With 3 deliciously small boys all fighting for my attention, returning to my job as a theatre teacher at the BRIT School for Performing Arts was still not practical, so what was I going to do?

“Write!” came the voice loudly from beside me on the bed. “You love writing. You’re a great writer. So write.”

And so I have.

Secretly, I think he hoped I’d write Fifty Shades of Grey.

Instead, I have stuck to what I know and love: Jane Austen and the timelessly joyous world of her stories and characters. How, lovely, I thought, to share with others all that I know about the places that formed her world, and which have given me so much pleasure over the years.

And so, six months later, here I am, publishing my first book: The Jane Austen Travel Guide to Bath and England.

Not quite, I suspect, what that voice beside me from the bed expected, but a book nonetheless, and one that I am proud of and hope that other people will find both helpful and enjoyable.

“Whatever”, says the voice, “at least it’s kept you out of mischief.”