Editorial dilemmas
Now that we've got over the inital shock of the foot & mouth outbreak in Surrey, it's time to decide how we tackle it in the magazine.
This is a bit of a tricky one actually... There's a small part of me that feels we should go really big on it, as it's had such a devastating impact on our rural communities, but instint tells me this is not the right thing to do.
For one thing, we like to try and make the magazine a celebration of all the good things in the county - the most interesting stately homes to visit, the best places to go to see local wildlife, the new restaurants creating a bit of a buzz etc, etc, providing a bit of escapism for our readers - and then of course there's the issue of deadlines.
Being a monthly publication, we go to press a week before the magazine actually hits the shops, and with things moving so fast with the foot & mouth outbreak, there's a big risk of us being out of date by the time the mag actually arrives on the news stands.
In the end, having thought long and hard about this, I have decided to leave this one to our fellow journalists on the local newspapers in the county, hoping instead that the magazine can bring a bit of welcome relief to people already overwhelmed by flooding and now foot & mouth.