Earlier the Manchester Mystics won the inaugural womens bbl cup, with a 71 60 victory against nottingham wildcats. That is all from sportsday. Coming next, meet the author. How much do we still live in tune with the rhythm of the seasons, and why does that matter . In his much admired novels, tim pears has consistently worked to explore our relationship with the land, the old habits, an inherited feeling for how nature works, and maybe to try to rediscover an understanding that could be slipping away. Its one of the themes of his new book, the horseman. Set in the west country before the first world war, telling the story of an unlikely and almost forbidden relationship, and the coming loss of innocence. Welcome. One of the most powerful elements of the horseman is the sense of the force of nature, the cycles of the seasons and so on, and its obvious that thats not a device. Have you always been conscious of that closeness to the way, frankly, the earth works . I have, yes, definitely.