🎄 Fabulously Festive with Nicola Pryce 🎄

In the run up to Christmas, I have wonderful author interviews to help get you into the festive spirit

Here's the fabulous, Nicola Pryce

A very festive welcome to you, Nicola and thank you for spending this special time with Jaffareadstoo

🎅What’s your earliest Christmas memory?

I must have been about six. We lived in Baghdad since I was two months old, and I remember my mother showing me a Christmas card of a snowy church with robins and snowmen. It seemed so strange and I could hardly grasp the concept.

🎅Do you have any special Christmas Traditions?

Absolutely. The stockings must be hung up, the reindeer must have a carrot and Santa must have his sherry and mince pie. 

Then my husband reads the Night Before Christmas from the same book in 35 years and the kids all join in with the reindeers' names. I think they crib it moments before because they know them all and I never get them right!

🎅What’s your favourite festive carol or song?

It used to be Once in Royal David’s City but I’m afraid it’s now Driving Home For Christmas. The kids (they’re in their 30’s) text me to say they’re on their way and I get very excited.

🎅Do you have a favourite festive film?

Definitely The Snowman. I adore it and it always brings tears to my eyes.

🎅What’s your favourite festive read?

A passage in Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee – page 110 of my old school copy! It struck me when I first read it as particularly poignant, and I think of it every year. It’s the bit when the boys in the village go carol singing and they come to the final farm. They’ve been messing about until then, but right at the end they feel the real spirit of Christmas … And 2,000 Christmases became real to us then … It’s such a moving passage.

🎅Are you organised or do you leave everything until the last minute?

Organised to the extreme. Barely able to walk, but every thing’s ready by Christmas Eve.

🎅Christmas tree – real or artificial?

A big, branchy, sustainable, real tree, grown and cut by our local farmer and crammed into our car with no hope of shutting the boot. We have low ceilings in our house and the poor fairy spends most of Christmas with a crick in her neck.

🎅Tinsel or Glitter? 

Tinsel. Long strands of shiny gold tinsel hung on the tree. It’s the same tinsel I had as a child and every year there’s a little less of it. 

🎅Christmas cracker or party popper? 

Crackers – especially Bingo crackers; if I can get away with them again this year.

🎅Mince Pie or Yule Log? 

Both, I’m afraid Jo. There’s a chocolate log for those who don’t eat Christmas pudding and a plate of mince pies just in case anyone’s still hungry. 

Christmas Dinner – Traditional Turkey, Nut Roast Veggie or something a bit different? 

We’re very traditional … a local, organic turkey from the farm opposite, and a nut roast for the veggies in my family. There’d be a riot if I suggested something a bit different! 

🎅Christmas Tipple – Bucks Fizz, Mulled Wine … or something stronger? 

I’ve learnt to go easy on the before-lunch prosecco or else we’re faced with lumpy gravy. Definitely mulled wine on Boxing Day though – together with a good fridge raid and a collapse by the fire. 

🎅A fun game of after dinner charades or some chocolates and the television? 

Back in the day, we’d be all set for charades and party games but now, well, we’ll be lucky if we make it through lunch. It will be more like … ‘Grandad, come quickly. There’s snow on the line. Thomas is in trouble… he needs our help.’

Thank you so much, Jo, for inviting me to share my Christmas with you. I hope you have a very happy and relaxing Christmas. Don’t work too hard!

About the Author

Nicola Pryce trained as a chemotherapy nurse before completing an Open University degree in Humanities. She is a qualified adult literacy support volunteer and lives with her husband in the Blackdown Hills in Somerset. Together they sail the south coast of Cornwall in search of adventure.

Corvus
2018

Cornwall, 1796.

Seamstress Elowyn Liddicot's family believe they've secured the perfect future for her, in the arms of Nathan Cardew. But then one evening, Elowyn helps to rescue a dying man from the sea, and everything changes. William Cotterell, wild and self-assured, refuses to leave her thoughts or her side - but surely she can't love someone so unlike herself.

With Elowyn's dressmaking business suddenly under threat, her family's pressure to marry Nathan increasing, and her heart decidedly at odds with her head, Elowyn doesn't know who to trust any more. And when William uncovers a sinister conspiracy that affects her whole world, can Elowyn find the courage to support the people she loves in the face of all opposition? 

Twitter @NPryce_Author

Website

Amazon UK

🎅 Happy Christmas 😊