Alex Gutteridge's Blog

The Healing Garden

These are surreal and difficult times for so many people. And like many others my garden has been a sanctuary. Gardens have always played an important part in my life from when I was tiny. For me they symbolise many things especially freedom, hope and healing and gardening itself  can teach us valuable lessons in acceptance.


One of the flowers I love the most is the paeony. 



Over the years my gardens have been a museum of memories - plants or cuttings generously given by friends and...

When Can You Call Yourself a Writer?

It took me ages to be able to call myself a writer. It was probably about five years after my first book was published that I managed to answer a question about my occupation with those four small but loaded words; "I am a writer". And, despite being traditionally published, despite having my first children's book taken from the slush pile by Puffin, I felt like a massive fraud. I think this is partly because most people are so interested in writers, impressed even and thank-goodness they are...

A Lull

Lull, quiescence, interlude, rest, respite, becalmed, breather, breathing space, repose, hush, pause.
Time to Smell the Roses



It has been a long time since I wrote my blog. Too long! I never intended to stop but life took over and sometimes something has to give. Sometimes it is good to pause.
While the blog has been on hold much has happened. We have moved from the city to the country where I have always felt that I belonged. We are creating a new garden which is very exciting and are able to t...

Writing Tips - The Importance of Back-Story

Beatles or Rolling Stones?
I had read out some of my work in progress, an adult novel, and the passage in question focused on my heroine’s seventy-three year old mother. So, Margaret asked, was she a fan of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? I know all about the importance of back story, how it is vital in shaping your characters and informing your plot, but I couldn’t answer this question. And it made me realise that, in this instance, I didn’t know Dinah as well as I thought I did. It was a...

Lizzie Lamb's Clootie Dumpling Recipe

On Wednesday, November 30th, it is the Feast of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland and several other countries, Russia, Cyprus and Greece to name a few.  Although, (to my knowledge), I don't have any Scottish blood, my guest this week does. Lizzie Lamb is a hugely successful romantic novelist and inspiration to all of those who know her so I am thrilled to welcome her to my blog sharing her childhood memories and her recipe for the wonderfully named, Clootie Dumplings. 
 ...

Judy Bryan's Mars Bars and Memories

A few weeks ago I was thinking of my favourite things and these include reading, writing and

CAKE! So I thought, why don't I combine these three gorgeous things on my blog and ask some

of my lovely writer friends for their favourite cake recipes. So, to get the ball rolling and following

on from my own honey cake recipe, here is the very talented Judy Bryan's recipe for Mars Bar

cakes, with some lovely memories thrown in.

Mars Bars and Memories
When Alex said she was intending to blog about people'...

Quick Honey Cake

My mother was a wonderful cook and one of her favourite things was baking. We always had cake in the house and she loved trying new recipes. Recently, more than ten years after she died, I have been re-visiting her cookery books, not the ones she bought but the ones she compiled herself; recipes which enticed her, copied out from magazines, newspapers or passed on from friends and family. It is a poignant exercise, seeing her generous rounded hand-writing and the ingredient spattered pages. I...

Hidcote Manor Gardens

In June we took a family holiday to Gloucestershire. There were 9 of us, 7 adults and 2 children. Most of us have visited Hidcote Manor Gardens before but I always forget just how beautiful it is and how personal despite being a National Trust property and visited by thousands of people each year.

These Arts and Crafts gardens were created by Lawrence Johnston and over 30 years he transformed a few fields into what he called 'a garden of rooms', using 'only the best forms of any plant'.

He says...

Wordless Wednesday - The Road Less Travelled

Acne Rosacea

When I was small I had flaxen hair and very fair skin. We lived in a seventeenth century thatched cottage without central heating and often in the winter there was frost on the inside of the diamond paned windows. I felt the cold and would sit as close to the open fire as was safe. In retrospect the extremes of temperature were probably not at all good for my skin but I never had any problems with it through my teens. It was after a family trauma which brought on the peri-menopause that...