Last week was my other half’s birthday.  The big FOUR OHHHH!

With my event planner’s hat on, I organised a weekend away in a coaching house owned by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.  The Devonshire Arms is four star luxury on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, overlooking the grounds of Bolton Abbey and into the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  This was a far cry from our usual ‘let’s celebrate by camping’ weekends, which are more often than not, marred by bad weather, inadequate bedding and loud, inconsiderate campers.  Nay! This time we joined the coiffed, well to do, Range Rover driving, hunting, shooting, fishing folk and settled in for a weekend in front of log fires, sipping champagne and watching the snow fall by the bucket loads.  Sadly not enough snow fell to render us stranded in the lap of luxury.

Amongst other things, the Birthday Girl received a book chronicling her life, with comments and anecdotes from friends and family.  At this point, I’d like to plug www.blurb.co.uk as an excellent way of compiling and producing books. Whether you are a professional or a lay person, the quality of the blurb books is smashing and there’s no need to faff about uploading images to their website, you can do it all on your own computer (with Adobe Indesign) before sending them the finished product for print.

I also drew here this cartoon which pretty much sums up what she does as a Maxillofacial Surgeon (head and neck surgery).  Despite being dually qualified with both a dentistry and a medical degree, she can often be heard telling people to take two paracetamol and go to bed.  Surprisingly, this cure works for a whole array of symptoms that I present in order to keep her on her toes.  Some might say I’m a hypochondriac.