The best Bond... so far

I had a little poll on my blog to see which James Bond we all prefer. Daniel Craig won by miles, giving me an excuse for a nice gratuitous non-festive picture. Nobody voted for Roger Moore, which says a great deal about those awful films where a flabby Bond pawed at nubile bikini-clad Bond girls. Nowadays Bond is the objectified one and is expected to be a little more buff while the Bond girls are intelligent, but still beautiful. Don't you just love the 21st century!

It's Christmas!

I had two 'rules' for the tree this year. 1. Only gold, white and clear decorations. 2. No tinsel. Hannah and Rosie did the decorating and a few non-rules things have sneaked on (like the red crackers), but I think they did a great job and they were very proud of it when they had finished.

One of the non-white/gold/clear decorations is this pretty angel which belongs to Hannah. But she's so gorgeous I allowed her to stay.

This is the nativity Hannah made at school a couple of years ago. It owes a great deal to egg boxes and toilet roll middles. Rosie made the angel on the far left and the other angel is a bamboo one they fell in love with in a shop in Solva when they were babies.

This is the dining room window tree - a goat willow branch planted in a pot with all our homemade decorations and a few fairies on board. Half of the lights are out (as usual!). I need a bumper pack of spare bulbs for this set.

Pony cakes

Okay. By popular demand (well, two people have asked!) here are my pony cakes, last year's and this year's. Not great works of art, admittedly, but made with love more than any particular artistic flair.

Technical notes. Both were made from an eight inch chocolate sponge cake. This year's had added ground almonds, because I felt like it (3 eggs, weigh eggs, same weight of each of very soft butter, caster sugar and self raising flour. Remove three tablespoonfuls of flour and replace with one tablespoon of cocoa powder and two tablespoons of ground almonds).

Last year's icing was ordinary chocolate butter icing, following the recipe on the icing sugar packet. This year's was Brian's chocolate spice cake icing, which is delicious. He had to make it because the recipe is top secret and I'm not allowed to have it. It can only be passed on to a bloodline C., so H6 and R5 will get the recipe one day. Huh.

The mane, carrots, apple etc are coloured marzipan, because we all love marzipan and hate sugar paste.

That's it really. The recipient was delighted. We all made absolute pigs of ourselves eating it (is there anything better than chocolate icing?) and we argued over who got the biggest carrot.

Will R5 want another pony cake for her 6th birthday? I have a horrible feeling that she will!

Oops, I did it again!

Phew! Another November and another novel is born. This one is 50,061 words (last year I 'won' with 50,005 words) and once again is a wonderful collection of complete and utter rubbish.

Why do I love doing NaNoWriMo so much? Probably the complete and utter freedom of being able to write absolute rubbish, but also the joy of watching a story unfold and the characters take over and dictate to me how the story should go. Why for example did that character steal those files in chapter six? Oh I see, to give to him in chapter nine. Clever. Nothing to do with me though; I only do the typing.

Anyway it's all over for another year. I'll do it again next year, of course. I'm an addict!

Now, I have to get over the PND - post novel depression. Then there's the small matter of visitors on Saturday, all of whom need Christmas presents and one even needs a birthday present. On Sunday I have to organise a fifth birthday party with bouncy castle and party bags for R4(nearly 5) and 25 of her closest friends. On Monday have to fashion a pony using the miracle of sponge cake and chocolate butter cream ready for the Big Day on Tuesday when R4 actually does become R5.

Before all of that I have to clean a house that has not been cleaned at all for a month, iron ironing that has been sitting in baskets for a month, do Christmas shopping, write cards, put up the decorations...

Writing a novel in 25 days? It's a doddle. It's real life that's hard.

Running around (Elvis) Preseli

My favourite running route is a 6.3 mile loop up towards the Preselis. This is about two thirds of the way looking towards a really pretty farm on the slopes of Foel Cwmcerwyn. It is very bleak up here in the winter and sometimes we can't see it for days. I turn right at the junction, it's a clockwise route.


An ancient road marker. One day I'll stop long enough to read it. Recently someone put a sheep's skull on top of this. It looked appropriate, but it's gone now.

Looking back the way I have just run. Sometimes, even here, the roads are straight. To the right of this picture in the distance (and the lower, rockier hill in the middle of the picture below) is Carn Meini, the only site in which the Preseli bluestone is found. How did they get the stones from there to Stonehenge? Who knows! And why is this road so straight? I'm about to run around two 90 degree bends, but other than that the road is pretty straight again. Who knows why!

Finally for Snailbeachsheperdess from Helium.com:

"In Wales, Pembrokeshire, there is a Neolithic burial chamber which bears the name of St Elvis Cromlech', also in this area is St Elvis Farm and the Preseli Hills. This is considered by most people to be an eerie co-incidence but there are some people who theorise that this, along with Elvis' mother having a Welsh name, Gladys, proves Elvis Presley was of Welsh ancestry. "

I knew I should have called myself Elvis Preseli!

November sky

It was a nice, crisp dry day here today,

rounding off with this lovely sunset.

Four legged friends

So, exactly where am I? What is this place? Who lives here?

Ooooh look! I can see three new friends!

Look at me! I'm GORGEOUS!

Do you wanna be in my gang? Bullseye (grey, foreground); Pippin (aka The Boss, behind Bullseye); Maisie (visiting Exmoor) and Isty (dark bay, extravagant tail) start to get to know each other.


Itsy examines potential riders from head to toe. Hannah (blonde, aged six) and Rosie (brunette, aged four).

How lucky are we? We have been fortunate in being chosen as a new home for Itsy, a devastatingly pretty cob mare. She's 13.1hh and is the perfect addition to our little pony herd. She was owned by fellow blogger Bovey Belle who has written a little about Itsy on her lovely blog Codlins and Cream.

Itsy arrived on Friday and is settling in well. The other ponies were, understandably, astounded to find a new pony in their midst, but there was no animosity and I'm sure they'll be firm friends in a day or two. Itsy has a posh snuggly rug to keep her warm and dry, which caused some consternation among Pippin, Bullseye and Maisie when we put it on last night, but I think today they are all a bit envious of her extra layer.

Itsy is magnificently well-behaved, easy to box and catch (Pippin and Bullseye take note!) and is quite, quite gorgeous. At the moment she's a bit like a glamorous film star amongst a herd of hicks from the sticks. I think Pippin, Bullseye and Maisie will have to raise their game a little!