This Christmas, more than ever, booking ahead and careful planning are required to make sure that you have the festive get together that you deserve after such a challenging year.

We are lucky in our region to have a fantastic range of professional facialists who are passionate about their businesses and give clients every chance of the best skin possible. Bridget Steele asked local salon owners to tell us their favourite treatment, why they recommend it and what can be achieved

Amander Meade meets Pets As Therapy (PAT) dog Joy, an English Springer Spaniel, and her owner Aimee Mearkle

Chris Stafford and Nikolai Foster are respectively the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Leicester’s Curve, one of the most innovative and inspiring theatres in the UK. In this most challenging year for the arts, Chris and Nikolai discuss their responses to closure and strategies for welcoming audiences back to Curve

Inspired by the increased demand for fruit-and-vegetable boxes during lockdown, Debs Pennell takes a look at a number of these excellent schemes run by farms and farm shops in our local region

Sarah Chase meets Lucy Findlay of The Stamford Fabric Company to talk about the joys and challenges of running her business, plus a look at other sewing and knitting firms in the region

Outside areas are never more relevant than now, as we get back to eating out. Nicholas Rudd-Jones explores some favourites – fingers crossed for an Indian summer!

Stamfordian clockmaker Robert Loomes recently became Chairman of the British Horological Institute. Nicholas Rudd-Jones went to meet him at its headquarters