Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

If you managed to negotiate part one of the be-your-own-pony-book-hero exam, here is part 2. Probability Paper A. Rank the following outcomes in order of probability, showing your working: An evil tempered stallion has entered the yard: a.  The livery yard owner warns you against going anywhere near the horse.  So you don’t. b.  You creep up to the yard in the dead of night and sneak into the evil stallion’s box to lay soft hands on his neck.  You know the two of you have a special connection. c.  After much struggle, you and you alone rescue the evil stallion, but it will take you at least 12 books before you have any sort of connection.   d.  The evil stallion is to be put down as he is Beyond Saving.  You and your friends come up with a cunning plan to save him. B. Work out, using examples, the probability of the following appearing in a book published during the last ten years: a.  Unicorns b.  Mythical sky ponies c...

I would have to be manacled to my desk to keep me from going to see this, but I wonder how Spielberg has dealt with the fact it's the horse who is the narrator, as it's not immediately apparent from the trailer.  Maybe that's deliberate?

Hodder and Stoughton have done a glam re-issue of Mary Stewart's books (at last).  I like these.  They're the right side of glamorous, without being annoyingly and self-consciously "vintage".  All Stewart's heroines had  those tiny waists, as well of course as oodles of inner strength and resourcefulness. And for those wondering if I can go a whole entire blog post without mentioning the horse, she did of course write the Lipizzaner adventure Airs Above the Ground . If you fancy winning the title of your choice from the re-issues (and I do) go on over to the Brown Paper blog , where you can enter a giveaway to win the Mary Stewart of your choice.  I've gone for The Crystal Cave, which I can remember getting out of the library and lugging to school.  

Daughter has gone off to do her latest GCSE science module exams today, with our big question of the day being "Can you resit a resit?" Answer comes there none. For those of us for whom the exam season is a thankfully far distant memory, but who yearn to share their offspring's pain, or revisit their revision-strewn youth, here is an entrance exam to the world of the pony book. English A.  What part should poetry play in the fully rounded pony book hero’s life? 1.  You quote poetry in a dashing way as you sweep around the countryside on your pony – you thrill to the way the cadence of the words matches the rhythm of your pony’s movement. 2.  You have learned by heart John Betjeman's Hunter Trials , and that will do nicely, thank you very much. 3.  What is poetry? B.  You have gone to visit a cousin.  She thoughtfully puts out a selection of literature on the bedside table for you.  What would your ideal selection be? 1.  School stories...

The filly-in-the hat I blogged about a couple of days ago is a real life racehorse.  I had wondered if she was photoshopped but due to not reading Horse and Hound closely enough last month I entirely missed the fact that Ambers is a 2 year old filly owned by Fox's Biscuits, and she is going to star in an advertising campaign for their biscuits later on this year.  In fact, she might be starring in it already .   I must a. pay more attention to Horse and Hound and not just read the horses for sale ads at the back and daydream and b. not switch off brain when the tv advertisements come on. I had quite hoped there would be something about milliner Stephen Jones' foray into equestrian design on his website, but alas no, possibly in my opinion as a keen observer of fashion because Amber's hat doesn't fit into his Spring/Summer 2011 theme, which is  drifting and dreaming .  Definitely has the colour block thing covered though - the hat is the sort of technicolou...

Last week we had a bee swarm.  A few days ago my daughter came in and said that we had bees flying around the north wall of the house, which I took I must admit not a lot of notice of, as we always have a lot of bees about.   Those bees have now taken advantage of our complete failure to do anything about our dodgy pointing and made themselves at home in the wall. So far we have not much in the way of encounters with the bees, though when I went out to the bins, which are round that side of the house, a little cloud of bees flew down to have a look at me, and then swept back up again, which was momentarily disconcerting.  I was glad I was not Pooh Bear and holding honey. Alas they are far too high up for me to do anything about collecting the honey, which is a shame, as I am very partial to honey  If I am honest I have not the faintest clue of how to start collecting honey, though dismantling the house wall to get at it probably wouldn't be a good first step, a...