This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Grace and I have not seen each other for over a month, with the Christmas and New Year break and Omicron still whizzing around. Of course, we speak nearly every day and Whatsapp one hundred times, but meeting up is much better. Chatting face-to-face is so uplifting maybe because you have each other’s undivided attention. We are often asked by readers if they could write their story for our magazine and we encourage this as so many have been particularly uplifting stories for women. So today I thought I would write a little bit of the backstory behind A&G i.e. what Grace and I do when we aren’t writing our online magazine.
It is hard running a business together and being friends because when we meet up, we want to chat about all things personal and, of course, we also have so much work to get done. However, the plus side is that we are nearly always singing from the same song sheet, and we are aware of each other’s personal lives that have to fit in around A&G.
Grace has elderly parents, both nonagenarians who, although they still live independently, Grace is their primary carer. Grace lives on her own as she is recently divorced, but she has a gorgeous son who is always visiting, and they both love to go to the races, especially as she lives near Goodwood. She also does some volunteering work at a food bank every Monday.
I have four children, two of whom live at home but are moving into new houses next month – so much help and organisation is needed. At the moment we have three dogs (and sometimes four) that need walking every day. My daughters each have their puppy – all of our dogs are Doodles but different versions – an Australian Doodle, a Mini Labradoodle, a Cockapoo and a Borderpoo!
My lot seem to be constantly at home, or at least one of them is here with a partner. So my husband and I breathe a sigh of relief when we have 24 hours on our own, though we often have an extra dog to dogsit.
Grace loves art; she is a fantastic painter but always needs more time to work on this passion, plus she loves visiting galleries. I love the theatre and have missed that these past two years though my husband and I were fortunate to see Cabaret starring Eddie Redmayne very recently. We are now feeling confident enough to book more theatre trips.
So you can see we have quite a lot to fit in around A&G. But we love it. We love the diversity of A&G, learning about new services and products, finding fashion that works for our age group, trying out new recipes, testing beauty products that enhance older skin and reviewing books, TV programmes and films.
The New Year has got off to a great start as we have been made official Ambassadors for the jewellery brand Ana Luisa. Who doesn’t love a little bit of jewellery to finish an outfit off? Ana Luisa produces environmentally sound pieces that are simple and stylish. Enough said as you need to watch the video below to hear all about this great brand that we are proud to be associated with.
Get yourself and your loved ones the perfect gift with up to 40% off. Check out Ana Luisa ~ HERE We know you’ll LOVE them! #analuisany #analuisavip
Let’s all hope that 2022 can be more settled and we can all get back to a way of life that we enjoy.
Annabel xx