One of our inspectors dropped by the office for lunch today - it's always good to catch up with news from the road, and to hear what our owners are up to.

Installment number three from our owners' recipes series comes from Maureen Sheda. Maureen fell in love with Italy during her European travels in the seventies, and moved there permanently.

She married Italian Roberto and together they discovered La Torretta in Casperia. Roberto, an architect, breathed new life into the 15th-century palazzo and they now run a cookery school and successful B&B. They hold wine and olive oil tastings in the medieval hilltop village, too, and have been members of the Slow Food Movement since it began.

Abigail King, journalist, photographer and Londoner, discovers more about her home city with the help of our Special Places' owners...

Gardening

I love winter gardening: there's little to do. At least, that’s how it seems – as the bindweed shrinks into the soil, the raspberries have done their stuff and hardly anything is trying to grow. But it is a false sense of time-to-spare, for the garden is gathering its loins for a massive spring assault on our sense of leisure.

Breaking news from reporter Sarah Bolton: Sawday's introduces an owners' uniform

Sawday’s is introducing a new initiative that will be a hit with both the owners of their B&Bs and the many guests who love the quintessential Sawday's experience. As from today they are introducing a uniform. The aim is really to reassure both old and new visitors that the place they have chosen for that special night or weekend away is recommended by them - that it’s Team Sawday if you will.