Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

You will never, not ever, get the same thrill from an e-reader as you will  looking at this lot .  Not if you're me, at any rate. Thanks to the Mumsnet blogging network, of which I am a member - see smart new badge thing at the side of the blog - I found this excellent blog about the trials and tribulations (plenty of both) on a Perthshire farm . The Olympic Test event happened this week at Greenwich Park.  Here's the best report I've read of it , by Fran Jurga. I loved this story of the author's introduction to The Elliott Bay Book Company:  a timely reminder in these corporate times, of the power of the independent. There's an online children's literature festival at the Awfully Big Blogging Adventure on July 9th and 10th.  The ABBA is written by UK children's book authors, and the programme for the weekend is after the jump.

The equestrian test event is on in Greenwich Park at the moment.  There are not many moments when I regret having moved from Charlton (next door to Greenwich) but now is one of them.  Here's Fran Jurga with a full report on what's happened so far . Like Susanna Forrest, I long to have a go at side-saddle.  Susanna has, and here's her lovely blog piece on it . My idea of War Horse the movie would have been Tim Burton plus the puppets from the stage show.  Failing that, it's Stephen Speilberg, who seems to have some misgivings himself on his use of real horses . I have a vegetable patch on what was our muck heap.  The theory is that I grow stuff up there that doesn't need a lot of horticultural input; potatoes, garlic, onion, and parsnips (note nod to the Oxford comma which I am experimenting with having been taught  it was a Bad Thing.  Now questioning this assumption).   I am supposed to go up to the muck heap once a week to check on what's ...

I haven't posted for some days this week for family reasons.  The next few days' posts are all ones I've written in advance, and then scheduled over the next few days.  It's highly likely I won't be able to respond to any comments, so I apologise in advance.  I am not ignoring you.

I have a new car, and OH and I were musing over the cars we have had.  The first car we bought together was a Morris Minor Traveller, which was a pale blue version of the one below (though that one does look as if it has been extended).  The Morris was full of character, and brilliant for edging out into 1990s London traffic as people thought "Ah, cute Morris," rather than " Pushy b****** BMW driver".   It was, however, a mechanical disaster.  It spent weeks at a time in various specialist garages, and we spent hundreds on it.   Every time it went in for its MOT, we dreaded being rung up, told it had failed (it always had) and hearing what we came to think of as the W word - welding.   As well as its shortcomings on build quality, it was absolutely evil to start.  Cars nowadays just start.  You turn the key and that is it.  When we got the Morris it had a starting handle in case nothing else worked.  The starting handle took considera...

Look away now if you cannot get Radio 4.  Or do not listen to The Archers.  This post will mean nothing to you. I missed yesterday's episode of The Archers (long running radio soap - everyday story of farming life, for non UK people who've read this far.)  WHY WHY WHY did David feel he had to tell Lizzie all?  Though thankfully he missed out the "Are you a man or a mouse?" bit.  Was gripping the keyboard moaning SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP, but did he listen?  No.  Did he leave Lizzie and her family to carry on picking up the pieces of their lives?  No.  To salve his own conscience he spilled. And how are they all going to react?  I predict:   Kenton – thinks David monumentally stupid for spilling all but sympathises and tries to broker peace; Shula - distraught but siding with Lizzie; Jill - measured distress for all but edging towards sympathising with Lizzie; Ruth – understands now why David so keen to help Lizzie, sees why he ...

Horses powered steamboats - who knew?  Can't imagine it was a lot of fun for the horse. World Book Night is coming up on March 5th.   Good idea or not ? Cloud of the month at the Cloud Appreciation Society is a stunner.  I spend more time than I ought staring at clouds out of the window, but I've never seen anything like this . How covers come to be:   DIY iceberg .

Eating my cheese muffin at lunch today I was mulling over the Joules catalogue, as you do, when I came across this: "One of life's greatest pleasures is a loose fitting shirt pulled overhead." I can think of a few circumstances where that might be the case, but frankly, in the general scheme of things, isn't your life a bit sad if putting on a shirt is your greatest pleasure in life? A bulging parcel which you know contains a book being pulled out of the letterbox, on the other hand....

As a Lloyds customer , do I now bank with the Government, or with myself?

on Radio Northampton this morning, while listening to the litany of jack-knifed lorries and closed schools. "We have a text from Nick. 'I'm on the A45 and nothing's moving! I want to know why.' It's the weather, Nick, it's the weather."

Daughter and I are going to Olympia today with friends, hurrah, but this does of course mean that I will miss, oh sob, the Strictly Final. Just hope our video recorder, which is prone to fits of temperament, does the job. I am such a sad soul I actually spent time considering whether to get one of those DVD recorder machines. Once I'd seen how much they were, in view of the vast plumber's bill that just thudded through the door after what I hope is the last of our adventures with our anarchic water system, I rapidly gave up that idea. Lisa to win - I love the way that girl has fought her way through.

I was tagged last week by Frances over at France and the Unknown , so here, a bit late, are the results! I don't usually tag people but if anyone wants to pick this up on their own blog, and reveal six things about themselves, feel free. 1. I was a runner up in the Daily Mail (actually it could have been Daily Mirror but I can't find my copy of the book in which the results where published to check) children's poetry competition when I was 11. I wrote a poem about my grandmother, who was torn between being miffed at my not very flattering portrait of her, and pride at my brief national celebrity. 2. I last fell off a horse into a ploughed field. The horse was standing still at the time. Dear Tess, alas now PTS, and I careered across a ploughed field, and I had one of those moments when I lose all physical co-ordination, and just sat there thinking "OOH I am NOT in control here." Anyway, Tess stopped of her own accord, and I sat there for a few seconds and t...

Or is Peggy Woolley THE most irritating character in The Archers ? It must have been such fun though, for the scriptwriters, when it came to writing the scene where Lillian tells the hospital-bound Peggy that her Alzheimer's sufferer husband Jack has gone to a respite home. I would have been rubbing my hands with glee at the thought of writing that scene. In all the years I've been listening to The Archers I've always found Peggy utterly infuriating though she has had a few moments of humanity every now and then with her grandchildren, and of course with Jack. However, half the fun of writing for a soap must be in hitting listeners round the face with the big wet slap that is a devastating return to teeth grindingly irritating form, after you've spent some time building up the character's more positive side. (And of course show the pantomime villain Matt in a rather better light at the same time.) Boy, did they do a good job. In between wanting to throw something at...

I do love Go Fug Yourself , oh I do. I'm not immune to the occasional (alright, frequent) fashion disaster myself. It took me years to finally admit to myself that I was never going to go back to my scrawny pre-pregnant self, and that it might be an idea to dress accordingly, but alarmingly I am not alone in being clueless. I've just spent a morning sitting in one of Wellingborough's coffee bars - goodness, we now have a Costa Coffee - is this good or bad - but anyway; they have large plate glass windows, ideal for studying those walking by. All that fat wobbling away over low waistbands, and those wide, low slung belts worn at the widest part of one's wide, low slung self, the tight T-shirts clinging to every roll ...... and white boots. The cheering thing about Go Fug Yourself is seeing people who frankly should know better (and have the dosh to employ a stylist) getting it gloriously, and spectacularly wrong. Which I suppose does not say good things about my ch...