Reward for Winter (Paperback)

Paperback. In 2005, Di Slaney abandoned her urban existence to become the custodian of an ancient farmhouse in Nottinghamshire, populating it with at the last count 150 animals, most of them rescued. Reward for Winter tells that story on three levels: the earthy triumphs and tribulations of a novice smallholder; the history of Bilsthorpe from Viking settlement through Civil War to coal mining in the 1920s; and the quirky and affecting biography of one of the farms chickens.The land, the generations who have tended it and Dis animals are given voice, from the humorous How to knit a sheep to the intimate, illuminating cycle focusing on a single chicken learn, among other fascinating details, what dictates the colour of your breakfast egg. Reward for Winter also explores Bilsthorpes hidden histories: lost landmarks Ingars Holt and Labour-in-Vain; an Elizabethan witch trial; a concealed Cavalier king and seventeenth-century adultery. This book stands as both a fascinating work of non-fiction and an elegant and accomplished volume of poems, offering the reader an escape hatch to the country and a lungful of bracing air. Di Slaney left the rat-race and the inner city behind and bought a farm in the village of Bilsthorpe, Nottinghamshire, populating it with animals of all shapes and sizes. Her first collection of poetry 'Reward for Winter' tells that story and more. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.…