Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

Here is the illustration. In some ways I quite like it - it's lively and has rather more character to it than the books, but the ponies look rather more like elks (and if I'm right, the one standing at the open door is supposed to be an Arabian), and it's the inaccuracy of it that gets me. I'm not usually a stickler for health and safety - my daughter often rode bareback, and you don't find that happening in riding schools these days - but in a situation like this where you have a lot of children, and loose ponies, and buckets and brooms..... I can see it being published in the Pony Club Annual entitled "What is wrong with this picture?" And if I was Vicki, owner of the riding school where this is set, I'd be scared witless of being sued when the inevitable happened. There are whole reams I could write, but I can feel myself coming over all moralistic, so I think I'll go on a nice harmless visit to the Bank to pay in the week's takings!

I've just been sent a set of Katie Price's (aka Jordan) journey into children's books: they're called Katie Price's Perfect Ponies , and well, they're pink. They are aimed completely shamelessly at girls: the covers are bright Barbie pink with silvery trimmings and a sub-Bratz character on the front. Katie Price I know does have horses of her own, and she knows her stuff. Random House, the publishers, have a Perfect Ponies website , and the pony care tips are accurate and sensible. The stories themselves are written competently enough (as always with these celebrity books, I do wonder who did the actual writing) but without any sort of heart - nothing to really engage the emotions, or attract you to the characters. Interestingly, the most popular character at the moment on the website is Cara - who is a nervy biscuit who doesn't like going fast or jumping, and the only one who is memorable for anything other than the way she looks. Even so, Cara's big bl...

I've just been reading Josephine Pullein-Thompson's Plenty of Ponies , which is one of her earliest works. It's the story of the Esmonds, whose parents have, contrary to usual pony book form, hit good times, meaning that they now have a pony each, a large house and plenty of staff. Lewis says: "It's much easier to be nice if you're poor." Charlotte, his sister, says "I should think it's extremely difficult to be nice if you're really poor and don't have enough to eat and live in a slum, but I agree that it's good for one to be poverty-stricken like we were." I wonder if it's the idea of noblesse oblige that JPT likes: it's alright to have money, but you must do the right things with it: treat your fellows, staff and horses well and live a life that doesn't focus simply on what you can buy. The main adult figures in the Noel and Henry books, Major and Mrs Holbrooke embody all these things. June Cresswell, on ...

I would think it has to be Myrtle Green's "A Pony - Doctor's Orders" which succeeds in sounding like a breathless Mills and Boon. I can see it now. The tweed suited vet, his dark face twisted in a handsome sneer, tells the beautiful but bedraggled groom, hanging on desperately to the head of the plunging thoroughbred, completely failing to hold him steady as the vet does something Extremely Important: "A pony - that's all you're fit for. You'll never be woman enough for a horse. Or for me."

A few years ago I bought some lily bulbs: I've always loved lilies, but struggled to grow them when we lived in London because of the lily beetles. Despite frequent night raids on them they had the better of me. So, I thought, after a few years had passed and dulled the pain, I'd try again. I bought some Madonna Lily bulbs, read the instructions, carefully dug holes, made little sand beds for the bulbs and sat back and hoped. In the spring, the lilies poked little green heads above the soil. Every day I went out and inspected them, and soon they were about 5 inches tall. One day I was looking idly out of the landing window, which overlooks the garden, and saw a squirrel (the grey kind of course). I don't like squirrels at the best of times: ours ate enormous amounts of bird food - and by the way if anyone tells you the way to deal with squirrels is to feed them, don't listen. If you feed them they just bring their mates to join in the bounty - dug endless ho...

Daughter did the first of her secondary school induction days yesterday. She is the only one in her class going to this particular school; it's where her brother goes, and it's a good long stretch away from where we live. Yesterday I dropped them both off at the station: with an excellent start as her brother shot from the car like a bullet, leaving her trying to get her bags together and catch up. Fortunately as soon as he was out of my sight he upped his act, and daughter spent all free time at school being beseiged by what must have been most of year 10. They told her she looked nothing like her brother (just as well as he is 6' 5", hairy and unshaven), and yes, they patted her on the head. I thought they might. She has made 1 1/2 friends; the half being one she met on the train coming home, and loved school. Oh phew. Oh the relief. Shall now put my guilt at whisking daughter away from all her friends, and thereby behaving in a thoroughly predicatable mid...

Yesterday we went to the local theatre to see a school production of West Side Story , which eldest's oldest friend was in. It's a very brave choice of thing to do for a school as much of the music is difficult, and it was, on the whole, pretty good. The orchestra were valiant and mostly accurate; Maria was gorgeous with a lovely soprano voice, Anita was a star, A-rab was brilliant in Officer Krupke, and Glad Hand more than made the most of her tiny part. But the smell. As most of the audience were teenagers, the theatre reeked of scent; body spray; aftershave... it was like walking into a vandalised chemist's shop. The scent virtually stood in the air. When I was getting ready I did briefly contemplate putting on a bit of scent (which is the difference between middle-aged me and a teenager; I think about whether to put the stuff on or not; they turn the nozzle to full and keep going) but it was just as well I didn't. When we got out of the theatre into the cle...