Bah Humbug!

Christmas is approaching once again with alarming velocity…perhaps sadly I’ve reached that ‘certain age’ when time starts to fly past, but it truly seems only a few days ago I was preparing for the excesses of the festive season, or perhaps I just haven’t sobered up yet?

The tree has been purchased and decorated by the family (all of which I later removed when said family had adjourned to bed, to redecorate it more, shall we say evenly. But that’s our little secret, shhhhh…). Unfortunately, it’s already started to give up the will to live; developing a bad case of erectile dysfunction even Viagra couldn’t cure and dropping needles all over the floor. These are later duly located by my bare feet, painful yet somewhat amusing to watch for other family members. Is the gift they wish to give me for Christmas Tourrettes? It would appear so…  

The presents have been selected, wrapped, placed lovingly under the tree and squeezed and shaken to within an inch of their lives by their respective recipients. Many already look as though they have been savaged by the dog, which in truth, they probably have.

I frequently wonder to myself, at what age does Christmas lose its magic? The exciting thrill of the first snow of the year has been replaced by a fervent plea that I don’t slip and need a hip replacement. The joy of shopping for loved ones is now a huge military operation, with much syncronising of watches and covert sidestepping of thoughtless folk with double prams ramming my shins. It’s certainly not helped by the almost certain knowledge that at least one smart arse will buy me either a huge pair of surgical looking knickers or a pair of support tights as an amusing Christmas Day anecdote.

And then to the day itself; a dawn raid from the children excited about their gifts, leaping on the bed, putting small but exceptionally powerful feet into my partners festive baubles - exhausting the possibility of any early morning ‘gifts’ I may have hoped to receive. (Although, to be fair, the thought of spending a great deal of the day with my hands up a turkeys nether regions slightly dampens the mood for me anyhow.)

Suffice to say, for many reasons the seasonal cheer (aka booze) rears its ugly head quite early. In an attempt to quell the pain of yet another Christmas perched on a rickety chair in my Sunday best whilst various loosely related family members spread themselves over my lovely comfortable sofa, waiting for me to provide a never ending smorgasbord of goodies to thrill their taste buds. It wouldn’t be so bad, but all they thought to bring was a bottle of Lambrini and a box of Ferrero Rocher; what did they think they were attending? The bloody Ambassador’s ball?

What’s needed this year is a complete antidote to the customary Christmas Day mix. Will this be the year I assert my authority and just share the festive day with my very nearest and dearest? Allowing me the opportunity to lie incumbent on my very own sofa after a ridiculously large lunch, belching... I may even really push the boat out and enjoy wearing an old holey tracksuit, or pajama’s with unpleasant Brussels sprout stains on the front, whilst mindlessly enjoying yet another Only Fools and Horses re-run.  But no, sadly not, as we’re almost certainly due a family invite to share lunch in a remote relatives home, eating party food from Iceland and being thrashed at Trivial Pursuit by an aged auntie. Note to self, must make sure I pop out and buy some Lambrini and Ferrero Rocher. Well I wouldn’t want to arrive empty handed now would I?

Christmas? Bah humbug!

A Hog Roast to Remember...

Summer in North Devon is strangely something us ‘locals’ look upon with trepidation. Aside from the strong likelihood of torrential monsoon like showers and the children at home for the holidays complaining of boredom… there is another phenomenon that fills us with dread…the imminent arrival of ‘The Grockles’.
Grockle is a colloquial West country term for tourists, made popular in the 1962 film The System; and as they arrive in their droves with their touring caravans, chemical toilets and B & Q barbeques, we all rather miss the tranquillity of the village out of season.

Over the years the traditional agricultural ancestry of the region has been slowly swept aside by the tide of tourism. As much as the local business’s welcome the summer influx of cash, high tourist season certainly marks a major change in the village. Tea-shops and café’s appear in what were once sitting rooms of tiny cottages; village fetes are held in abundance to entertain the visitors; and we suddenly find people with long lens cameras taking pictures through our windows. If my village neighbours are to be believed, there are indeed several shots of my Westcountry friends on cameras all over the UK, which certain specialist adult magazines would be proud to publish.

So it was with great misgivings, I set off from my cottage just outside the village to attend the summer hog-roast. Upon arrival I meet several local friends and exchange pleasantries, recipes and tips on the best foraging spots for local wild-food, before making my way to the beer shed. The queue is extremely long, filled with men wearing plaid shirts and work boots…I am in fact one of the few people not sporting a full ZZ top style beard. I inwardly curse at my city dweller flip flops as I tread in what appears to be a cow pat and take a cup of tepid cider and a huge hog roast roll before making my way back to the field to find a seat.
The band strike up the music for their first set, a hearty folk tune which gets toes tapping all over the field. I settle back in my chair with contentment, good music, lovely company, great food and not a Grockle in sight, ah, North Devon at its best.

The evening gives way to livelier music, the beer and cider flows, old ladies dance with rosy faced children, and I sit with my partner Sean and my daughter Issy, quietly getting what is euphemistically called ‘merry’. Several of the ‘men-folk’ decide a huge bonfire is in order as dusk begins to fall and I watch with great interest as the age old mating ritual of the male expressing his natural strength begins; a trial of competitiveness and capability ensues between the bantering men. It’s rather like watching a David Attenborough documentary…without of course a zebra being bought down by a lion…The men get the fire roaring with an alarming lack of regard for personal injury, any passing health and safety officer would certainly be reduced to tears by the scene; We cheerfully warm our toes by the towering inferno whilst an ash cloud akin to Vesuvius in full swing descends upon us.

Shortly thereafter, we spy our neighbour Richard walking through the mele with his wife and newly born baby; a maternal scrum quickly forms around the pram of cooing ladies, ooohing and ahhhing over the sleeping baby.  I turn to speak to Sean and note with horror the unmistakable look in his eye; broodiness! Oh dear. I mentally rummage for words to diffuse the moment, but it appears I’m too late…”I’ve been thinking” says Sean – “Oh no” I think, “here it comes…the baby talk!” “We should get married”, he finishes. I breathe a sigh of relief, “OK”, I answer. And that’s that, no violins playing, no carefully thought out magical moment, no other words spoken in fact. A proposal that’s as simple, forthright and natural as the rest of our lives have become since moving here. He’s certainly no relationship god, but at least he knows I don’t need the bells and whistles that normally go with the words.

And so it was that the evening concluded, Sean and I, newly engaged…cheeks reddened by the local brew with the heady smell of cow pat on our shoes, walking home hand in hand through the sleepy village. And they say romance is dead!

Eccentric Village Newcomer

Since moving to rural North Devon from our home just outside London we have taken to life in the country rather like…well… ducks to water, to coin a phrase. Eighteen months on, we have our own small family business, The Pickled Crofter; we’ve started work on our own modest vegetable garden, we’re getting to grips with the wild food larder of the South West, and the seasonal availability of all the goodies Mother Nature has to offer.

As a newly converted wild food enthusiast and a keen forager, I frequently find myself in some very strange and precarious positions. It’s not uncommon to find me perched a-top a chestnut tree, being speared in unmentionable places, whilst looting for food; or grappling with brambles for blackberries, and emerging looking like an unfortunate victim of stigmata. Great fun, if slightly perilous, but I swear it all adds to the enjoyment of the food.
It’s exactly this type of exploit which is earning me a (probably deserved) reputation for being a slightly eccentric newcomer to the village. In Berrynarbor, the home of eccentrics, that’s quite an achievement! My partner Sean is regularly accosted by locals commenting “Saw your Missus climbing trees and collecting things again, what does she do with them?” I do sometimes wonder if they picture me in my kitchen, making an exotic, white witch type of concoction out of my haul; this could of course explain why no local children knock on my door for treats at Halloween…The truth however is much more tame; it’s more likely to be for a batch of delicious country wine, or an unusual summer salad.

Over the last month, I have been making elderflower wine with a fervour that’s bordering on obsession. Our lovely old elder tree in the garden excelled itself this year, and produced so much blossom that I can barely keep up with the production line of bubbling demi-jars. To me, elderflower wine is one of the finest English country wines you can make; sweet, golden and tasting of delicious summer goodness. It’s incredibly easy to make. One of the best recipes I have found is in the Wild Food book by Roger Phillips, which has quite literally become my bible since moving here. I’m hoping to try my hand at some elderflower ale whilst the glut of flowers is still in profusion, and continue to improve upon the ales we made last year (tasty, but immensely strong with a tendency for amnesia inducing effects; ideal when passing off unfortunate pub karaoke disasters you’d rather forget).

Other goodies in the wild larder in June have included wild garlic bulbs, which I have collected now that the lovely aromatic leaves have died back. These can be stored in olive oil and jarred, where they will happily last through the lean winter months. If you’re lucky enough to have your own herb garden you could even flavour them with a sprig of rosemary popped into the jar. This year I have also noticed wild cherries which seem to have ripened early in the fantastic sunshine we’ve been enjoying. I’ve been eyeing these with a view to a batch of lovely wild cherry brandy to steep for Christmas. I’m counting on this increasing my popularity with the neighbours tenfold!

Our little vegetable garden is literally bursting at the seams with oak-leaf lettuce, spinach and rocket. It’s our first year of vegetable growing in the South West, and therefore a huge learning experience, as the terrain is completely different to our garden back in London. We’ve taken on board lots of local advice from keen gardeners and farmers, and actually had quite an impressive success for novices. Our neighbourly vegetable growing ‘guru’, Derek, has been an inspiration this year, supplying curly kale seeds, and issuing colloquial advice; “First of June, not too late not too soon…” He has also been the main supplier of our seasonal treats both foraged and cultivated; and often wanders over to chat, whilst rummaging in his pocket for hazelnuts or freshly picked peas he’s bought for us to try. Being a game kind of girl, I’m always willing to give new food a try, even if it has just been recovered from an aging gentleman’s front pocket! I did say that life in the country was different…

If I were to leave you with any sage words to ponder on, they would be: get out and discover what the wild larder in the UK has to offer, it’s the perfect time to do so…who knows, you may discover it’s a small lifestyle change you’ll grow to love!

Starting a new life in North Devon

Eighteen months ago I took a giant leap of faith; I put my house on the market, left a job I’d been with for over a decade and said goodbye to all that was familiar, to move my family from the urban rat-race on the outskirts of London to the tranquility of the North Devon Countryside.

I’m not generally renowned for being the type of person to take such foolhardy gambles, so I’m delighted to say we’re blissfully happy here…well, most of the time. However, such a huge lifestyle and cultural move has not been without its moment of soul searching and tumultuous ups and downs.

Indeed…life in rural Devon took an interesting turn on day one when our fairly modest sized delivery truck failed to negotiate the unbeaten track to our remote new cottage, leaving much of its underbelly lying forlornly on the roadside. This was our first experience of the warm and giving nature of the villagers who were to be our new neighbours; within minutes a local farmer, Richard, had offered us a barn in which to store our worldly possessions until we could move them by hand to the house. A somewhat surreal start to the new chapter of our country lives found us carrying furniture away from a herd of cows during the early hours of the next morning, whilst they gazed on in ominous silence…

Life here has been a continual learning curve; we’d never lit a coal fire before and to the uninitiated it’s an extraordinarily tough job. Being the man of the house (and apparently the one who knows best…) my partner Sean made the first brave attempt to get to grips with heating the homestead. Several failed attempts later, whole charred Yellow Pages worse off and the unfortunate recipient of a raft of roof top pyrotechnics, (as burning pages made their escape up the chimney), Sean admitted defeat. A similar battle of wills then ensued with the much coveted Rayburn oven, a symbol of country living I’d been so looking forward to getting to grips with; with whom I now have a love hate relationship, due to its total lack of cooperation to light or warm up. There were indeed several aspects of life here we were completely unequipped for, and at times I have felt much like an overgrown boy-scout, such are the tasks required in our lovely but dilapidated cottage.

Our new lives frequently remind me of an episode of Twin Peaks; everyone in the village seems to be called Richard (bizarrely even the elderly lady next door), the locals use nonsensical expressions such as “where’s that to?”, and they indulge in somewhat unusual pastimes, (pumpkin racing springs to mind…). However, relocating is undoubtedly the best decision I’ve yet taken in life. I’ve learned a lot about myself since the move; I’m more adaptable than I gave myself credit for, I have a natural gift for wine making and food foraging, and most crushingly of all, I’m a terrible barn-dancer. Since I’ve learned to play to my strengths over the years you’ll find no barn-dancing advice in any of my forthcoming blogs; just seasonal tips on the wild food that’s available in our hedgerows, coastline and forests and how to create something truly delicious from it; more about life here in North Devon and our journey from city softies to self sufficient crofters.