Join Mike Dilger - nature presenter on BBC 1's The One Show - as he discusses his new book One Thousand Shades of Green: A Year in Search of Britain's Wild Plants. 

Includes supper and a signed copy of the book.

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Prices - Come as a Couple and Save £15

Couple's Price (one book included)

2 courses £75 or 3 courses £85

Per Person

2 courses £45 or 3 courses £50

Members receive £5 discount per guest

Booking: To book, please call our Reservations Team on 01635 800520 or email reservations@retreatelcopark.com

This event is organised with the support of our friends at Hungerford Bookshop.

About the Book

Mike Dilger's nationwide quest to find 1,000 wild plant species in a single year.

For most of 2020, Mike Dilger's day-job of travelling to the four corners of the British Isles all but disappeared. Having been confined to one place by the Covid pandemic, and with daily dog walks his sole permitted outdoor pursuit, the simple pleasure of getting to know the flowers at his feet reignited a long-buried botanical passion.

Now Mike is on a mission: to see a thousand different wild plants in one calendar year, and assess how our fascinating flora is faring in modern Britain.

From Cornwall to Kent and Breckland to the Scottish Highlands, Mike meets the resilient reserve wardens and courageous conservationists tasked with protecting some of the nation's richest botanical sites, and experiences first-hand the many difficulties associated with saving our rarest and most charismatic plants.

Taking in city centres, mountain tops and every conceivable habitat in between, One Thousand Shades of Green is a manifesto on how to love and conserve our green and pleasant land, and celebrates the beauty and diversity of the nation's plants.

Join us for a 3-course supper and conversation with Nicola Chester about her writing career, including her book "On Gallows Down", documenting Newbury's history of protests and social activism. 

A copy of "On Gallows Down" is included, which Nicola will be happy to sign for you. 

Menu >>

Prices - Come as a Couple and Save £15

Couple's Price (one book included)

2 courses £75 or 3 courses £85

Per Person

2 courses £45 or 3 courses £50

Members receive £5 discount per guest

To book, please call our Reservations Team on 01635 800520 or email reservations@retreatelcopark.com

This event is organised with the support of our friends at Hungerford Bookshop.

On Gallows Down

From the girl catching the eye of the “peace women” of Greenham Common to the young woman protesting the loss of ancient and beloved trees, and as a mother raising a family in a farm cottage in the shadow of grand, country estates, this is the story of how Nicola Chester came to write – as a means of protest. The story of how she discovered the rich seam of resistance that runs through her village of Newbury and its people – from the English Civil War to the Swing Riots and the battle against the Newbury Bypass. And the story of the hope she finds in the rewilding of Greenham Common after the military left, the stories told by the landscapes of Watership Down, the gallows perched high on Inkpen Beacon and Highclere Castle (the setting of Downtown Abbey).

Nature is indelibly linked to belonging for Nicola. She charts her story, raising her children in the chalk hills of the North Wessex Downs, though the song of the nightingale and the red kites, fieldfares, skylarks, and lapwings that surround her; the badger cubs she watches at night; the velvety mole she discovers in her garden, and the cuckoo, whose return she awaits. On Gallows Down tells how Nicola came to realize that it is she who can decide where she belongs and how, for home is a place in nature and imagination, which must be protected through words and actions.

‘We are writing for our very lives and for those wild lives we share this one, lonely planet with.’

Cleo was an aide to Boris Johnson during the pandemic and has worked in political campaigning for many years - from Obama's re-election to two UK general elections.  She has had a front row seat, and occasionally a seat at the table, for some of the most decisive moments in recent British history. 

Her first novel - Whips - has been described as "House of Cards meets 50 Shades of Grey". The story is set in Westminster in the 2020s, where the business of governing is the last thing on the agenda for anyone worth their salt. In the SW1 bubble, politics moves fast, schemes are hatched and foiled - through both accident and conspiracy - within hours, and sex and power preside.

"An Evening with Cleo Watson" includes talks by Cleo, a delicious two-course dinner and a complimentary copy of the book, which Cleo will happily sign for you. 

Menu >>

Prices - Come as a Couple and Save £15

Couple's Price (one book included)

2 courses £75 or 3 courses £85

Per Person

2 courses £45 or 3 courses £50

Members receive £5 discount per guest

Booking

To book, please call our Reservations Team on 01635 800520 or email reservations@retreatelcopark.com

This event is organised with the support of our friends at Hungerford Bookshop.

About the Book

Cleo Watson takes readers behind the doors of Number 10 and delivers a gripping tale of modern government, filled with intrigue and scandal and written with insight and verve.

Westminster in the 2020s, where the business of governing is the last thing on the agenda for anyone worth their salt. In the SW1 bubble, politics moves fast, schemes are hatched and foiled - through both accident and conspiracy - within hours, and sex and power preside.

When Bobby Cliveden decides to campaign against the closure of her local mental health unit, she scarcely thought it would take her straight to the heart of the UK's bustling political centre.

She heads to London to work for her local MP, the ambitious Simon Daly, and moves in with her two old university friends, Jess, a new lobby journalist, and Eva, a junior Downing Street adviser. The three of them quickly become wrapped up in the political circus of glamorous parties, insufferable bosses and demanding workloads - and the desire to win. Beneath the headline grabbing battle of a male-dominated leadership contest, they discover the secret, soft-skilled machinery behind so much political change at the very highest level of government: women.

Riotous and all too believable, Whips is a timely satire on politics and Party people. Watson takes us behind the doors of Number 10 and delivers a gripping tale of modern government, filled with intrigue and scandal and written with insight and verve. Whips delivers on every promise.