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Ask any of my five children whether I lovingly hand-stitched their school play costumes years ago and I’m sure they’d smirk and shake their heads. ‘Oh, that was the nanny,’ they’d say. That’s because they were all tucked up in bed asleep while I sat up well past midnight at the kitchen table. The hours would tick past unnoticed as I fed swathes of material through my sewing machine to make the perfect Little Bo Peep gown with puffy sleeves. I don’t mind that they took my creations for granted, because the pleasure of sewing was as much for me as for them. Frankly, I would have felt I was letting them down as a mother had I not made them myself. Riches and stitches: 'Superwoman' Nicola Horlick used to make her own curtains and costumes for her children's school plays For there is no greater satisfaction than making something from scratch, by hand, for yourself or your family. And when you’ve spent the day taut with work stress, the sensation of a needle pulling thread is

We have Jilly Cooper’s raunchy novel Polo to thank for making the sport sexy. When it was published in 1991 polo was still an elite sport, reserved for royalty and the extremely rich, but its popularity is booming today and the number of polo clubs in the UK has doubled in the last decade to more than 80. Inspired by the polo frenzy and believing I was a competent horse rider, I went on a crash course at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. Saddle up: Lisa heads to Berkshire for a crash course in Polo; the sport made famous by Jilly Cooper How hard could trying to look glamorous while juggling a stick, ball and horse be? Further buoyed after meeting my teacher, dashing England team captain Jamie Morrison, I headed to the arena to find my mare chomping at the bit. Alas we were told to get onto wooden 'horses' first to learn how to swing the mallet without bashing our ponies’ heads, and I connected with the ball only rarely as we practised our swings. Then came the safet

Depending on whom you believe, there are two versions of how the then Arsenal footballer Cesc Fabregas met his glamorous girlfriend Daniella Semaan. Her account of events goes that they swapped numbers after she nervously went up to him at a Japanese restaurant in London to ask for his autograph for her football-mad son. Her fellow WAGs at Barcelona, where Fabregas now plays, prefer a more colourful tale. In their version, the gorgeous Miss Semaan hip-swayed provocatively across the room, followed by the popping eyes of every male diner, before brazenly dropping a piece of paper, on which was written her mobile number, on to the player’s table. Fabregas had called it by the time she’d sashayed as far as the door, so the story goes. Where both tales converge is that pneumatic, Lebanese-born Daniella was, apparently, happily married at the time, to her London-based, millionaire businessman husband, Elie Taktouk, with whom she has two children. The first inkling 38-year-old Mr Taktouk ha

Actress Emily Lloyd has revealed for the first time that she was sexually abused when she was five years old. Emily, 43, who shot to fame as a 16-year-old in the hit 1987 film Wish You Were Here, makes the revelations in her forthcoming autobiography Wish I Was There, which is serialised in The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today. She says her abuser was a family friend who babysat for her and her younger sister. Emily writes: ‘Mum had so many demands on her time that she often trusted babysitting duties to friends. ‘One family friend was an older man. What she didn’t know was that he was a depraved predator. ‘The man, once invited into the family home, betrayed that trust in the most sickening way imaginable. ‘He would come into my room after I’d gone to bed and subject me to acts so abhorrent it’s too painful to recount. ‘They were accompanied by the classic threats; if I told a soul about what was happening, worse would happen. ‘I felt dirty and worthless, invaded and helpless. ‘

She -and her famous rear - turned heads with her bridesmaid's gown at her sister's royal nuptials. And now Pippa Middleton's making sure all eyes on her at another wedding, as she stepped out in a bold, fitted azure-coloured dress. The Duchess of Cambridge's sister attended the wedding of Michael Marsham, son of the Earl and Countess of Romney and Lucy Beaumont, daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Allendale. Pippa Middleton looked stunning as she attended the wedding of Michael Marsham, son of the Earl and Countess of Romney and Lucy Beaumont, daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Allendale Wedding bells? Pippa, sporting a bright outfit, beamed after the ceremony in Northumberland Mike Marsham who is a director at Black Rock, married partner Lucy at Hexham Cathedral in an hour-long Church of England ceremony. More... No half-blood prince here as Kate and Wills do battle at Harry Potter film studios Date night: Pippa Middleton steps out with beau Nico Jack

There are few times when Rachel Stevens’ new life as a mother, and her old one as a sex symbol and No 1 pop star, collide. But when they do it’s almost always at children’s parties. Reach, the S Club 7 song Rachel and her six bandmates had a hit with in 2000, may be more than a decade old but its catchy beat still makes it a firm favourite when it comes to toddler discos. 'Whenever it comes on everyone looks at me to see how I’ll react,' she smiles. 'I think it’s brilliant that people are still playing our music. But all that stuff feels like a lifetime ago. So much has changed.' Scroll down for video Fame: Rachel Stevens admits that she struggled with the pressures of her S Club 7 pop career S Club 7 split up ten years ago and Rachel, as the band’s most famous face and resident FHM poster girl, went on to have a successful solo career and even acted in a couple of films. But then record sales fell and it went a bit quiet. Next came Strictly Come Dancing in 2008 (Ra

For 40 years, Delia Smith seemed indestructible. She was the cook supreme, the sovereign of the spatula, the queen of hearts who made lots and lots of tarts. Through her myriad television series and her best-selling cookery books, an entire nation learned how to crimp pastry, how to blend until thick and smooth, how to brown in batches and how to roast a turkey to bronzed perfection. From pancakes to cottage pie, from mayonnaise to meringues, Saint Delia was always the calm voice in our heads, urging a steady hand with the powdered mustard, suggesting a level tablespoon of common sense, reminding us to stir our puddings once more for luck. Off the boil: Earlier this year Delia Smith cook announced that she would make no more programmes In times of crisis and of Christmas, she smoothed our lumpy sauces and sieved away our anxieties about poaching haddock or cooking rice. She was always, always there — and then, all of a sudden, she was not. More... Even Superwoman loves sewing! S