Twelve Pairs of Boots (Paperback) | Released: 17 Oct 2022

It was on a cold winter's day that Joan Sidnell and her husband Alan drew up outside the two abandoned farm cottages, a gaggle of children in tow.
The buildings were clearly in an advanced state of disrepair, and the farm itself was overgrown.
It would take much hard work to convert the two cottages into a single house, and to build a safe and comfortable home here.
But if things went well, this 12-acre property in the English countryside might be the perfect spot in which to raise a large and growing family, not to mention fertile land for farm produce.
Following a tour of the damp interior and a brief conflab, Joan and Alan made a snap decision. They would give it a try.
And so began an adventure that would shape their lives and those of their children - numbering 10 in all - as they sought to bring order from chaos and tease a living from the soil.
This is a true story, penned by artist Joan Sidnell as a memoir of her life on Pond Farm, starting in the early 1970s.
Written with humour and charm, it details the arduous work of renovations and of tending the soil, along with numerous ventures into animal farming - providing a heady mix of cheering success and dramatic failure.
From frost-bitten crops to runaway donkeys, from stolen machinery to a friendly ghost that tucks in the children at night, there is rarely a dull moment on Pond Farm.
Joan tells of the family's growing passion for horses, and the joy that the children find in learning to ride and jump. She also deftly relates the emotional lows, such as parting with beloved animals and suffering the scorn of villagers fed up with the newcomers' strange ways.
She tells of the struggle to make ends meet, despite her husband's salary as a headmaster, and the extra cash she brings in through nursing and painting rural scenes.
A recurrent theme throughout the book is that of a constant whirl of activity, as numerous daily tasks are ticked off the list, while the children traipse in and out, swapping the fresh farm air for the cosy interior.
This last notion is captured in the book's title, a reference to the 12 pairs of boots that were occasionally found in a neat row inside the kitchen door, or more often lying in a jumble where the owners had kicked them off.
For all its wonders, though, life on the farm could be draining. After years of backbreaking work and money worries, Joan and Alan begin to wonder whether it might be time to swap their rural idyll for a house in town.
This book is a riveting read, packed with anecdotes both funny and sad, interspersed with numerous passages in praise of nature's beauty, a topic dear to the author's heart.
Anybody thinking of starting a new life in the country would do well to read this memoir, packed as it is with rural delights, cautionary tales and a fair dash of pioneering spirit.