A little March snow

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Bookaholism

I’ve succumbed to this disease. Fourteen years of living in Austria totally curtailed my book buying. It was ebooks all the time as it was too expensive to buy books or lug them home on the plane. Not to mention all were in the wrong language, I can read German but soooo slowly, it’s no fun.

Now I’m home, we have second hand book shops in Aberdare and Pontypridd. Charity shops everywhere. Not to forget a LIBRARY! FB groups for old pony books that can now send the books to me.

Mostly horse books, old ones from the 30s to the 70s. Monica Edwards. Colonel Dent. But also novel authors, I’ve read for years such as, Nancy Thayer, Rosie Thomas, Miss Read.

But also books on Wales, walking there and its history, especially miming. I’m reading a lot on pit ponies for a new book.

We bought new bookcases, but may need more when I sort all those I’ve bought researching my present novel I’m writing.

It’s wonderful being an addiction! I have piles of to- read books, the eBooks are having a rest. What books do you buy?

Ghost Golf Course!

A few days ago we had heavy, misty cloud, and as I took Swingle for her afternoon stroll, it was quite eerie. We had the whole course to ourselves, apart from a couple of crows.

Free this weekend!

These frank memoirs follow what should have been a privileged childhood, pony mania, a badly behaved teenage, a year out on a farm in Switzerland, working as a zookeeper, running a smallholding, marriage, and family. Yet, it wasn’t until a traumatic eviction that I found faith, my way back to horses and a new beginning.

Swingle is Seven

A belated happy birthday to our sweet hound, who was faithfully with us throughout all our waiting to get into the house, having to sleep on hard hotel floors. She had nightmares for weeks after her journey to the UK. She was kept in the dark in the van, and was happy to go back in, but after three days, she began to understandably refuse. For the next few weeks, she would wake us in the night, not to go out, but for confirmation we are here and she’s okay.

On her first train journey, she shook and was terrified, but soon got used to it and now loves the attention she gets, she even got a treat from a guard once! She sits and waits patiently on platforms, hops on and off with alacrity.

She just loves her new walks, the village field, the old tip on the hill with its dingles and streams, and the golf course where she runs around like a nutter.

In Cardiff in the park, she learnt all about hunting squirrels, but not that dogs can’t climb trees!

But being Swingle, her accident prone ness has hit again. I wish I had followed up the thought about getting her insured. We were clearing the garden on our terrace, there were holes and roots where woozels and mice had been making nests. Trouble is Dave was cutting with sheers… need I say more?

Her ear was cut in a jag across,and on the other side of the ear too. Blood flew around the kitchen as she shook her head. Could we find a local vet on a Saturday? Only an accident line. A wonderful neighbour who is doing a house up a few doors down, took us nearly all the way to Cardiff to a 24/7 vets’ clinic. One anesthetic later, she came home with about six inches and the collar of shame.

She took it all in her stride and after two days is legging it around the rough on the golf course as if nothing was wrong, except I keep her out of the long grass. She’s now VERY insured after the huge bill. English vets really are onto a nice earner.

She now has beds upstairs to over the street and bark at people like she did in Madling. She’s lost weight with all her galloping and seems to love Wales!

Christmas Edition

My Memoirs are on sale together as a special edition box set, just over the Christmas period.

Anna Rashbrook used to be a person who would proudly boast, ‘I am what I am.’ It took nearly forty years of the hard knocks of life before she found God, and that much of what she treasured was actually caused by damage.

In these totally frank memoirs, follow Anna through what should have been a privileged childhood, pony mania, a badly behaved teenage, student placement on a farm in Switzerland, working as a zookeeper, running a smallholding, marriage, and family.

Then, through a traumatic eviction, she finds God’s love and begins a new journey. Yet, it is only when her marriage comes under threat that she must come to terms with her past and find healing. Out of this comes a new job, where her passion for horses is reignited.

Has life finished with her, are there more hurdles to overcome, or even another new start on the horizon?