviously pregnant now, thanks to a rather large bump (I’m sure it’s much bigger this pregnancy but my GP told me the baby is measuring normal for this stage, as Immy did last time round) and I’m feeling all of the 18lbs extra body weight I’m carrying around.

The worst thing is lack of sleep. Sleeping on my back is my preferred position and it is no longer possible without feeling very unwell and very very uncomfortable.

I can sit semi-upright propped up by pillows to stop the pressure on my main artery (which also supplies the baby with her oxygen) but this just looks plain strange as well as not really being the most restful of positions. So I’m trying my best by lying on my left hand side with a pregnancy pillow between my legs. My hips ache at night and my hand will often go dead, but I just have to suck it up for another 11 weeks.

My lack of rest makes it all the more strange, or rather ironic, that three times in the last few weeks I’ve been told how well I look; specifically how much younger I look. To be honest I thought I was just getting sympathy from other women who wanted to make me feel better, that was until I went to my 26 week hospital check up.

The consultant midwife was going through my notes and scowling. “Why have you had to see an obstetrician, you’re perfectly healthy and I see no reason why you should have had to have all the extra appointments?” she demanded before going through my birth plan with me. After half an hour discussing the VBAC birth care pathway (for ladies who want to try for an unassisted birth after a c-section) she mentioned some of the reasons why my attempt to give birth myself might end in another intervention. “Well there’s a higher likelihood if the mother has a high BMI, and you don’t. And if they’ve had several previous c-sections, and you had just one, and then of course there’s age, if you are over 40 your chance is higher, and you’re what,” she said staring at me,  “28,29?”

For a moment there, I wanted to play along with her. She’d not noticed my birth date on the notes and I didn’t want to burst her bubble, let alone mine.

“Actually, I’m not,” I said. “I’m a bit older than that,” I said before revealing my age. “You’re kidding?!” she said. “No, I really am!”

“Ah so that’s why you’ve got to see the consultant.” She said before then backtracking and telling me that even despite my age, I was still find to go ahead with my VBAC plan.

Yesterday at my sister’s I decided to weight myself. It appears the extra stone plus 4lbs I’m carrying has – according to both my sister and my mum – ironed out all the creases in my face. Not that I had many. “You were starting to look haggard Sam. Just before you got pregnant,” they told me.

(thanks I thought)

“But now you look really good. The extra weight suits you,” they chorus.

Shame that, because in 12 weeks time, that extra wieight will have produced a brand new life, God willing, and my haggard sleep-deprived looks will be back with a vengeance.

LA Live is the Los Angeles answer to London’s Leicester Square. In the midst of dowdy, neglected downtown, about 25 miles east of the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and Malibu, speculators such as Philip Anschutz, owner of London’s O2 Arena, have poured billions of dollars into a gamble that they can revive the city’s historic heart with bright lights and top names.

I have laughed at Ricky Gervais and Eddie Izzard in the Nokia and, as well as the Who, the Staples Centre has held shows by Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber. It is home to the Lakers and the Clippers, the local basketball rivals, and the Kings ice hockey team.

With typical west coast boosterism, LA Live calls itself “the most entertaining place on the planet”. That is a big claim, but ranged around LA Live’s square are 20 fast-food joints and coffee shops, anchored on the north side by the 7,000-seater Nokia Theatre and the Staples Center arena, about the size of Wembley Arena and hosting concerts, ice skating, boxing – anything that will attract about 20,000 spectators. The 14-screen Regal cinema and the ESPN West Coast Broadcast Centre add media glamour.

In the middle of the space, instead of Leicester Square’s trees, is a platform for open-air events or, at least, audience-participation games to keep the crowds amused.

LA Live is officially described as the premier destination for live entertainment in Downtown Los Angeles. That’s because it’s about the only live entertainment centre in Downtown, which has never fully recovered from the shock of its wealthy residents deserting it in the 1920s in favour of Beverly Hills.

One of the LA City Council’s main preoccupations is how to get it back to where it was, but it’s a slow process. As in New York, it’s quite edgy to live in a loft space there – if you’re a lawyer or accountant who likes to walk to work. But the real money stays west.

Like most US cities, LA has created a passable miniature imitation of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, with banks, rents and fancy restaurants to match.

But the LA Live square still seems oddly out of place, like a party in a nunnery. Duck under the nearby freeway and you are in a different world, almost a third-world country with rundown warehouses and car-repair lots.

But Anschutz and his business partners seem determined to pull the area up by its bootstraps. They have persuaded Mariott hotels to take a tower, a few floors of which have been designated a Ritz-Carlton. It doesn’t seem like the right surroundings for a five-star hotel – you wouldn’t want to walk your dog down some of the surrounding streets after dark – but the big sporting and showbiz events do pull in the money.

Quite a few surrounding businesses make a decent living on the back of LA Live. If you want to beat the official $25 parking fee for an evening, there are plenty of office multi-storey car parks willing to let visitors in for as little as $5 when the pen-pushers have driven home. And there are some reasonable Italian and Indian restaurants within walking distance.

The next item on the to-do list is to bring professional American football back to LA after the Raiders and the Rams quit because they could no longer fill the stadiums. But the National Football League, which controls where the pro teams are based, knows it can drive a hard bargain and is doing so.

Daltrey and Townshend sound more like a firm of lawyers than a rock band, and they were looking their age after an energetic two-hour set that earned that what in LA is regarded as a mandatory standing ovation. Staying seated to applaud is an insult.

Then we joined the crowds streaming out of the Staples, walked up the street to our cut-price parking space – $7 in our case, no expense spared – zipped onto the freeway and we were home in ten minutes.

The last few months have been tough, battling morning sickness and then planning a wedding, has left me feeling knackered. I’ve got two weeks till my final (and most uncomfortable) trimester starts. Yay!

The usual things – stretch marks, dry skin and massive weight gain – have so far evaded me this pregnancy. According to most experts there’s little you can do about stretch marks, so whether you get them or not tends to be a result of a genetic raffle. My mum didn’t get them which may explain why I’ve not got them. That hasn’t stopped me from slathering on the Body Shop coconut butter I got for Christmas though.

Hair-tales

Sitting in the waiting room to see my obstetrician at 22 weeks I had a moment -  many of the other pregnant ladies waiting with me, many of them dressed smartly were not bothering with their hair, leaving it long and unstyled. There were very few women with cropped or bobbed hair. Looking at my own mop (which I had grown to put up for our wedding) I decided a trim was in order.

Pregnancy is probably not the time to go for a really drastic hair cut, because it does shed after birth. Trims are good I told myself and used a 25% off Toni & Guy hair cut voucher in Grazia. I also had £30 worth of Toni & Guy gift vouchers to use, so I got £10 haircut. The lady at Bishops Stortford T&G, Dawn – was great. She also recommended a hair style for when I was feeling like something a bit more on trend (a long Gwyneth Paltrow-style bob, but I’ll come back to you on that one).

Now while I’ve made a personal decision not to dye my hair during pregnancy, there is no evidence that hair dyes can cause any harm to come to the baby but as pregnancy is the one time you can get away with going natural, I’ve decided to. During pregnancy you shed less hair (it does fall out after you have the baby) so your hair will tend to look thicker, and increased blood flow which gives you strong nails and that pregnancy ‘bloom’ also means I’m sporting a glossy full mane of hair at the moment.

So I’ve booked in to have another trim just before baby is born, and I may opt for highlights then. Remember if you are wanting to dye your hair when pregnant you will need a patch test first as the hormone flood that is pregnancy can mean you suddenly develop a reaction to hair dye.

If you must dye your hair, L’Oreal have a dip dye kit which means you don’t have to put the dye anywhere near your scalp. I did try this kit before I got pregnant and would recommend you only use it if you have mid brown or lighter hair, even the kit for dark hair can come out looking orange. And backcomb the bit where you want the dye to ‘join’ your darker hair for a more natural look.

Beauty writer ReallyRee has reviewed it in detail on her blog.

For the next three months dry shampoo (Klorane oat) a regular fringe trim, L’Oreal mythic oil and some Elnett  heat protect smooth should keep me from looking like the wild woman of Bishops Stortford.

Skin-tonics

I had my eye on a Clarisonic, but at £150 a pop, that’s not going to be part of my regime any time soon (but I can dream). However on one of my favourite beauty forums I was alerted that  Boots No7 had bought out a version of the electric cleansing brush, the beautiful cleansing brush, for £25, and was available at a special offer price of £15. But even better I could use one of the £5 No7 vouchers towards it. It’s amazing, but don’t use the strong setting, on sensitive pregnant skin it can be a bit strong. Your usual cleanser will do, as long as it’s a water based foaming one.

At night I’ve been using Clarins blue orchid oil and my usual Dermalogica regime. Dermalogica has bought out some new stuff, but as I only started working again this month I’ll leave that treat till later.

When I get the chance I’ve been dyeing my eyebrows and eyelashes with a kit, and have been using my very well used Shavata brow shaping kit (bought in Marks and Spencers about six years ago).

I’ve also got some Cowshed vouchers to use, I’m saving them up for week 38/39 as a pre-baby/last ditch mummy makeover.

Still fitness crazy

Thanks to my trainer Victoria Thompson, via the Bishops Stortford Nuffield gym. She gave me some great preggers exercises which have given me a more toned bum and legs than a six months pregnant is entitled to have. From 28 weeks (or if we have sudden warm spell) I’m upping my swimming and pilates. Yoga is just too sedate for me right now, I can’t do power yoga nor can I do hot yoga and pregnancy yoga sends me to sleep!  I do incorporate yoga stretches into my cool down regime. I’ve had to stop running as my hips are starting to ache (I got SPD in my first pregnancy) but for now I’m feeling fit, healthy and happy. Oh and I’ve been wearing some gorgeous pregnancy fitness gear from SportyBump. I’ve taken to wearing the yoga leggings around the house and out when shopping/doing the school run.

Food, glorious food

Well thank the Lord for Omeprazole, this little daily table means I can eat. I’ve not had any weird cravings – I did in the early stages when I was feeling sick – but being able to eat most food probably means I’m not too vitamin deficient. I’m sticking with the Boots Omega 3 and pregnancy multivitamins as a top up. My indigestion may be making a return soon, so I’m stuffing up now – all healthy food (she says, hiding the Cadbury caramel mini eggs out of sight).

All those resting actors have to keep their hand in somehow.

North Hollywood, proclaimed on a street-wide arch as Noho, doesn’t feel like Hollywood at all, not like the tourist bit where Shirley Temple’s tiny feet are etched in concrete and Spiderman lookalikes charge to have their photo taken with ten-year-old children.

No Jimmy Savile lookalikes yet, thank goodness.

NoHo, north of the 101 freeway, is way cooler than that. It’s slightly shabby, with edgy clothes stores, the obligatory gym and a tai kwon do centre.

It suddenly goes corporate at the next crossroads, a big Hewlett Packard complex sitting opposite a luggage shop and a Starbucks. I sat outside sipping decaf skinny latte and looking indistinguishable from everyone else in sunglasses, black top and blue jeans. I know how to blend in!

I was in NoHo to visit the Antaeus Theatre Company, which does a neat line in classic plays, for its version of Macbeth.

Squeezed into a row of shops, the theatre doesn’t have much room but, practical as ever in LA, it has an agreement to let customers use the Citibank parking lot across the street outside banking hours.

Inside, no one bothered checking tickets and, as the seats weren’t reserved, anyone with a dollop of chuzpah could probably save themselves the $36 price of admission and just sit down.

The short, dark entrance tunnel led straight onto the front of the stage, which wasn’t actually raised. Steps led up the middle of steeply banked rows of seats, with room for 80 or so.

After an appeal for funds, the house lights went down and music struck up to start the action.

The director had decided that the play needed updating a little. All the men wore leather skirts and Doc Marten boots, which suited some better than others. The famous opening line, “When shall we three meet again?”, was agonisingly delayed because the opening scene was turned into a baby’s funeral.

While this could just about be traced to later dialogue, the funeral had to be played out in silence because Shakespeare had not written anything for such an event – and the Antaeus does not actually put words into the Bard’s mouth. Not knowingly, anyway.

While the tragic aspect of Macbeth demands that the title role be a confused, conflicted character, this one seemed a little too weak and indecisive to command armies and cruelly connive against rivals. His stock expression was wide-eyed panic. Banquo and one of the three witches was black, which won points for PCness but was stretching things a little for medieval Scotland. Come on, you can’t do Othello every week.

As this was a Sunday matinee, it came as a bit of a shock to emerge from the dark theatre into blinding sunshine at the interval.

In the tiny foyer, a volunteer sold water and muffins for $1. An orderly single queue took it in turns to use the two loos. Although the interval was supposed to be 15 minutes, in practice it was a long as it took the last patron to do the necessary.

In the second half the actors’ English accents started to slip. Most went outright American: one of the leaders called his troops into “baddle”. OK, I know that’s unfair. I would probably do far worse with a 17th century Salem accent if I were in Arthur Miller’s Crucible.

Nevertheless, it jarred as the bloody murders littered the stage. One corpse’s leg stuck out from behind the scenery and its owner had to discreetly pull it out of sight.

Unaccountably, the witches smartened up and took their seats at the banquet scene. Needs must when the cast is small. Macbeth looked increasingly harrassed, but Banquo played the Ghost brilliantly with his back to the audience, spinning round to speak his lines then spinning back again. Order was eventually restored, Malcolm claimed the kingdom and we all trooped out feeling that justice had been done.

After that, at five o’clock in the afternoon, what better than a curry? A short walk from the theatre is Salomi, one of LA’s best Indian restaurants – at least to English taste buds – with Kingfisher beer and a chef willing to make the dishes as hot as we liked. Shakespeare would have approved.

Not that I’ve actually been single for a few years now,  officially Andrew and I became a couple in January 2007, although it’s a bit more complicated than that. We first met  in April 1997 – nearly 16 years ago and  a week before Tony Blair was elected; we were girlfriend and boyfriend for nearly two years after that.

I don’t ever remember really wanting to be married, or have children, but nearly everyone I have asked (in the purposes of research I might add) tells me that from my early 20s I was telling everyone I wanted to be married and have children. I was as determined in that as I was about having a career in journalism.

I did and do love my job, I still see it as a vocation and is why I work on this website for no financial reward. But I think I realised (in my late 20s and early 30s) if I really wanted marriage and children I would have to let go of some of the things I had felt so important and that were such ‘must haves’.

These things seemed so important to me but when I let go of them,  I found that I could embrace the things that really made me happy – which included spending time with myself and people I cared about, eating well (as in healthily) nurturing real friendships, finding God and Jesus again. That was when love came back to me.

I’m not saying all women and men in search of love should ever compromise, what I am saying is that loving someone and seeing them grow and thrive in that love is more rewarding that any exclusive byline, £1k a week plus salary or exotic press trips. It took me years to work that out and a few more years to let it go.

Having my daughter is a gift which every day I am grateful for beyond words. The same goes for number 2, all being well, I know that at my age I’m lucky to have even got pregnant having seen so many friends in their mid-late 30s and older not able to have children.

I’m still a feminist, but I will be changing my surname, well gradually anyway (my friend Marianne tells me it’s a real b****r to change your bank account to your married name unless you get a new passport first).

On Saturday when I say my vows I will be saying them knowing that my life is going to amazing, not because I have a great career, large pension or a nice wardrobe, it is because I have love, love of my partner,  my family and my friends. That is a gift you can never buy and for one I will never take for granted.

Smelly things

If you are going to buy anything that involves a lotion or body cream then make sure it’s a decent brand- Clarins/Boots No7/Cowshed and Sanctuary are all good ones to go for. Supermarket-own brands have their place, namely on the bathroom shelves of grannies and aunts. In fact one of our favourite beauty buys of the year is No7’s body exfoliator, but you don’t want to buy this alone (she may be insulted!)  opt for a No7 gift sets with body lotion and your lady will not only thank you for it, she’ll think you’re a genuis. We also love Aveda gift sets, you can’t go wrong with some gorgeous-smelling shampoo, or even a candle.

Underwear

Don’t make the mistake of buying ill fitting/scratchy/tasteless bras and knickers. Instead buy your loved one vouchers in the nearest posh underwear shop, and let your lady do the choosing. And it’s a great excuse to shop in the sales. Carols in Bishops Stortford is our local underwear boutique. Alternatively go online and get vouchers for sites such as FigLeaves.

Gadget no nos!

Much as us ladies love gadgets Christmas is not a time to buy vicariously. So as much as your lady might show an interest in a gadget that measures her body fat/sleep patterns/loo habits etc – she’s probably rather you bought her something cool like a pair of fluffy headphones that double up as earmuffs – fashion and function can’t go wrong with that.

Perfume

Do not buy anything you are not sure about. Even if you know that she loved Chanel No5 when she was a teenager she may not like it now. For example I went off a bunch of smells when I was pregnant first time round, including a perfume I’d loved for years. Even now some of them still make feel feel unwell.  So unless you know for sure what fragrance she likes – don’t buy at all.

Books

Chances are she owns 50 Shades of Grey already. If you are going to buy her book buy a coffee table book Nigella’s Nigellissima is great because it shows you think of her as a domestic goddess or at least have the potential to be one.  Anything by Bobbi Brown is always cool. If you want to go the extra mile buy her a book with intelligence,  (Personally I’d like to read Naomi Woolf’s Misconceptions, it’s been on my must read list for ages – Sam, ed)

Let us know if you have any other suggestions – we’ll be aiming to update this list in the run up to Christmas.

Well she’s now set up her own blog Lemon House Life to share her thoughts on fresh life and fresh food in northern Tuscany. Ruth moved to Italy with her partner James last year and she’s been enjoying Italian life ever since.

Read her latest blog – where she shares her recipe for beef with spiced wine and roast roots.