February

A wintry start to the month: heavy snow on Monday 2 and again on Thursday and Friday 5-6 kept us at home most of the week. Both Roger’s scheduled bowls matches were cancelled. Teresa still managed to walk out every day and usually took her camera.

Friday morning: going nowhere The trees at the back of the house

Jay visited for the weekend on Saturday 14. This had been planned as the day of a bowls club quiz, but it had to be postponed. But Jay was happy driving herself down to the stables to see plenty of Clyde, before an appointment at the dentist’s and back to Oxford on the Monday.

Teresa had another short item in The Guardian – a recipe in the weekend Family section.

Friday 20 – the bowls club dinner, in the same place as for the last two years (though we missed last year’s because of ‘flu). Again very good, though numbers were a little down and we were arranged on a range of smaller tables rather then a few big ones. Teresa had Smoked Trout Terrine and Saddle of Lamb, Roger melon and chicken, followed by Crème Brule and profiteroles respectively. A new departure was a brief cabaret when three members of a local choir rendered a couple of old songs, favourites, I’m told, of small choirs and glee clubs, though not familiar to us. However, as they started Roger unfortunately was called away to discuss arrangements for the forthcoming quiz so is unable to comment further.

On Sunday 22 we went to Oxford for the day in order to escape a planned power outage of eight hours. We went to lunch at the Mitre, once a rather genteel independent hotel, now part of the Beefeater chain, which suited us food-wise, and we were lucky enough to get a table next to a full length window overlooking the Turl. We then went with Jay to the supermarket so we could act as her bearers, but only walked half way back before hopping on a bus. By the time we got back to Toddington, the power was back on as we had hoped.

A busy end to the month for Teresa. Her pony mum blog, which attracted favourable comments but no firm offers from a couple of publishers two years ago, has attracted the attention of an agent. Very good news as most main stream publishers nowadays will only accept submissions via agents. But his readers have suggested some quite substantial changes and additions, so Teresa needs to incorporate these before he will make his final decision. She will need to write furiously for the next few weeks.

Teresa’s Agent

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