I got lucky this week. I was on my way to collect youngest son from his work experience placement when I trundled past my pal Philippa’s farm cottage as she was coming out of her gate. We raced through the pleasantries, but I was distracted by a glimpse of her pretty garden. Oh look at the abundance of sweet peas! And those perky snapdragons! And what about the tumbling nasturtiums! I may have briefly mentioned my lack of all those things because I hadn’t got my arse in gear, so everything I have planted is Very Behind. Philippa bounded off to amass a bunch of blooms which filled the car with such an incredible scent it actually gave me a headache. This is not a complaint.
The Goddess of Generosity also gave me courgettes, a couple of evening perfumed tobacco plants, a zinnia which promises to be a beauty and introduced me to Penelope the sow, who was about to give birth to her first litter. In pig world, it’s a 3 month, 3 week, 3 day gestation period and she had 24 hours to go so was beginning to grunt and shift uncomfortably. The other pigs had been moved to give her some space, but she wasn’t good on her own so the radio was playing in the hope a bit of Bach might help. I wanted to tell her it would all be worth it when she was surrounded by adorable piglets, but in the meantime this bit was hellish, and a concerto in d minor wouldn’t cut it, but I could tell it wasn’t the right time. I went to collect my own piglet, who had been working at the coffee roastery for the day, and he came out with a bag of Colombian coffee beans for me to add to my spoils. Like I said, I got lucky.
Driving home with a car full of treats, I realised the luck came when I moved to Dorset and found an instant community of brilliant people at River Cottage (writer/broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s) HQ. The friendships I made kept me in the countryside when every nerve ending in my body was thrumming with the effort of trying to send me back to the city. My new friends eased me in and I began to accept and then embrace a lifestyle I had only read about in books and magazines. On paper it was exactly what I wanted, but in reality, it was nothing like the fictional and glossy media portrayals and that took some realignment.
When I joined River Cottage, it was still in its infancy as a cookery school, restaurant and local, seasonal food champion, although its profile was steadily climbing through TV and cookbooks. While the 16th century threshing barn had been renovated and was almost ready for guests, the farmhouse was semi-derelict and haunted by the ghosts of farming hardship, brutal winters and livestock in the kitchen. The soil in the ancient walled garden was chunky with flint, oyster shells and agricultural debris, which took a lot of sweat, blood and careful planning to transform into a beautiful growing space. With each attempt to refurbish, restore and protect the buildings and land, they hit back with contempt, a particular low point being the discovery of green sand. Which to an idiot townie like me sounded pretty but turned out to be the opposite and added weeks to the build schedule.
My notebooks and my camera roll are overflowing with what we grew, cooked and ate at River Cottage in those halcyon days, but one of my earliest memories was of the simplest staff lunch. We lit the fire in the vast inglenook in the farmhouse kitchen, dug potatoes out of the ground, wrapped them in foil and tucked them into the embers. When they were ready everyone gathered around the scrubbed pine kitchen table - which doubled as a TV studio for Hugh’s programmes - cracked open the crispy skins and pushed slabs of sunshine yellow butter into the steaming white flesh. They tasted of their earthy beds, woodsmoke and the camaraderie of a small, hard-working team with big ideas for the future. That was nineteen years ago and so much has changed since then and I have still not eaten a jacket potato that tasted as good as that one.
River Cottage Farmhouse
NB. Phillipa is part of the family run Coppet Hill an award-winning camping and glamping business, and they have a nature weekend from 4th-6th July.
Fabulous sweet peas and what a great day
Oh it was such a joy to be able to share them with you! Xx