Surrey Life Editor's Blog

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas (and January)

I love snow - always have.... I don't care what anyone says about the inconvenience; as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing quite as exciting as the whole county being brought to a halt under a blanket of thick white snow.

I like the fact that nature can still re-assert itself and wreak havoc with our daily routines, and that for all our sophisticated technology, a few snowflakes can bring everything to a standstill.

As one of our sales guys, Ade, said the other day, what could be more fun than something that causes complete disruption to our everyday lives?

I also enjoy the sense of peace that descends, and how everything looks so beautiful when it's covered in a sprinkling of white flakes ...

Anyway, contrary to appearances, I haven't lost the plot (quite yet) and there is actually a point to my ramblings... 

In a nutshell, I want to have snow on our January front cover, which seems to have caused some consternation amongst our designers; namely because our masthead (the Surrey Life bit) and the cover lines are usually white and therefore will not show up.

With a bit of persuasion, however, they did eventually concede that there are a few tricks that can be done - like pumping in a bit of blue sky for example - and they are now on the case working their magic.

I'll let you know how it's looking tomorrow.

Back to work

Returned to work today after a lovely break up in Edinburgh - a marvellous place to visit at this time of year with the beautiful castle all lit up with thousands of twinkling blue and white lights, an enormous ferris wheel and a fantastic German market.

In fact, the latter came as a rather pleasant surprise, because as any member of the Surrey Life team will testify, I have a bit of a thing about gingerbread.

True to form, after supping on a delicious mug of steaming mulled wine, I left the market with armfuls of the stuff.

Actually, if the truth be told, I've eaten a bit too much of it today so feeling a tad green around the gills...

Not half as bad though, I suspect, as some of my colleagues, who were out partying with Amy Winehouse til the early hours of the morning - yes, that's right - the Amy Winehouse!

Basically, our sales director, Rhiannon Wragg, has a rather famous cousin called Alex who is a celebrity hairdresser, and he in turn is a good friend of Amy's.

So, off they all went to her concert in Brighton last night and then to the aftershow party. Apparently, she was absolutely lovely, but also scarily tiny - almost like an emaciated child. As one of them commented today, what she really needs more than anything is a good meal and a bit of sleep.

Perhaps now that the rest of the tour has been cancelled, on her doctor's orders, she will finally get it.

Anyway, once again, it has got scarily late, and I'm feeling rather in need of some rest and relaxation myself, so off home now to collapse in front of  'I'm a Celebrity' with a glass of wine...

Slugs and stuff...

The Christmas issue of the mag hits the shops today and it really does look gorgeous.

In the end, after changing the cover about three million times, we went for a lovely Christmas tree background with a golden festive star as the main focus, and I think it looks beautiful.

Packed full with all you need to get you through the festive period, you'll find everything from the best places to see Father Christnas to how to make the perfect hamper using exclusively Surrey produce to great eco-friendly gift ideas - and that's just the start!

I hope you like it as much as I do.

In other news, we had a our monthly planning & review meeting yesterday at the Gatwick Hilton - always a lively affair.

It turned out to be a very productive afternoon with some great ideas coming out of it - not least some exciting new designs for our contents page and corner slugs (that's the bit at the top of the page that tells you what section you're in).

Our senior designer, Donna James, has just given me the first draft of the new style pages and they look absolutely fantastic! In fact, they even gave me goosebumps!

However, it does make me wonder if I possibly need to address my work/life balance when I get more excited about something called a 'corner slug' than the fact I have got the day off tomorrow...    

'High' spirits...

Just got back to the office after spending the day down at our regional HQ in Worthing.

By some miracle, I managed to pick up 'Newcomer of the Year' in the national Archant awards (they obviously didn't have many newcomers this year...) so this was the presentation ceremony.

Suffice to say, I was totally blown away to receive the award, and I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words, the flowers and champagne, and the amazing lunch.

What was less fun, however, was having to make an impromptu speech afterwards - especially given that I went to see the Foo Fighters last night and was therefore feeling just the tiniest bit hung over, not to mention rather sleep deprived...

The concert took place at the new O2 Arena, which holds a mind-boggling 20,000 people - and at the end of the night, every single one of them, or so it seemed, was attempting to get back to London Bridge.

We had to wait approximately three days to get on the tube, with the result that we ended up missing the last train home and therefore had to get a taxi back to Reigate - which cost an eye-watering £85.

Furthermore, we didn't actually arrive back home until well after 1am, and I eventually fell into bed at about 2am.

Still, at least I didn't get vertigo, and have to be moved to a different, lower part of the arena, like certain other members of the Surrey Life team who shall remain nameless...

A sure-fire thing...

It's been another hectic but very interesting day, spent largely at the headquarters of Surrey Fire & Rescue, just around the corner, in Croydon Road, Reigate.

When crew manager John Wood invited us down, I had a vague notion that I'd end up sliding down a pole, a la Bridget Jones, or possibly interviewing some big strapping firefighters...

In the event, it turned out that they don't actually have a pole, and White Watch were out on a job.

Nonetheless, it was a fascinating day, spent meeting some of the key figures at the divisional HQ, and I came away with a completely different perception of what they do.

For one thing, whilst they may still be called the 'fire' service, their remit these days goes far beyond that - road accidents on the M25, flooding in Chobham, rescuing scouts from Merstham caves (as happened just a couple of weeks ago), the list goes on....

But what is really interesting is that their job is now as much about prevention as anything else. In fact, John estimates that only 25% of their time is spent responding to calls - the rest is devoted to putting measures in place to prevent incidents happening in the first place.

For instance, they run a pioneering community project that sees them visiting schools with a fairly harrowing dvd designed to encourage youngsters to drive more safely. Then there's their free home fire checks where they will help you to assess any potential problems and offer advice on the installation of smoke alarms (tel: 0800 085 0767). Another important area is their Firewise Scheme, which is basically an education programme designed to teach juvenile fire-starters about the consequences of their actions.

They've even set up their own Arson Task Force to help reduce incidents of deliberate fires and bring more offenders to justice.

Interestingly, one of the most important members of this team is a beautiful black dog called Max who can identify a mind-boggling 11 different types of fire accelerent... Every time there's an incident of suspected arson, they take Max along to the scene and he'll basically case the joint. If he identifies an accelerent, he'll simply look up at his handler - anything else - like pawing the ground or barking - and he could set off an explosion or risk bringing the remains of the building down.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, the whole visit made quite an impression on me and we'll be doing a big feature on the varied work of Surrey Fire & Rescue early next year.  

In the meantime, coming away from the fire station, the one thing that really stayed with me was the scary statistics about smoke detectors. On average, of all the people who die in accidental fires in the home, three quarters of them don't have working smoke alarms.

So, if you do just one thing this weekend, please do make sure the batteries are working in yours...

Deep breath...

We may have gone to press but that doesn't mean we can take it easy this week - in fact, on the contrary this month looks set to be positively manic.

As well as all the frenzied preparation for the now to be televised carol concert, I have got meetings all over the county and beyond, and a whole host of events to attend - starting tonight with the opening of a new restaurant at the exclusive Penny Hill Spa (which, granted, is not the worst appointment in the world...).

I've also got a couple of days holiday next week - which will be my first this year so I am determined to take them - and that's not to mention, of course, the small matter of putting out a magazine...

At times like this, you have two choices - either hide under the desk or run for the hills... No, seriously, it's a case of panicking, which isn't going to achieve anything, or just taking a deep breath and dealing with one thing at a time.  

I'm going to opt for the latter and hope for the best.

IT (and also ITV) issues

Many apologies again for the lack of entries over the last few days.

We went to press yesterday and it turned out to be an epic deadline day of 15 hours not helped by some serious IT problems.

This probably won't mean much to anyone (and frankly means even less to me) but somehow my computer had slyly updated itself to Internet Explorer 7, which, as it turns out, is totally incompatible with our system.

Oh, and Quark 7, which we're starting to use more and more to design features, doesn't seem to like our page tracking system either.

I won't bore you any further with dull jargon but suffice to say we were still here at 10pm (after a 7am start) trying to get the cover off to the printers.

If all that wasn't bad enough, I woke up in the middle of the night, sat bolt upright and knew with horrible certainty that I had forgotten to do something important...

In my editor's letter, I had written about the carol concert and directed people to page 33 for details of how to get tickets - only page 33 was no longer the carol concert advert after things were moved around at the 11th hour.

Cue a slightly panicked dawn call to our group editor, Jon Keeble, to see if there was still time to intercept the page before it went to the printers, and happily, with just seconds to spare, he managed to get it changed.

So, thank you, Jon, for saving the day - I owe you one!

On the subject of the carol concert, just had some rather exciting news from our columnist Max Clifford to say that apparently ITV1 want to come and film it!

Turns out they are doing a major documentary on philanthropy, and because of all Max's charity work, they want to include him. When they found out he was going to be doing a reading at the carol concert, which is raising money for the CHASE children's hospice in Guildford, they decided they would send a film crew down.

Naturally, this has caused something of a stir in the office - not to mention a veritable stampede to book appointments at the hairdressers.

We still have to clear everything with Father Charles at the church, which by the way is St James in Shere, but fingers crossed, you could yet be seeing us all on primetime TV - or even better yourselves -assuming you get in quick to buy your tickets!

The carol concert takes place on Wednesday December 5 and you can secure your tickets, which cost £10 each, by calling 01483 454213 or 01483 447769.

Lack of entries

Just a super-quick message to apologise for the lack of entries- it's proving to be a marathon deadline week getting our bumper Christmas issue wrapped up and I'm having to devote every waking moment to the mag.

We've also had ridiculous complications sorting out our Christmas hamper photo shoot for our local produce feature - don't even ask - not to mention various I.T. issues.

Anyway, the mag is looking absolutely gorgeous - which makes the long days worthwhile - in fact, I think it's my favourite one to date!

Signs of life

In the midst of deadline week, so very little time to write today, but just thought I'd let you know that we're still alive in the Surrey Life office.

Well, I say we're alive, but to be honest it's a close call. At least two of us have still got very bad colds and two more are showing early symptoms.

Personally, I think I'm on the road to recovery now, but I'm painfully aware that I still look like the living dead.  

On the plus side, at least the mag seems to be on track, and it's looking gorgeous - packed full with fantastic festive features! Not just your average Christmas stuff, mind...

Every single article has a very local slant - where to find the very best gifts in the county, where to look for the finest local produce for your Christmas hamper, where to go ice skating in Surrey, where to get a FREE organic Christmas tree, where to go late night shopping etc. etc.

Anyway, better get back to it... mountains of proofing to do - though when the features look this lovely it's a pleasure rather than a chore.    

A nice way to start the weekend

Had a bit of good news today; turns out that the October magazine was our best selling issue ever - up 31% year on year.

Naturally, we are all over the moon about this, but now begins the quest to discover what it was about the issue that hit the spot. What did people like about it so much? What caused them to stop in the supermarket/farm shop/garden centre etc and pick up this particular magazine?

Well, I'll tell you what I think it was - I reckon it was because our main cover story was all about wine!

In a nutshell, the lead feature was about how Surrey wines have been taking the world by storm in the last couple of years, and how we have a whole host of fantastic vineyards across the county. We also ran the most beautiful harvest picture of Denbies in Dorking - the largest vineyard in the UK- who have just won yet another big international award.

I suppose if you do enjoy the occasional tipple (and let's face it, there's not many of us who don't), it's great to know that you can get top quality wine right on the very doorstep... Well, it certainly seemed to touch a chord with our readers anyway!

For now, all that remains to say is thank you very much, enjoy your weekend and 'cheers'!

Reverend and the bikers

Just got back to the office after a whole day of meetings in Shere about the carol concert – phew! It really was the most fantastic day though….

Having met up with our bubbly promotions manager Steph (a positive whirlwind of well-organised energy), we began by paying a visit to the rectory to meet the Reverend Father Charles, who is going to be taking the service.

Suffice to say, he is probably the most extraordinary man of the cloth I have ever met. As well as being a genius blues and boogie woogie pianist (I know this because he gave us a demonstration - one of the more surreal moments of my life but absolutely priceless), he’s also a die hard biker and his favourite band is ACDC.

Held in much affection by his congregation, he is also a hugely inspiring and successful reverend, and is clearly held in pretty high regard by the Archbishop of Canterbury too, who popped down to speak at the church last Sunday, and duly stayed for lunch.

With the order of service all firmed up, it was then down to The Lucky Duck tearooms to meet up with Alessio from the CHASE children's hospice in Guildford (every penny raised from the carol concert will be going straight to them). Calm, clever and with a brilliant sense of humour, he was full of great ideas and, between Steph and him, I know the carol concert is going to be a phenomenal success.

As well as ten of the most lovely, traditional carols, we're going to be having seasonal readings by Max Clifford and another mystery celebrity (more on that soon!), so it'll be just the thing to get you feeling all festive.

In fact, tickets are already selling fast, so if you haven't ordered yours yet, and you'd like to be there, then you need to book them now.

Just to remind you, it's at St James Church in Shere on Wednesday December 5 at 7pm. Tickets are priced at £10 and available by ringing the ticket hotline on 01483 454213 or 01483 447769.  

Look forward to seeing you there!