I love being here. We've been in this location for two and a half years. It's incredibly central and we're close to our hotel, Browns, on Albermarle Street, so it's easy to walk there and take someone for lunch. It's very light and you look out on to lovely cornicing
and bits of architecture.
I was really struck by this pamphlet called Wasted by Harriet Sargeant. It's about our young men who come out of school not being able to read and write. How will they ever be able to get a job? It's a real eye-opener what we haven't done for these young people.
We're working on a hotel in Cairo at the moment called The Shepheard. It was
a very famous hotel in the old days and we're completely redoing it. We're looking at paint colours at the moment and I'm trying to get into the Egyptian feel. All our hotels have a distinct sense of place so you really feel like you're in that country, unlike lots of chain hotels.
I'm designing a rug for Endsleigh, my own little hotel in Devon. It's been without a rug in the library for some time and I keep being urged to put that right. The rug company will make anything I want, which is almost paralysing! I'm thinking of doing a poem around the edge.
This is the latest book by my husband, William Shawcross. It's the official biography of the Queen Mother and it's taken him about six years, so I've lived with it for a long time. I've been reading bits and pieces of it all the way through. It's a very moving story, actually. She was rather
an extraordinary woman.
I've just bought this print as a present for my eldest grandson, Finn, who's eight. It's by Craig Martin - I think he did 40 of them to raise money for the children's hospital in Oxford. I'm used to having it in the office now, so it's going to be difficult to give it away.
There's nothing quite like our Verdura Golf
& Spa Resort in Sicily, It's over 500 acres and has two 18-hole championship golf courses. It's one of our latest developments and I've been very involved with it. It's always seems like the last one I've done is the one I like the most!
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