A happy New Year to all our friends and guests. I'm afraid very few people got Christmas cards from us this year. I just wasn't organised enough, but also I had a deadline to meet with the re-write of my Katy books. Many apologies, and I'll try to do better next year.
In case anyone hasn't heard, I've been taken on by Orion Children's Books. They're publishing re-written and updated versions of the Katy trilogy and Midnight, and have also commissioned another trilogy, so I'm now a proper writer! The other great news is that Chris is still doing the illustrations for the insides of the books. It's hard work, but I'm loving it and it's great to have the oppotunity to make the original books better with expert editorial guidance. Chris is doing some new illustrations for the new books too, and an artist called Angelo Rinaldi has illustrated the covers. The first two books: Katy's Wild Foal and Katy's Champion Pony will be published on 2nd February 2012, and they can be pre-ordered from bookshops and Amazon now! See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Katys-Wild-Foal-Ponies/dp/1444005413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325176015&sr=8-1
and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Katys-Champion-Pony-Ponies/dp/1444005421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325176151&sr=1-1

I named our only colt foal this year Orion

We also had two Exmoor filly foals this year, called Gaia and Demeter, and an Appaloosa x Exmoor 'surprise' filly foal called Hell's Bells (her mother's called Hell's Angel).

Some other good news is that Sarah graduated from Cirencester this year with an Honours degree in Agriculture, and she won the award for the best student on her course. Here she is surrounded by her male fan club (yes, rams are very well-endowed, aren't they?!)

Winaway (Rosie's foal) is turning into a really useful horse...

Another horse Sarah's training is Tommy, a piebald Irish horse we were given because he had injured his foot and it was uncertain whether he'd be truly sound again. At the moment he seems to be progressing well. He's lovely to look after, but quite a keen ride and enjoys bucking!

There are now solar panels on the roof of The Tallat (where my Mum lives) and we have a smart red Case tractor instead of the old 70 horsepower New Holland tractor we bought in 1994!
George surprised us by arriving to stay for a couple of days on Christmas Eve - the best Christmas present ever! I hope I'll have some photos of Christmas to put up soon, together with photos of the first calf and first lamb of the season.

It may be of interest to our guests who come and stay in our self-catering cottage that it's a possibility this will be the last year the self-catering cottage will be available to rent. Sarah may live there next year, or we may get a long-term let. Nothing is definite yet, though.