Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

Joanna Cannan appears to be a fan of Christmas. Each Jean book covers Christmas, which provided the author with plenty of opportunity for comic invention. Tack shops are destroyed as people try and hide present buying, prices are left on presents, and the smug find out they have not done quite as well as they thought at Christmas present buying. In More Ponies for Jean, Jean has left school, and has started a riding school with her friend Judy. Book three takes place during the war, and Jean goes out for a ride on Charity while everything is pitch black: "When I got home, my father was rather annoyed with me for being out in the black-out. I spent the rest of the evening in my bedroom, wrapping up my Christmas presents and writing on them, and when I had finished and was tidying up a mountain of paper, which had torn or hadn't fitted, and washing the ink off the carpet with my sponge, I congratulated myself that this year I really was in good time for Christmas. It ...

What is it about day rugs and their extreme desirability as presents? Of course nowadays, horses and ponies have entire wardrobes of rugs, but back in the dim and distant pony book past, a pony had a New Zealand rug if he was lucky, and possibly a jute night rug, and a day rug, of wool bound with a contrasting binding, if he was very lucky indeed. I suppose that day rugs were seen as luxuries, and not as a necessity, and there wasn't quite the push to consume, consume, consume that is part of equine life today. Jill was given a day rug for Black Boy (that will pop up later this month), and Jean was given one for Cavalier in  Another Pony for Jean.  Before she gets that far, she goes Christmas shopping, and comes across her cousins: "The next time that I saw my cousins they were in the saddler's shop in Melchester. I was doing my Christmas shopping and I went in to Mr. Piegold's to buy a Christmas present for Shadow - in case you want to know, it was a yellow w...

Joanna Cannan's A Pony for Jean (1936) has what I think is probably the earliest pony book Christmas scene in it. Thank you to June Stagg for suggesting it. Jean's father  has lost his money (pepper has been doing very badly) and they have moved to a small cottage in the country. Jean's cousins have given her one of their cast-off ponies, whom she calls Cavalier. Here's what happens on Christmas Day: "...I went into the kitchen and lit the primus and put on the kettle. It was just boiling when Mummy appeared in a fur coat and pyjamas. We wished each other a merry Christmas and then we made the tea and took it up to Daddy. He sat up in bed, and said that he was sorry he hadn't got us any presents. We said it was all right, we hadn't expected any. Then he groped beside the bed and produced two huge parcels. Mummy's was a chicken coop and mine a pair of jodhpurs. I was awfully pleased. Your legs get rubbed if you ride for long in shorts, a...

I asked over on my Facebook page for suggestions for the Advent Calendar, so thank you very  much indeed to Sue Atkins, without whom this would certainly have passed me by. It's funny what you remember of a book - to me, Monica Edwards' Storm Ahead is the storm, the village hall and the shocked, sodden victims of the flood and the shipwreck, and Tamzin's epic ride to fetch the doctor for Lindsey. At the end of the book, when the village is beginning to emerge from the aftermath of the storm, Tamzin, Lindsey and Diccon are given the task of going to Hastings and buying toys for the children of the victims of the flood. Donations have been flooding in, and there is £50 specially for present buying. It's a wonderful scene, beautifully illustrated by Geoffrey Whittam: "The whole place was lavishly decorated for Christmas, with paper-chains, holly, mistletoe and ivy, and silver bells. Down at the far end was a towering frosted Christmas tree, as hung with toys an...

You may ask what happened to Advent Calendar 1 - inefficiency, that's what. And wrestling with VAT, which always sends me into a state of rabbit-in-the-headlights. I know the right manipulation of figures is in there somewhere, but WHERE? WHERE? For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, here's AC 1, in tribute to Josephine Pullein-Thompson, one of my favourite authors, who died last year. One of her own particular favourites was All Change, so here it is: This is the copy I read, and read, and read. It has a brilliant Christmas scene in, and here's a bit set on Christmas Eve: "The rest of us were shooed to bed at ungodly hours with irritating threats about Father Christmas. And it was all nonsense because the parents always go to the Midnight Mass and do the stockings when they get back, and that wasn't likely to be much before a quarter to one." Same as my parents, really, if you substitute the pub for Midnight Mass and add a bit (a con...

Yesterday, the seven Horseback Reads authors discussed why they've started up their website. Today, we look at the writing process, and whether being part of a collective makes a difference to how you write. Read on too for what's each author is planning next - the great thing with a collective is that there is always something! To mark this interview, Tudor Robins'  Appaloosa Summer ebook  is free (today - 19 November 2015 - only!). You can find it on Amazon UK , and Amazon.com . It's a great read ( I reviewed it here ), so don't miss out. JB Do you think the website will make any change in the way you write, or in the way you publicise your books? Mara : It hasn’t changed the way I write … yet. That might come in time. What I love about this group is how often we stay “we.” We publicize the group and each other, which is such a breath of fresh air, and I think we’re stronger for that. Barbara : No, it won’t change the way I write but I hope Ho...

Horseback Reads is a website set up by Tudor Robins, Maggie Dana, Kate Lattey, Barbara Morgenroth, Kim Ablon Whitney, Mara Dabrishus and Natalie Keller Reinert. I've read, and thoroughly enjoyed, books by most of them, with Barbara Morgenroth and Mara Dabrishus still bubbling away on my to be read list. Writing tends to be something solitary, so I was intrigued by the idea of a group that exists for horsy books, having myself been a member of writing groups that I felt had nothing very much to do with how I actually worked, let alone thought. Today, we talk about what the website is for, and how it came about. Come back tomorrow for part two of the interview, which talks about the writing process and how being in a group affects it. Another good reason for coming back tomorrow is that  Horseback Reads are kindly doing a freebie of one of their author's books to coincide with part 2, so don't miss out! And on with the questions.... JB: What made you decide to st...