Winter issue

The winter magazine has been out for a month now and to our surprise quite a number of you noticed the very subtle design changes we made! The compliments about readability and freshness (not to mention the features and photographs) have been passed on to all.

Design-wise we changed the underlying grid to a 12-column which gives greater layout flexibility and has increased the margins between copy columns. We're mainly avoiding putting text in coloured boxes.

The feature on Lord Heseltine and his fabulous arboretum at Thenford proved so popular that Margaret Headen had no less than 70 people sign up for a Friends' visit within 10 days of publication. Lord Heseltine has agreed we can take two coach loads (on separate days).

Several of you also responded to the Friend's Survey summary with further comments which have been noted.

In the meantime, the magazine team have been working on the spring issue and we already have a cache of lovely photographs to choose from. I'll let you know more about the contents in January because, after all, we've still got Christmas to enjoy! And if you haven't made yours already, here's a tempting Christmas pudding recipe by Rob Rees you might like.

Happy Christmas, Louisa.