10 April 2026
Hard to believe it is now 2026 – along time since my last post and any news.
Bookings are still coming in! A pity more talks don’t get booked for the summer – we have a good selection for non-Christmas months!
And a new one to add to the list – Love, Sex and Marriage. Interesting odds and ends about all of them!
3 September 2025
Time is still flying by fast! Well over a year since my last post! One of us moved house again, hopefully for the last time, and with more room to keep the growing amount of artefacts and costumes we are acquiring to use in our talks.
We have reverted to our original prices, as we know how strapped for cash many clubs and societies are. Bookings are still coming in so we must be doing something right!
18 March 2024
I have only just realised that this page hasn’t been updated for over a year! How time flies! The house moves seem well in the past and many things have happened between then and now!
The main thing that we have been forced into making is to update our prices. We have managed to keep them down so far, but now, with petrol prices having soared upwards, we have had to put our prices up, both the fee for the talk and the petrol prices per mile.
However, we are still really good value and great fun and worth booking us! We look forward to seeing you all in the future.
14 December 2022 Happy to see more bookings coming in after the disaster of Covid over the past couple of years!
The other one of us has now moved house. We are currently keeping our costs as they are as we know all too well how much everything costs these days. However, a distance charge may be added if the venue is a long way away from either or both of us.
18 February 2022
All the Christmas talks done and dusted! More enquiries coming in now for this year and next – keep them coming!
However, one of us moved house a month ago, and we are in the throes of sorting out if costs need to be changed. We will keep prices down as much as possible, as we have done before. But with the price of petrol so horrendous at the moment, costs may have to be changed. Watch the website for further information about this.
6 September 2021
Well, we made it through the year so far! We hope that all our friends and supporters are well and have come through the pandemic safely.
We have 7 talks booked for November and December 2021 and hope very much that they will go ahead. Plenty of dates available for more bookings! Watch the website for another talk in the making at the moment, due to be ready in 2022.
14 January 2021
Into 2021 and we are back in lockdown 3. A quiet time in which to do research for another talk. Watch the website pages for more information once we have written it and learnt the music! Something a bit exciting to do in lockdown! We hope that you are all well and surviving the stay-at-home rules. We look forward to seeing you all later in the year, fingers crossed!
27 October 2020
Here we are after 7 months of rules and regulations stopping us from doing most things, and I really can’t see the end of it before Christmas. All our 2020 talks have been cancelled. However, some have re-booked for 2021 for which we thank them. We look forward to seeing everyone in 2021!
18 July 2020
Things are easing a little and starting to look a bit more like normal life, but we still have a way to go. We hope to be able to give our Christmas talks later in the year. In the meantime, stay cheerful and positive, and keep up the social distancing!
22 April 2020
Well, we are all in lockdown now to stop the spread of coronavirus. Plenty of time to do more research to add to our knowledge and to chat about in our talks.
We hope that all our friends, colleagues and anyone reading this blog, are well and will remain so. We look forward to seeing you in the future when all this is over and done with, and life back to something resembling normality!
28 February 2020
The New Year started well with 2 talks in January and no snow! We are having a year off from working on any new talks, so we’ll be consolidating the ones we already have. But we have other ideas in our heads for the future, so watch this space!!
In the meantime, we are celebrating our 20 years in giving talks to schools and societies. No plans afoot to retire yet – just too busy!
28 November 2019
The year has galloped by and it is nearly Christmas again! The Cotswold talk is up and running with 3 bookings for it this year and next. The Regency talk is also proving popular. We now have Christmas talks from 5 different eras – Tudor/Elizabethan, Regency, Victorian, 1920’s and WWII – and already have 10 bookings for Christmas 2020. With our other talks available all year, we now have 11 different talks available throughout the year. Well, it keeps us on our toes!
9 February 2019
How time flies by! Bookings have come in for Broadway Museum, National Trust groups and even an Embroiderer’s Guild! Always welcome are WI’s, U3A’s, history groups, and everyone else.
1 January 2019
Many Christmas talks and no problems with snow this winter! We start the New Year with more research for our Cotswold Christmas talk, new for 2019. Already have 3 bookings for it so we had better get a move on!
22 October 2018
The autumn is upon us and we are preparing for a busy Christmas season in November and December. The Austen’s Regency Christmas is now up and running and we have bookings for it already. It makes all the hard work of research, sewing and learning worth while! So now we have 4 different Christmas talks, with a 5th to be worked on in the new year, ready to roll out for Christmas 2019! Now all we hope for is a 2018 winter without snow!!
2 July 2018
A Tudor talk to a tour group on holiday visiting castles and gardens with a holiday company. Thankfully it was in a hotel with air conditioning as the temperature outside was 29 degrees!!
25 May 2018
The new Data Protection Law has come into force, meaning that we must get permission to keep personal data for all our talks and workshops. All we keep is the contact name, group or school address, email, and telephone number in paper form and nothing kept on the computer, and all that is only kept in case of them making further bookings in the future, which often happens. It is an ‘opt-in’ situation so we must get permission every time to keep this information. No sensitive data is ever asked for. For more information got to www.ico.org.uk
10 December 2017
May we take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and all the very best for the New Year. Deep snow around as I write this – very Christmassy but tricky for travelling. However, if you have booked us, we will be there!!
24 August 2017
We are now pretty well booked up for November and December this year, and bookings are rolling in for 2018 as well!
18 May 2017
Responding to friends and audience comments, we are working on a Christmas talk for our Regency theme, as well as ‘At Home with the Austens’, a talk that fits any time of year. Now up to her ears in sewing again – though the Victorian ball gowns are nearly ready – Gilly is going upmarket at last!
10 April 2017
Our fame is spreading! A booking for a National Trust Association in Staffordshire!
1 March 2017
A Regency theme for our new talk, based on Jane Austen’s family and life. More costumes to make and more songs to learn, not to mention trying out those dainty dances!! Planning for it to be ready for bookings in 2018 – watch this space!
11 January 2017
The day has come! Having kept our talk fee down for several years, things like the cost of petrol have forced us to make a small increase up to £70 as from today.
9 January 2017
An afternoon Tudor talk in a retirement village. Another booking from them for a WW2 talk in December.
1 January 2017
We wish all our ‘customers’ the very best of health and happiness in the New Year!
17/18 December 2016
Lady Maud will be at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk as part of their Victorian Christmas.
8 December 2016
A local Women’s Institute will notch up the 50th different WI we have given talks to, several more than once! Must remember the champagne that night!
2 December 2016
Having to think hard about our prices as they have not gone up for about 8 years, but the price of everything else has! So we are going to have to increase our talk price to £70 in January 2017. Current bookings will, of course, stay at the old price of £65.
24 November 2016
Putting on Victorian style, we gave a talk to the public in a museum in Stroud. Delightful museum with a brand new pavilion in their new walled garden.
13 October 2016
A call from Radio Gloucester and a morning show for Gilly to talk Tudor again after The Great British Bake Off Tudor week.
7 June 2016
A talk for a self-sustaining charity providing residential courses for visually impaired people from all over the country. A challenging talk involving a lot of hands-on and smelly artefacts, but good fun with a lot of laughter.
26 May 2016
A talk on Tudor life given some of the children and parents of an Education Group.
30 December 2015
Gilly appears on a Radio Gloucester morning show, talking about a Tudor Christmas. Fun to do but a heck of an early morning!!
15 December 2015
The dementia group in Cheltenham. Good to be able to help out with groups like this. Dementia folk always respond well to music.
11 December 2014
Tudor Christmas talk to NADFAS ( National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Society) arts charity.
10 May 2014
Took part in a Tudor event at the Almonry Museum in Evesham. Great fun in a really historical atmosphere!