Full of good intent I set off for inland Cornwall, conscious that I sometimes ignore its wide acres for the splendours of the coast. And I got as far as Holsworthy on the county border when - because of the peculiar weather conditions of the last week - the call of the coast got the better of me. Why? Because inland Cornwall was obscured by a blanket of fog. What started as mist soon had me slowing to two miles an hour. Consulting my Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 126, I found that the closest seaside lay a dozen miles away between Hartland and Bude. I love this stretch of the littoral, but I'm aware that some people don't. They find it too harsh and severe. The rocks are grey and their razorback edges are brutal. I prefer to think of it as romantically rugged and wild. All I had to do was find a section I'd never walked before, and that turned out to be easy. It happened to be the nearest bit, and within 20 rain-splattered minutes I found myself in the National Trust car park at Sandy Mouth. The good news was that, a mile after we'd left the village of Kilkhampton, we drove out of the rain, just as I'd predicted. Indeed, we could see the sun shining a mile or two out across the waves, though it never dared creep closer to the savage coast. My aim, on this quickly cobbled together walk, was to head north along the coast past Warren Gutter to Duckpool and then return via an inland route. But first we wandered down onto the great beach that stretches all the way south to Bude when the tide is out. I wanted to show my friend the extraordinary strata that I knew we'd find along the cliffs. And we were not disappointed. The seams of rocks bend up and down like so much tissue paper. It's all part of the Bude Formation, formed about 300 million years ago. In those far off days this whole area lay beneath the sea and particles of sand and silt would drop to the ocean floor. Over immeasurable periods of time these would build up and so become compacted and form sandstones and shales. A mere million years later molten magna was forced up from the earth's core in a massive upsurge that was to form the granite uplands of Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. Some of this molten rock spread north in a gigantic sheet causing such pressures to occur, that the local rocks were distorted all over the place. And that is what we see today along tortured undulations of these fabulous cliffs. The previously flat layers have been bent vertical in places like a sort of great ruckled bedspread slept in by a giant with uneasy dreams. I'm told the National Trust cleared away a clutter of unsightly huts and rusting cars when the organisation took over Sandy Mouth. I'm sure they were right to do so, but I - in my oddball fashion - am a great fan of unsightly huts. Anyway, there's the aforementioned car park and a rather good cafe where you can spoil yourself upon your return. I do not recommend taking refreshment before you go, as there's a little climbing to be done. The South West Coast path marches off to the north and we follow it directly up the hill. At the top of Stowe Cliffs we are treated to superb views stretching way beyond Bude, to the big bluff hiding Crackington Haven, and on again to the easily recognisable lump of Cornwall that sits off the coast at Tintagel. A flock of sheep grazed near the cliff edge and one stood there right on the brink looking at the shore far below. "Don't jump!" we shouted in unison - the ewe really did have a suicidal look about her. But sheep are not prone to taking such desperate personal measures and she walked calmly away. Unlike the local rabbits around here, who burrow holes to the edge of the abyss. There can only be one result to such irresponsible burrowing: instant and vertiginous death. I reckon you could reach Duckpool by walking along the beach if the tide was low, though I'm not entirely sure as there are some large rock ridges at Warren Gutter. This is an area where the strata seems to have gone mad, leaving all sorts of weird, contorted shapes. It was between here and Duckpool that the Spanish brig Juanita came aground full of Venezuelan sugar in 1865. I think I've related this story before - but so what. Captain Yvastricks, who was later described as "a gallant little Spanish don", drew his sword to protect his ship from the men he thought were wreckers. It was only when the coastguard showed him his official badge on the button of his tunic that the sturdy little skipper put his sword away. The climb down to Duckpool is precipitous to say the least. And you don't really have to do it if you're feeling lazy - just head inland around the upper contours of the hill. Walk across the crest and head south along the edge of the Trust-owned land. We went down to Duckpool a: because I like the great ravine and its rocky beach, and b: because I wanted to recall the Grenville's who once owned all that you can see around here. And they owned it for a long time - 450 years - and they became one of the most influential families ever to rule a Cornish roost. Roger Grenville was captain of the celebrated Mary Rose and he went down with his ship, watched by his monarch 1545. Sir Richard Grenville died fighting the Spanish in his ship The Revenge, and his grandson Sir Bevil Grenville fought for Charles I and was killed at the Battle of Landsdowne. He has gone down as one of the great Cornish heroes. The walk south to Sandy Mouth is a pleasant and airy experience as we stride along the high ground. I felt smug each step of the way, seeing distant Bodmin Moor swathed in fog and rain. If the going get's tough - the tough must get going - to the coast. Fact File Basic Hike: from the National Trust car park at Sandy Mouth (there is a charge) north to Duck Pool and back via the inland route. You find Sandy Mouth three miles outside the village of Kilkhampton, which is on the Bude-Bideford road. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 126 - Clovelly and Hartland. Distance and Going: four miles, steep in places.

Prawns and Prawning: A Timeless Tradition Around England’s Coasts There’s a Van Morrison song which ends with a simple observation borne of absolute contentment. “Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time… mutters the old Irish crooner in a strange lilting and poetic little number called Coney Island. “Stop off at Ardglass for a couple of jars of mussels and some potted herrings in case we get famished before dinner…” says Van Morrison as he speaks the words in his gravelly Irish brogue rather than sings them… Not many rock stars intone the delights of preserved seafood in their work. But I have been to Ardglass on Northern Ireland’s east coast and eaten mussels and potted herrings - and then gone on to be lonely but satisfied and nourished on tiny uninhabited Coney Island - so I know just how good such a journey can be… And I would repeat his observation: why can’t life be like this all the time?  That is certainly what I was thinking on a Devon beach last week as I finished a wild foraged prawn cocktail in the sunshine and reflected that it was probably one of the nicest things I’ve eaten this year. Perhaps ever.  And the prawns in question were not preserved, frozen, bottled or jarred. They were very fresh indeed, having been caught by myself and by my chef-lecturer pal, David Beazley, just minutes before. Lovely, juicy, sweet prawns. The most pinky-orange and flavoursome prawns I have tasted a long time.  And at this point I’d like to reflect on the extremely satisfying activity of catching your own food, then cooking it right there and then on a beach. We did it the other day in these pages when we hooked a few mackerel off Lyme Regis - but perhaps I liked this prawning thing even more, because it reminded me of my West Country childhood when we regularly netted these lively crustacea and cooked them for lunch. Okay, so it’s hard work and you‘re going to get wet and maybe cold - and all for a little bag of prawns that you could buy in a supermarket for a couple of quid. Which is immediately untrue because no shop-bought prawn in the world will taste anywhere nearly as good as a fresh one taken from Westcountry waters… But my point is as much about mental satisfaction as it is about flavour.  As kids, those prawn sandwiches we’d make after we’d nicked a pan and a camping stove off mum would be the very finest things on our summer menu - even if they did only consist of white bread, butter, salt and loads of white pepper.  But the thing about growing up and getting wiser and more experienced as a cook - and befriending someone like the talented Mr Beazley - is that you can do so, so much more with foraged ingredients like the humble hand-caught prawn.  “I just know those leaves will work really well - especially that sorrel,” said David as he put together our prawn cocktail. “Although I am a forager, I am a chef as well - so I know what to pick then I use my cheffy skills to perhaps do something more adventurous with it.” We’ve met David before in these pages - he is a chef-lecturer at Exeter College and he was telling me the other day that he does indeed take his students out on foraging trips. “So many chefs do not know where their food comes from. They pick up a phone and the ingredients are with them next morning. Apart from anything else, going out to where the food comes from can help give you ideas.” Like David’s concept of picking wild leaves growing up on the sea-cliffs above the cove to make an altogether different, more interesting style of prawn cocktail…  “I’ve picked some yarrow because it’s quite structural and looks nice - and it’s got a mild flavour - some people says its slightly medicinal but I’d disagree with that. It’s quite mild, not grassy - like spinach,” he told me. “I put some sea-beet in, which is actually quite salty - then I put some sorrel leaves in which are quite citrus - so you’ve got that natural lemony cooking-apple taste.  “I’ve put those mixed leaves in the bottom of the bowl just like you would with an iceberg (lettuce) and then I’ve put the peeled prawns on top of that and put some dressing on top of the prawns. A little flick of hot paprika on top - very traditional.” Well, traditional - but with a distinct foraging take. And that is my point. If you know what you are doing you can combine the things you pick or catch and make them into something called a dish. And David prepared another assembly with our fresh caught shellfish, which was a Japanese inspired prawn cocktail that looked a perfect cheffy picture on the plate on a sandy South Devon beach.  It combined a scarlet lick of foraged homemade elderberry conserve with the greens of sea-lettuce and laver seaweeds, both of which David had picked and dried. There was also a white radish, or mooli, he’d picked from his garden. This was finished off by a few spots of bright green shop-bought wasabi paste. Apart from the last two ingredients, the dish really was the cove on a plate. There were elderberries growing up on the cliffs and both seaweeds were abundant down at the low tide mark which is where we’d caught the prawns using a sturdy landing-net David had bought at an angling shop. I won’t give away all David’s secrets - but basically you shove the net along the side of reefs at low tide. Where the rocks meet the sand there tends to be an overhang which is draped in a forest of seaweed - and this is where the spawns hang out to graze, or whatever it is prawns do. The prawners along my own native Bristol Channel coast do exactly the same thing at Watchet - with one big difference… There you cannot see what you are doing in the mud and silted coffee-coloured water, so you are forced to work blind. The resulting hard-labour can be frustrating and punctuated by trips and falls.  Along the South Devon coast the water is clear and you tend to wade across firm areas of sandy sea-bed. The live prawns on both coasts are brown in colour (the Bristol Channel examples tend to be larger, probably thanks to all the nutrient rich silt) - and both turn orangey-pink the moment you throw them into salted boiling water. But the south coast prawns definitely turn a prettier, brighter orange-pink than their Bristol Channel cousins. In these days when environmental concerns about overfishing etc must, quite rightly, rule the roost - do I think the odd half-hour prawn-hunt does much harm? Perhaps it would, if the entire nation went out and did it. But all the hard work required for a child’s seaside-bucket worth of prawns means it’s never going to become a popular pastime - and I cannot believe one bloke with an 18-inch-wide net can do any damage at all in a chilly 30 minutes.   So is all the fuss worth it? Probably not for a lot of folk. But for me it’s the best thing I’ve done all summer. Indeed, I really do ask myself - wouldn’t it be great, indeed, if life was like this all the time… David Beazley’s prawn cocktail and an easy-to-make bisque Trad-but-foraged Peeled prawns Baby sea beet leaves Sorrel Yarrow Cocktail sauce 100g mayonnaise 25g tomato ketchup Squeeze of lemon juice Pinch of paprika to finish Simply build the prawn cocktail as you would using garden lettuce, but use the foraged leaves instead. Or David’s Japanese style prawn cocktail Dried sea lettuce Dried laver seaweed Shell on cooked prawns Wasabi paste Thin strips of radish Elderberry puree 100 g elderberries 10g sugar Place in a small saucepan, cover and simmer for 5 minutes Rub through a fine sieve, add a pinch of salt Arrange all the ingredients on a plate in the most imaginative and attractive way you can - and admire your handiwork while knowing such a dish in a London restaurant would cost you more than 30 quid. Prawn bisque (using the shells/heads from peeling the prawns) 500g shells 100g roughly chopped onion  100g roughly chopped carrot 50g roughly chopped leek/celery 15g tomato puree 50mls brandy 40g butter 40g flour 1 litre water 50 mls double cream Salt Pepper Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the chopped vegetables and cook gently for a few minutes without colouring them. Add in the brandy, broken up shells, tomato puree and the flour and stir well. Add the water and bring gently to the boil, cover and simmer for 1 hour Pour through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan, the resulting liquid should be the consistency of double cream (add a little water if it is any thicker). Add salt and pepper to your own taste. Before serving reheat, add the double cream and any prawn meat that you managed to save.

Back in the day when I was editor-at-large for the Western Morning News I used to fly off to the Isles of Scilly on a regular basis, often just after New Year when my old friend Mike Nelhams would stage his annual flower on in the amazing Tresco Abbey Gardens… Here’s an example of one of the articles I wrote… Plants have long memories. If you want proof of that go to the island of Tresco 30 miles into the gale tossed Atlantic off Land’s End and admire the 285 species which are out in flower today, despite the fact it’s midwinter.  It has been the best year in decades for the island’s famous Abbey Gardens where an annual flower count is staged just after New Year - and the reason so many plants are in bloom is twofold… For a start, the sheltered side of Tresco has an amazingly balmy microclimate - but also the unique plant collection is made up of a great many species from the Southern Hemisphere whose genetic memories are stuck with the concept that it’s high summer despite the fact that it is January. “This is the only garden in UK where the majority of the plants are from Mediterranean Southern Hemisphere climates of the world,” said the Abbey Gardens curator Mike Nelhams. “This means a lot of our plants flower at exactly the same time as they would in New Zealand, or South Africa, and so on… “Some species do adapt to our summers, but quite a lot - because we never really get cold here in the winter - retain genes in their system which make them flower in what is the UK’s winter.  “One of the groups, from South Africa, are the showy aloes - they consistently flower with us in the winter and we have over 65 different species of them.” However, the amazing count of 285 species in bloom is not a record for the island: “We have had over 300 but that was before we had a freak snowstorm years ago,” Mr Nelhams told me. “In 1987 we lost huge amounts of the garden - around 70 percent of the plants died. “We’ve hardly ever had a frost since and the great thing about this year’s count is that it shows it’s all building up nicely again,” he added. Compared to last year, 30 additional flowers were counted including Tibouchina semidecandra and Aloe arborescens - a flowering spectacle unseen anywhere else in the country at this time of year. The New Year flower count, which was completed by Mr Nelhams alongside head gardener, Andrew Lawson, and garden students, is an annual island tradition that has been taking place for more than 150 years. Described by some as a ‘Kew with the lid off’ , the botanical wonderland boasts a global gathering of plants from over 80 countries. Proteas from South Africa, Acacia from Australia and Passion Flowers (Passiflora) from Peru are just some of the exotic flora that adorn the garden at this time of year, thanks to the island’s mild climate. Mr Nelhams said: “Whilst the annual flower count is a tradition that dates back many years it’s an occasion everyone on the island never tires of. With most other gardens in Britain looking less colourful it’s always a wonderful time of year to tally up just how many plants we have flowering in the garden and this year is no exception.”  Abbey Garden has recently bolstered its plant collection after recently acquiring more than 30 new species from Kew Garden. The collection, which was imported to the island in November 2014, included plants from five of the world’s continents including the Bismarck Palm from Madagascar. For more information about the Abbey Garden visit www.tresco.co.uk

A lot of people think about - obsess about - chocolate, especially at Christmas. Which is why I thought, as only a casual chocolate eater - I would put up a post remembering some of the many chocolaty experiences I’ve enjoyed on my travels. Of course, any such journey should begin in Switzerland, where they invented the technique of turning something which seems pretty inedible, into something sublime. A couple of years ago I was in Lucerne where I spent a rather delightful afternoon at a wonderful chocolatier’s right in the middle of town - visit https://www.maxchocolatier.com/ to find out more… Just before the Covid lockdowns began I was in Madeira where they go in for a particularly colourful type of chocolate…According to Science Daily, chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food on the planet. No surprises there, then. But what is amazing is that hardly any of us know exactly what it is or how it is made.  According to Science Daily, chocolate is the most widely and frequently craved food on the planet. No surprises there, then. But what is amazing is that hardly any of us know exactly what it is or how it is made.  Of course, there is chocolate, and there is chocolate. The industrially made stuff remains a mystery for me but recently I was stating in St Lucia at the amazing Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain resorts where I learned all about how to make real chocolate. And I use the word ‘real’ in the same way British beer drinkers talk about “real ale”. Something that is made by hand with basic ingredients.  The twin resorts, located near Soufriere in the fabulously scenic southern part of the island, are part of a large and very beautiful demesne known as the Emerald Estate, upon which there happen to grow more than 2000 cocoa trees “Since 2010, our resorts have hand-crafted Emerald Estate Chocolate for the enjoyment of our guests. And with the opening of the chocolate laboratory, guests are now able to not only taste but participate in the making of the chocolate,” I was told. Saint Lucia has a long connection with the cocoa industry which dates back to the early 1700’s. There are many plantations on the island that have been harvesting and producing cocoa for eons, supplying the local market. In celebration, August has been declared the “Month of Chocolate” on the island. Anyway, I took a tour of the estate’s remarkable gardens in the hills just behind the scenic little seaside town of Soufriere and saw how the cocoa is harvested in season after which it is held in fermentation bins before being eventually laid out in special drying racks that can be wheeled in and out of the bright Caribbean sunlight.  It’s an interesting process. You can break open a cocoa pod and pull out one of the white beans and pop it into your mouth. Your taste buds will be treated to a rather pleasant sweet-sour experience that tastes nothing like chocolate. And I mean nothing like - you get no hint of this plant’s eventual culinary destination at all. But you MUST NOT bite into the bean itself or you’ll be treated to a rather nasty bitter surprise. Seasons vary from region to region, but the process of turning the plant material into chocolate begins when the pods are cut open and the white pulp containing the cocoa beans is scooped out.  The pods and pulp are placed into wooden containers where the pulp is fermented for five to seven days. During the process, the beans are turned regularly to help them ferment more evenly and there is, by-the-way, a bye-product of all this fermentation which is a kind of vinegar that the chefs at Jade Mountain now use in their kitchens.  Next comes the drying when the beans are laid out on large racks. All over the Caribbean you will find old buildings that appear to have a kind of railway built into their foundations. These are the rails upon which the big heavy racks can be wheeled out into the sunshine and quickly pushed back again when it’s raining or at night.  Next, away from the estate gardens and up at Jade Mountain’s chocolate workshop, comes the roasting process which is followed by another process which removes the papery skins. The eventual ‘cocoa nibs’ are then ground with stone rollers until they are reduced to a paste. This cocoa mass or cocoa liquor is a pure, unrefined chocolate which contains both cocoa solids and cocoa butter - the natural fats present in the bean. In large chocolate factories the raw material then goes through another process sometimes called coaching in which things like that sugar, milk powder (for milk chocolate) and other flavourings are added. The chocolate at Jade Mountain only contains cocoa and locally sourced cane sugar. Which is why you could describe it as “real chocolate”.  At the workshop we were able to make our own chocolate bars by working the cocoa mass and sugar on the cold marble topped table until the whole thing reached a smooth silky consistency. We then were given moulds and a choice of other ingredients like chopped nuts which which we could embellish our own individual bars.  A day later I found my pistachio flavoured bar in the fridge in my ‘sanctuary’ at Jade Mountain - and very wonderful it was too. This is the sort of chocolate people were going crazy over a couple of centuries ago - very different indeed from the commercial bar in a European sweet shop or even one of the “single estate” specialty bars of chocolate you can buy in most supermarkets now.

The Christmas story is a special one, whether you are a believer or not. Especially the bit about the three mysterious kings who followed a star out of the east. I thought long and hard about that story a few years ago when I was on a press trip to Southern Oman, right down next to the Yemeni border. Our guide took us to a very special place - an archaeological ruin right out in the middle of nowhere by the Indian Ocean - and I read an information sign saying that just ab out all the world’s supply of frankincense used to go out through the sea-facing door of the old fortress. I was fascinated. I imagined that lump of this strange aromatic tree resin may have come through the portal on their way to that famous birthplace in Bethlehem. It sent a rather lovely shiver down my spine - and I say that even though I am not at all religious… I wrote this article soon after the visit… You don’t have to be religious to be enchanted by the Christmas story. Every part of the tale surrounding the birth of baby Jesus in Bethlehem seems to resound with a beauty and a profound sense of magic and mystery. But apart from the idea of an “immaculate conception”, perhaps one of the strangest parts of the best known story in the world is the appearance of three kings bearing gifts. Who were these magi? What was a magi? Why did they follow that star and ride their camels quite so far in its nocturnal beam of light? And why gold, frankincense and myrrh? As a child growing up in the rural West Country, the story of the Three Kings of Orient struck me as being more exotic and bizarre than any other part of the Christmas tale. Especially the mention of those two latter gifts - frankincense and myrrh. Maybe other kids in my class knew what these items were. Even when my father explained something about “incense” and “fragrant oil” I was none the wiser. But I liked the sound of those mysterious gifts they’d brought for a baby in a manger. And, unlike 99 out of 100 things I learned at school as a child, I always remembered the two words. Frankincense and myrrh. Who doesn’t have these curious and unknowable things on the tip of the tongue at Christmas-tide?   Then one winter’s day standing on the edge of a desert gazing at a very ancient and empty ruin on the side of the Indian Ocean, a man called Mussaiam said to me: “You see that opening in the old wall? There was a time when all the frankincense in the entire world went through that doorway.” When I read the small rusting metal interpretation board shoved into the sand near the door at Khor Rori, it confirmed what Mussaiam had said - and it also informed me that this ancient fortress had held sway along this coast from the 4th century BC to the 5th century AD. Which sent shivers down my spine. Because it meant that the Three Kings - or at least the Magi called Caspar who carried frankincense to Bethlehem - must have passed right through this small door.  It was the only sea-facing aperture in the fortress and in this way the folk who ran the place - and controlled the frankincense trade - could monitor and tax the extremely precious incense going out into the wider world. When Mussaiam saw how excited I was, he began to explain that the area that makes up the very southern tip of Oman has always been known as The Land of Frankincense. It has been one of country’s most famous and highly prized natural products since antiquity, and its unbelievably exotic aroma can be sniffed everywhere, wafting out of homes, mosques and souks and even through to modern office blocks and hotel lobbies.   Most of the world’s frankincense is now harvested in Somalia, but the Omani version is the one connoisseurs go for, especially since the Yemeni supplies dried up because of the ongoing internecine war. Indeed this part of Oman, known as Dhofar, is on the border of Yemen and it is the frankincense from here that is considered to be the world’s finest. I asked Mussaiam to explain what frankincense actually is, and with a shrug he said we’d go and find some. With much tortuous twisting and turning we went deep into the coastal mountains past the city of Salalah and beyond a coastal village called Mughsayl. As coastlines go, this must be one of the most dramatic in the world. Vertiginous, impenetrable, wild, empty…  All you see are rocks, more rocks, the odd camel, and the occasional frankincense tree. We climbed some crags to reach a ragged grove of these trees and Mussaiam showed us how its boughs would instantly bleed a pure white liquid gum if nicked with a knife.  This is frankincense - and the stuff that exudes from the brach immediately after the first cutting is reckoned to be the best you can get. It’s a resin and it can be taken from four different trees of the Boswellia genus, particularly the Boswellia sacra, which thrives in the arid mountains around Salalah where it can survive the most inhospitable conditions imaginable.  The few trees we found were growing straight out of solid rock.  These tough little examples were not much more than 15 feet in height and they had a peeling, papery bark. Tapping and collection is a skilled business - the harvesters allow the “tears” (as the weeping gum is called) to turn white in the sun and harden before they take them from the tree.  Almost all frankincense is collected from trees growing in the wild (they are notoriously difficult to cultivate) which somehow adds to the mystique. Mussaiam immediately shoved some of the gum into his mouth and began to chew it because he said it had miraculous health properties. We did the same, although mine only remained within my lips for a second. I found it gritty and the flavour very, very, unpleasant indeed.  Arabic custom has it that the resin is good for a healthy digestion and soft glowing skin. Modern medical uses are currently being investigated, including a possibility that it might be beneficial as a treatment for Crohn’s disease, as well as osteoarthritis and even cancer. There are quite a few varieties of frankincense and around the Salalah area you can visit small workshops where experts sort the resin by hand. It is  graded according to colour, purity and aroma. The whiter and purer the colour, the better the grade. Varieties that appear to have a yellowish tinge are less highly valued, while at the bottom of the scale come the darker examples from Somalia. The stuff I brought home was the very purest white - and a couple of tiny lumps left on the hot-plate of my wood-burning stove is enough to fill the entire house with scent at Christmas.   It helps a non-believer like me to remember the best known story in the world - and its amazing scent sends me to bed at nights during the festivities wondering who on earth the enigmatic Caspar was, and why he and his friends made such an extraordinary journey bearing gifts just over 2000 years ago.

If I was really pushed, I’d say that the walk to and from Culbone on the Exmoor coast is my number one favourite hike to do at Christmas. Here’s an article about it that I wrote some years ago… But be warned: the Coast Path along this section of the Exmoor littoral suffers from regular landslides. In fast, the vertiginous landscape hereabouts has changed completely since I began walking in the area more than 50 years ago. What makes for a truly classic walk? One answer could lie in the phrase which claims imitation is the highest form of flattery…  Today’s walk has been copied – or, shall we say, “borrowed” (others might use the word “nicked”) - word-for-word by two national newspapers and a glossy colour magazine, so it must have something special going for it… Why? Well, for one thing, no other place in the West Country evokes quite such hallowed and spiritual sensations as remote, lonely, beautiful Culbone – home to the smallest complete church in England. You can't get there by car – and consequently the hamlet is one of the most peaceful and quiet in all the country. To visit you must walk. This hike begins by taking the coast path west from Porlock Weir. It's always tempting to bide a while at the small harbour, where Turkey Island sits on a hump of shingle just across the footbridge from the Harbour Master's office.  You'll notice the lock gates beneath the bridge looking as if they've been borrowed from some inland canal. They haven't, for here they find employment occasionally when they're closed to keep in the tide. When the following ebb is complete they are opened so that the water inside rushes off to sea, hopefully taking much of the mud and silt with it. Our walk takes us past the Anchor Hotel, through the alley between the buildings to the place where we turn left up an easy-to-miss footpath. Steps take us up to the fields, which we cross to reach the hamlet of Worthy.  A few hundred metres along the lane we come to a curious thatched cottage – curious because it forms an arch where motorists pay to ply the Worthy Toll Road. We take the footpath that begins just to the right of the cottage.  This takes up through magical Yearnor Wood. A fabulous fantasy-style mansion once stood here - fairy-like with minarets and cloisters and a clutter of other architectural features. For years the big house at Ashley Combe lay in ruins and eventually became so dangerous it was raised to the ground. Sadly they've even blocked up the little follies and tunnels situated here and there in the steep woods. You'll see one on the path to Culbone, looking like a miniature castle bridging the almost subterranean route. It was a Lady Lovelace who had this dreamland built and she even imported a team of Swiss mountaineers to lay a network of carriageways throughout her vertical demesne. Lady Lovelace eventually despaired of the place being back-sunned and departed for the brighter side of the hill, but you can still see vestiges of her dreamscape and perhaps recall the yodelling mountaineers who made the paths and left behind excellent place names like Apple Dumpling Point and Cherry Tree Steep. The path used to be a long, gradual climb from here to Culbone, but over the past 20 years massive landslides have dissected the hill so that now there's a bit of zig-zag climbing to be done. Indeed, this walk does come with a health warning: the vertiginous landscape here is liable to give up the ghost and fall into the sea – every time I visit I discover yet more bits have disappeared.  All at once the track turns away from the coast and into the hill, and within a few yards there is Culbone hanging high above the grey rocks and the grey sea in its enchanting glen. A visit to the tiny church is compulsory – though it takes you a couple of hundred metres out of the way. The smallest complete church in England has a nave that is 21 feet by 12 feet, and a chancel that measures 13 feet by 10 – making a total length of 35 feet. Regular services are still held - many of the congregation arrive by four-wheel drive down the steep track, which we must now climb. It’s a long steep haul that takes us up to the small lane that terminates at Silcombe Farm. You’ll see the farmstead on your right, but we turn left a few metres until we see a track ascending the hill on our right. This takes us up over Culbone Hill to the very top of the Worthy Toll Road.  Keep an eye out for some small standing stones in the bracken among the pine trees to your left – these are the remains of a fascinating prehistoric stone row that runs east-west across the hill. Turn left at the top and walk along the lane for just a few metres before branching right into Smalla Combe. The footpath runs down this delightful valley alongside the stream. We swing left at Pitt Farm to take the track that will reintroduce us to the toll road.  We soon forsake the road for a footpath. This time it’s the right of way that climbs briefly around the shoulder of hill above Yearnor Mill. Now we are walking along the very upper limits of Worthy Wood, but after a quarter of a mile we come to a junction where a smaller path disappears down over the hill.  This is the path that will take us down through the woods back to Porlock Weir. It eventually spills onto the lane that runs inland around the rear of the tiny port – turn right and walk for a couple hundred metres until you reach the junction where another lane descends to the harbour and the car park.   Fact File Basic Hike: South West Coast Path from Porlock Weir to Culbone, returning over the top of Culbone Hill via Silcombe, Smalla Combe and Worthy Wood. Distance & Going: six miles, steep in places. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Outdoor Leisure 9. Local Knowledge Porlock Bay oysters Check out the availability of the excellent Porlock Oysters while you’re at the Weir. They’re grown as part of a community based project and are very, very, delicious http://www.porlockbayoysters.co.uk/ Wine Pub of the Year - every year If you’re driving back over Exmoor after this walk and you’re hungry, call in at the excellent Woods in Dulverton which has just won UK Wine Pub of the Year for the eight time running. Great food - and totally amazing wine.

What a difference weather can make to a place. One time when I walked through Braunton Burrows it was so hot you could fool yourself you were in the middle of the Sahara Desert as you passed trough the big dunes. On another day just after Christmas a few years ago, I began to wonder what hypothermia might feel like.  Walking in locations during very different meteorological conditions can be like visiting two totally separate countries. Braunton Burrows is certainly no exception to that rule. However, the Burrows never disappoint. The massive 2,400 acre area boasts no fewer than 477 different species of flowering plant, some of which are as rare as hen’s teeth. There are also 33 different species of butterflies and 18 different types of dragonfly and damselfly - not that any of them will be in evidence at this time of the year. Never mind. Rain or shine, sun or snow, the Burrows is a fascinating place for a walk… One of the most weird and wonderful areas open to the public anywhere in the West Country. In fact, it is the second largest dune area in Britain. It belongs to the Christie Estate (same people who own Glynebourne of operatic fame) and they have been good enough to keep the place open to the public. To get to the Burrows you take one of several lanes that meander across an area reminiscent of the Somerset Levels. Rhines divide the fields and reeds bend in the breeze. These lanes eventually join forces to terminate in a large car park which serves the main area of dunes. An interpretation board tells you about the dune systems, which are far more complex than you may think - and also tells you not to enter the great demesne if the red flag is flying. “It was like being in Afghanistan yesterday,” said a passer-by when I was walking here years ago. “Tanks, machine guns, helicopters. The lot…" On another visit I was joined by three Burrows experts, and I asked them if the army’s right to hold manoeuvres in the dune system didn’t conflict with the fragile natural environment... “We are actually very grateful for the MOD presence,” replied a man from the North Devon Biosphere. “It has helped to control or slow down the vegetation. It’s not bombs and things like you get in a place like Salisbury Plain - it’s the fact that they can come in with their four-wheel-drive vehicles. We are able to say to the army that we need that bit scuffed up a bit - so they drive their Land Rovers or Vikings over that part and it opens up the sand, which starts a succession which allows those early pioneer plants to come in. So the military presence has been really good for us over the last 60 years.” The Army’s messing about in the dunes is also good news for walkers because easy-to-follow tracks have been created running hither and thither allowing you to explore just about every single corner of the huge sandy expanse.  One of the walks I’ve done several times in the Burrows is to proceed along the track from the car park and, where it turns right under a sign saying "Coast Path", carry straight on, aiming at the nearest dune. I recall that the first time I did this it was my intention to go to the sea. I thought you’d cross a dune and there it would be. But having crossed one huge Saharan hill, I was confronted by another even bigger one. And so on. The dunes go on and on. Although you are free to roam, it is best to try and keep to the paths. This place is famous for its rich flora and is, according to one guide: “A species-rich calcareous dune grassland with good examples of a variety of important communities. The short turf areas are extremely rich in herbs and lichens, including a number of nationally rare species. Flowering herbs such as large thyme Thymus pulegioides, common restharrow Ononis repens and common bird’s-foot-trefoil Lotus corniculatus are locally dominant.” Among all that foliage there are adders - in fact one year I was walking here I was told that no fewer than 13 dogs had been bitten by snake in the Burrows during a single summer. Not surprisingly, I didn’t see any reptiles in the frost as I walked to the great beach that took me south past Airy Point towards Crow Point, and no slithery things were in evidence as I made my way back up north through the dunes.  There are various ways of doing this return leg walk. The South West Coast Path takes a detour down through the wandering sands to dip a toe into the joint Taw and Torridge estuaries at a place marked on the OS map with the word ‘Groynes”. It’s as if the long distance trail wants to see where it will be many miles from now having marched all the way east up to Barnstaple, before returning west back around Instow then Bideford before gaining Appledore and Northam Burrows, whose dunes lie just half a mile away from the Braunton groynes.   By following the coast path east through the dunes I skipped the cold and windy southerly corner of Crow Point and eventually came to the corner where the famous long distance trail enters the Torridge-Taw estuary zone. By following the path north you can simply march directly back up to the car park - or you may wish to meander through the semi-sheltered and rather wonderful dunes instead, which is more fun. Fact File Basic Hike: across the centre of Braunton Burrows to reach the flats of Saunton Sands, the south down the coast and to Airy Point before returning through the dunes. Distance and going: five miles - easy going if you don’t mind walking in sand. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 139. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Soliloquy to Squires Squires Fish and Chips in Braunton are among the best in the west. A portion of their finest is such a “must” for me I’ve been known to travel miles just for a fresh fried fillet of their cod and some mushy peas.  A Bow to Barnstaple If you do go to Braunton Burrows, visit Barnstaple just a few miles away. There’s something charming about the town I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on - but please do ask why there are no longer any butchers in wonderful Butcher’s Row. To me that is one of the saddest high-street facts in this region. Happy Among the Hulks If you like old hulks or the long lost remains of old wooden boats, do take a detour around Crow Point and stroll to Velator Quay which is located just to the south of the village of Braunton at a point where the River Caen turns tidal.

Just over two years ago on a dark winter’s day I flew out of the UK and 12 hours later found myself in this place. I bet that right now, as millions around the globe fear another Christmas will be spoilt somewhat by Covid, that a great many would love to be transported to Mirihi Island on a magic carpet this very minute. Here is the article I wrote at the time… Every now and again - or maybe just once or twice in a lifetime - you get to go somewhere that causes you pinch yourself so you can check you’re not dreaming. There are plenty of earthly paradise zones if you know how to find them, but some have more tick-boxes than the rest.  The Maldives would be one such place, especially for those of us from a wintry Northern Europe. White sandy palm-strewn beaches? Tick. Crystal clear warm seas? Tick. Colourful, bountiful, coral reefs (for the most part, shark-free)? Tick. Fabulous weather? Tick. Fabulous local food? Tick. Friendly people? Tick. What more can you say? Not a lot, really. Not when you’ve spent the best part of a week on a paradise island that is only 200 metres long. Not when you’ve spent 15 minutes walking right around it one way six times - and doubled that number by circumnavigating it in the other direction.  Which brings me to the one big question that people ask time and again about the Maldives… After a day or two on a tiny atoll, what are you going to do? Well, I know there are people who get bored easily, even when they’re in paradise - but I am not one of them. Actually, I found a great deal to occupy my mind during my stay at the amazing Mirihi Island Resort and would very gladly have doubled or tripled my time there.  For a start, a resort like Mirihi offers the ultimate chill-out zone. There are no cars - no traffic at all. There’s no noise, save for the occasional visiting seaplane upon which you will have arrived having enjoyed a 45-minute scenic flight from the Maldivian capital of Maale.  Describing an arrival at Mirihi is well worth the column-space. The Twin Otter seaplane will have banked hard allowing you a seagull’s eye view of the tiny palm-covered islet and its surrounding azure sea and the pilot will have throttled back to allow for an ultra-smooth landing on the mirror-like water. The island boat will come out to the pontoon and staff will take your luggage and politely call you by your christian name, even though they’ve never met you before. The people who work at Mirihi are an intelligent bunch (they probably search for an image of you on the internet so that they can recognise you when you arrive) - and they are extremely friendly and polite. One of them will suggest you take off your shoes as the boat pulls away from the plane and heads towards the jetty.  She is saying: “You might like to take off your shoes now - we will take them with your luggage to your rooms. The thing is, you won’t be needing them until you leave…” As she is saying the words and you are slipping off your footwear, so you are beginning to realise that you are having one of those “pinch-yourself” moments. The wooden jetty, the white sand beach, the tiny islet with its palms beyond… Surely this is a place where movie-stars and prime ministers go on holiday? It’s not the kind of place a chap raised in a West Country council house has any right to be in… But here you are. And they are all smiling, calling you Martin and taking you on a sandy path through the palms and out over another jetty across another beach to a series of thatched villas built on stilts above the reef. One of them is yours - and it is huge and airy and luxurious. You open the sliding glass doors and walk out onto your private balcony and look down the steps that will take you straight into a vast endless tropical fish-tank. And you think: “This will do me very nicely indeed. In fact, cancel the return flight.” You are hot and sweaty after the long flight from the UK and the connection at the busy airport - so you grab the facemark, snorkel and fins the staff have given you for your stay and you go down into that cooling, fabulous, underwater world beneath your suite. Just for a few minutes, just to cool off and relax… And one hour later you realise you’re still out there exploring the reef and will be late for lunch. Not that there is such a thing as “late” in the Maldives. It is one of the most relaxed places in the world. In fact, at the Mirihi Island Resort they have even set the time to be being one hour later than anywhere else in the watery nation so that guests can make the very best of the daylight hours.  Mirihi is out on the western fringes of the Maldivian archipelago, so this makes sense. Not that you will need a clock, unless you have arranged to meet your pals or fellow guests for lunch or dinner.  Talking of which, the food is superb. In fact, it is the best resort food I have eaten in over 40 years of travel writing. Maldivian cuisine is a fat-free, super-healthy, delicious sensation - and there’s plenty of Sri Lankan and Southern India food to go with it. Executive chef Felix Bamert makes sure there are more than 20 different curries on show each afternoon and evening, and there will be a new main theme to dinner day after day.  There is a high-end waiter-service restaurant at one end of the isle (great place for cocktails and sunsets) but the main buffet-style dining centre is massive and airy - and the range of salads, cold cuts, mains, sweets and goodness knows what else is bigger than any other resort offering I’ve ever seen. And everything is freshly made.  So, apart from eating and drinking, what to do in paradise?  Not surprisingly, a lot of it is water-based. There’s an excellent diving centre at Mirihi - so excellent they taught me the rudiments of scuba-diving and had me down there enjoying the non-snorkel-ish bits of the reef in an impressively short time. I’ve had diving lessons before, but these guys were somehow more instructive, more caring and better at it than the folk who’ve given me underwater experiences elsewhere.  Or how about a sunset cruise out to the edge of the atoll so that you can sip cocktails while watching dolphins leap around on the bow wave? That certainly ticked a box for me.  But the ultimate boredom-in-paradise busting treat was an all-day cruise aboard Mirihi’s own elegant yacht… Again we went out to the edge of the atoll and into the Indian Ocean proper so that we could cruise in a place where giant whale sharks lurk in a tidal zone, allowing the currents to bring them quantities of plankton and goodness knows what other microbial stuff they eat.  There were several other boats in the area from other resorts, all full of tourists armed with face-masks and snorkels, all desperate to swim with the whale sharks. It is one of the “must-do” thrills of the Maldives - and there are places where ecologists say it’s gone too far and all the attention is harming those gentle giants.  But out here on the remote western fringe of the archipelago that’s not so much the case - and I have to say the local crew aboard our yacht seemed to have the edge on all the rest so we were soon swimming close to the gargantuan creatures when the other boats weren’t. At one point I was just ten feet from a whale shark that must have been more than 20 feet long. It swam slowly and gracefully below me for minutes, before accelerating effortlessly away. To be so close to something so huge and so wild - and thankfully, so vegetarian - was a thing I shall never forget.  Later that day we were able to swim among manta rays. And later still we were back on Mirihi for a huge banquet laid out for us on the beach, followed by an extensive rum-and-chocolate-tasting session which went on until the early hours. Bored in paradise? Not me. In fact, I was so busy, I was exhausted and could have done with another week in my private reef villa just to chill-out. FACT FILE Nightly rates at Mirihi Island start from $600 (£479*) per villa, on a B&B basis, based on two people sharing. Prices are subject to 10% service charge and 12% GST. For more information or to make a reservation visit  www.mirihi.com  or call +960 668 0500 or email  info@mirihi.com

Since the soft launch of my little yarn entitled The Deer Park this week, loads of people have been asking me on social media how a cynical old newspaper journalist came to write a children’s fairytale.  The answer is quite simple… I loved such stories when I was a kid and the magical woodlands above Dunster sort of remind me of some of those old Grimm’s Fairy Tales. My daughter Nancy, her partner Ross and their lovely Exmoor lurcher Tadgh live near Gallox Bridge (the old packhorse bridge) so we often join them for a walk up into Dunster Deer Park. One day just before the Covid lockdown last winter we were up there as a gale was beginning to blow in from the Atlantic - and the views from wonderful Bat’s Castle always look particularly dramatic in such circumstances.  As we walked down over the hill through the forests, I heard a strange banging noise in the woods and wondered what it was… We soon discovered a big larch tree which had half-fallen over but which had come to rest at a 45 degree angle in the branches of a neighbouring oak - the wind was causing the upper branches of the two trees to smack into one another - and, because the banging sounded a bit like some kind of morse-code message, I began to formulate a story in my mind.  What if that sound was actually being generated by some kind of woodland spirit? And what if it was heard by some children or a child, lost in the woods as the storm approached. And what if there was another threat - my mum used to tell me about the German aeroplanes which would fly low over the West Somerset hills on their way to bomb either Cardiff or the steel works in South Wales.   Her reminiscences of those times always centred on the loss of her china-faced doll, which was the only bomb victim to ever come to grief in the village of Stogumber. Apparently the bombers would sometimes escape British fighters by skimming low over the Bristol Channel when they’d finished their raids - and sometimes one of the aeroplanes would have been unable to release all of its bombs, so the pilots suddenly needed to jettison these fast in order to climb over the 1400 foot escarpment of the Brendon Hills. I know of more than half a dozen bomb craters which were created in this way in the Monksilver and Nettlecombe area and in my own valley above Roadwater. My mums doll was shaken from its perch on a chest of drawers when a bomb blew up in fields just outside of Stogumber and it fell, smashing its little china face. Not a bad death toll when compared of those place which lost so many poor souls… Anyway, all these stories began to swirl around in my mind as I thought about how a modern fairy tale could be developed. There are also a great many legends based in and around Dunster, which of course is one of the most historic villages in the South West region. For example, I seem to remember reporting a story for the newspaper once after archaeologists had found the skeleton of an exceptionally large man in buried under some of the nether regions of Dunster Castle. He had died centres ago in the days when people were a good deal shorter than they are now. I think this guy was something like seven feet tall - so he really must have been regarded as a giant back in the day. Which tied in, because I have another memory of being told about a legend centred upon a giant living at Dunster. The story went that he was so big he kept knocking into things around the village - they they banned him from the place and made him live just outside up on Grabbist where I believe there is a place called The Giant’s Seat. The bit in this legend that sticks in my memory was that the villagers were kind to him and brought him food - so he was kind to them and would do favours around the place. Like, for example, blowing down from his high seat at the washing on washing-day when there wasn’t enough wind to dry the clothes. A tall order for someone who is only seven feet tall - but a good yarn nevertheless.  So you can see, there was plenty of material to be thinking about when the Covid lockdown kicked in and I had time on my hands at home… To be continued… Copies of the Deer Park are available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deer-Park-Modern-Fairytale-ebook/dp/B09MG4RGK4/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=martin+hesp&qid=1638270958&qsid=261-9964086-6600138&s=digital-text&sr=1-7&sres=B088WX85PB%2CB006KDAYZC%2CB00577PNQC%2CB005G82AH2%2CB005UAKHBM%2CB0887D9Y6J%2CB09MG4RGK4

Can a product go from being a convenience-store staple to an item that’s regarded as posh-nosh? We know the opposite can happen because clever manufacturers have managed to turn all manner of exotic recipes into cheap sauces and ready-meals - but could you really take something as basic as a can of sardines and make it into an item that even the most discerning of foodies would desire? The answer is an emphatic: yes! As long as everything - from the catching of the fish to the act of canning in the factory - is done just right.  And one of the West Country’s best-known chefs has just taken a major step towards proving that point.  This month, after years of research, Mitch Tonks has launched the Rockfish Tinned Seafood brand – a uniquely British product made using fresh seafood direct from the South Coast of England.  Mitch, founder of Seahorse Restaurant in Dartmouth and the pioneering fish restaurants Rockfish, is well-known for being passionate about getting Brits to cook and eat the wonderful array of sustainable fish swimming around our shores. Now he’s put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, by producing a range of exceptional high-quality canned products which will help ensure a better less-wasteful end for West Country fish. As we all know, seafood doesn’t last long once it’s out of the water - but canning fresh fish can preserve it both effectively, and deliciously, for years.    The Rockfish range includes Brixham cuttlefish in ink sauce, West Country mackerel in olive oil, Lyme Bay mussels escabeche and several luxury versions of Mount’s Bay sardines. And having sampled the range I can vouch that each and every one of the products is very good indeed and worth the price-tag, if you can afford it. Yes, £5 for a tin of sardines does sound a lot but - as any foodie who has spent time in Spain will know - you get what you pay for in this world. I mention that country because the Spanish are in the premier league when it comes to the art of canning seafood. Years ago, when I first spotted a large can of fish being served as the centre-piece of a rather up-market Spanish family’s main meal of the day, I was astonished in a snooty kind of way. But that was my old-fashioned British inverted snobbery getting the better of me. In this country we have tended to look down our noses at tinned food - which (as is so often the case when it comes to just about anything edible) has been a big mistake on our part.  There are canning companies in Spain which go about the challenge of hermitically sealing seafood with all the care and attention that an artisan baker will invest in the making of a sourdough loaf. An analogy which actually extends our “from convenience-store staple to posh-nosh” theme, because it is also happening in the world of baking…  Just look at how Matthews Cotswold Flour has elevated a bag of the white stuff. Its bags of high-grade flour are selling like proverbial hot-cakes nowadays, partly because of the lockdown-induced baking-boom. Today’s more thoughtful home-cooks are discovering that store-cupboard staples should be about quality and not just quantity and convenience. Anyway, it was in Spain that Mitch began to think about the idea of using a top-quality canning facility to lock in the delights of top-quality English seafood.  He told us: “Tinning fish is such a wonderful way to not only preserve the best of the British and help reduce waste from surplus catches, but to add and infuse extra flavour through oils and sauces. It seemed such a shame that it’s a method we Brits haven’t pursued before.  “With this venture, I wanted to find a way for us to preserve our own fish and carefully manage the process from start to finish - thereby ensuring quality and celebrating the magic of tinned seafood.”  Much of the seafood involved is caught by the restaurant chain’s own The Rockfisher boat, but Mitch also uses catches of other West Country fishermen. Landed at its prime, the seafood is frozen at the Rockfish facilities just 17 metres from Brixham’s quayside to preserve the quality and well-known benefits of fresh fish. It is then transported to a canning facility in Spain where it’s preserved and packaged, before arriving back in Brixham. Sadly, no company in this country seemed to have the necessary expertise when it came to canning in the exacting, artisanal way Mitch required…   “After extensive research we found that we didn’t have the expertise to create a premium, hand-made and artisanal product in the UK,” he explained. “So instead we found a fantastic partner in Spain, with generations of heritage and experience, who can create an authentic product, still showcasing how special and delicious our South West coast fish is. From well-loved sardines to cuttlefish… The latter being hugely popular in Spain and Portugal - but many people don’t realise it can be found off our own coastline.  “With this new British tinned fish range, we’re showing that what we have is worth celebrating and getting people eating more of our seafood. Preserving fish in this way is part of the Rockfish team’s dedication to create a more sustainable way to enjoy seafood, with fishermen often finding themselves with gluts thanks to the seasonal nature fish,” added Mitch.  “Through the tinning process Rockfish can preserve seafood at its peak, reduce food waste, and create something truly delicious which can be enjoyed at any time, in a manner of different ways.” Different ways indeed… Like many readers, I grew up thinking sardines were only ever available in tins that their one and only eventual resting place was on a bed of toast. Indeed, the open sandwich in the photos consists of my own homemade rye sourdough bread made using Matthews Cotswold Flour with a French mustard and creme-creche sauce, cornichons and fresh pickled red onion with Mitch’s amazing Cornish sardines. It was the best sardine sandwich I have ever eaten.  But if you take a look at our panel you will see that Mitch has come up with quite a few other ways of enjoying canned seafood other than eating with a slice of sourdough… Eat straight from the tin, serve with sourdough or crusty bread or try some of these ideas from Mitch Tonks.  Spaghetti with cuttlefish, garlic and sage  Fry a little garlic and a few sage leaves in olive oil, add the tin of cuttlefish including all the juices, and warm through. Add cooked spaghetti and toss through. Finish with a sprinkling of parsley  Cuttlefish on polenta Typically Venetian, make some creamy polenta, spoon onto a plate, warm the cuttlefish and all the juices in a pan, and serve on top. If you don’t have polenta, creamy mash works well too. Tinned mackerel shawarma Shred cabbage, red onion and some green chilli and mix together. Grate garlic into some yoghurt and toss with the vegetables. Lay out a flour tortilla or flat bread, and spread with some hummus, place the cabbage on top, then top with mackerel, a sprinkling of za’atar or cumin, a squeeze of lemon and some pomegranate seeds. Wrap the whole thing up like a shawarma. Mackerel Niçoise One for the summer - take blanched green beans, the first new waxy potatoes, tomatoes, red onion and lettuce tossed in a lemony dressing made with the oil from the tin. Flake the mackerel over the top with some black olives - you could even stick it all in a wrap. Sardine Caesar salad Take some of our anchoïade and massage a tablespoon or two into some chopped romaine lettuce, fold through some tinned sardines then grate Parmesan over the top and sprinkle with croutons. The sardine “Reuben” Take two slices of rye bread, and butter one side of both slices. Mix together some creme fraiche and English mustard with a dash of Worcestershire sauce and spread on the non-buttered side of both slices. On one slice, onto the crème fraiche mixture add the sardines with a good grind of black pepper then layer with red onion, sliced dill pickles, a few capers and a tablespoon or two of sauerkraut. Lay a slice of Swiss cheese on top, then sandwich together with both crème fraiche slides in the middle. Lightly press it all together, warm a frying pan and cook the sandwich on the buttered sides until golden brown.  Sardine Puttanesca Warm some olive oil in a pan from the sardine tin, add garlic, chopped tomatoes, capers, chilli and black olives, and cook until the sauce is thick. Add the sardines, cook for a further minute then add cooked spaghetti and toss together. Sardine Som Tam (you could make this with mussels too) Shred carrots & courgette (or green papaya) into thin juliennes. Thinly slice a red onion and halve a handful of cherry toms and place together in a bowl who a few slices of hot chilli.  Make a dressing from palm sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and a bashed garlic clove or two. Mix the dressing with the salad and add fresh coriander and mint. Either fry the sardines in hot oil until crisp or use straight form the tin but simply fold them through the salad and serve.   Bruschetta with mussel and celery escabeche In a pan warm 50ml of olive oil with 50ml Moscatel (or white wine) vinegar and a few tablespoons of the marinade from the mussel tin. When hot, add a handful of finely sliced onion, some finely sliced celery, and a pinch of dried chilli and remove from the heat. Once cooled, cooled remove the vegetable from the marinade and toss with the mussels, add parsley and served on toasted sourdough with aioli. Tinned mussels, nduja & crispy potatoes  Dice some potatoes about 15mm square. Fry some nduja to release the oils then add the potatoes, add more olive oil if needed, cook unit the potatoes crisp then add the mussels to warm through, add plenty of parsley to finish.

There are many excuses for taking up smoking again, and this is mine… A while ago I wrote an article about Somerset’s excellent Brown and Forrest smoke-house, but then I got to thinking - why should they have all the fun? Strange isn’t it, how different smoke can be? Like millions of non-fag-smokers, I find the wholly unwelcome waft of a cigarette repulsive - but give me a blast of fragrant apple-wood smoke seeping across the garden, and I begin to drool with anticipation.  Smoking food is magical. There is no other way of putting it. The aromatic smoke does something to an item - whether it’s a plan old bulb of garlic or a cured piece of fish - that no other process known to mankind can achieve.  Talking of mankind, I will repeat something I’m always banging on about and that is my increasing certainty that we are really just Stone Age apes walking about the planet filled with default settings which have been hard-wired deep within us through eons of repetition. Because our ancestors cooked food over open fires in smokey caves for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, our deep-seated instincts are programmed to make our nostrils widen and our mouths water when we smell food that has been in smoke. Now, I’m not for a minute suggesting we all turn our backs on first class local smoking-houses - firms like Brown and Forrest need our business and loyalty especially having being hit so badly by this year’s Somerset Floods.  But an occasional waft with some sawdust can be good fun - and, more important than that, the results can knock supermarket produce like the kind of rather greasy smoked salmon we buy in plastic sleeves into a cocked, fire-filled, hat.  I think smoked salmon is the easiest route to go down if you are a first-timer and want to get an instant lottery-winner type buzz of achievement - but in the coming weeks I intend experimenting with smoked streaky bacon, a project I hope to report on here.  Both these things require curing, and in the case of a side of salmon that means an overnight stay in some kind of sealed plastic container in the fridge. The basic cure mix is simply salt and sugar - for a whole salmon flank, about half a kilo of each.  But I’m a busy bloke, I have an already overfilled, not very, large fridge - so I just don’t need all the fuss of dealing with such a large piece of fish. Instead I bought half a whole salmon fillet from a supermarket for £7 and put it in a smaller Tupperware type box complete with the required salt and sugar.  And here’s the rub (if you’ll forgive the pun) - I put whole cumin, coriander and dried dill tips into a spice-blender and also worked the resultant mix into the flanks of the fish.    That was when I’d got home from my travels around six in the evening - and the process took all of three minutes. At midnight just before going to bed, I took the box out of the fridge to find most of the dry ingredients had turned, as I’d expected, into a kind of sweet, aromatic, liquid brine - and I turned the salmon over so the other side of it would be fully submerged.   Mid-morning the next day, I took the salmon out of the mix and washed it thoroughly under a running cold tap, then left it to dry in a fly-proof area, and finally made a hole about three inches from one end, through which I tied a loop of gardener’s string. This is necessary because you need to hang your side of salmon in the smoker for perhaps eight or ten hours, and sometimes the flesh can split and it can fall off the hook simply because of the pull of its own weight.  So much for the preparation, now we get to the glorious fume-filled end of the story. And at this point some people might be thinking that it’s all very well for a person who owns a smoker - how will normal folk, who don’t have such a strange device, do the aromatic business? Well, because we are cold-smoking here, almost any large empty container will do. Years ago when I lived in a big manor house, I used to employ the help of an ancient woodworm-eaten wardrobe in the bottom of which I’d put wood-dust into the stainless steel hub-cap of an even older Rover 90 car. Nowadays I use the amazing Mac BBQ Pro Q, which is a West Country invention I wrote about in these pages a couple of years ago. Basically, it is a large black barbecue, made of steel sleeves that you can place on top of one another to build a kind of cylindrical tower. The beauty of the set-up is that you can barbecue and hot-smoke with exactly the same piece of kit - then cold-smoke in it if you do not require the heat. Check out http://macsbbq.buzzinteractive.co.uk/ . On the same website you can also find various wood-dust products which are the real-deal for cold smoking enthusiasts because the wood involved has been harvested specifically for smoking purposes and there is little or no bark in it.   It’s fairly pricey, so sometimes I make my own. BUT, and it is a big but, I do not use the wood chips created by my chainsaw because the device is well-oiled and you do NOT want any traces of chain-oil in your smoking mix.  If you happen to have a bit of well seasoned oak, beech, pear or apple wood lying around, get out an old, un-oiled, bow-saw and build up your arm muscles by sawing a limb or two over some kind of container to catch the sawdust.  This week, being busy, I made do by grabbing a bag of wood-dust specially produced for smoking from my friends at Hot Smoked - and don’t think its appearance there didn’t make me think just how popular this innocent pastime is becoming… Supermarkets do not flog stuff unless an awful lot of people are interested in buying it.  So there I am, already for the big-smoke. I am fortunate in that I own another Mac’s BBQ product - known as the ProQ Cold Smoke Generator. It is basically a wire mesh square tray that captures the wood-dust in a little spiral “road”. Fill the tray with the wood mix and push a lit child’s-night-light in to the slot provided, and the single tiny flame will light the wood-dust at the beginning of the “road” - this will slowly burn along its spiral way, round-and-round to the middle.  All the mix will have gone up in smoke, depositing its fragrance generously on your food. It should take about eight hours, but be warned - something I’ve learned is that smoking times can vary hugely depending on the wind. I would not attempt smoking in this way on a very windy day - all the fanning of oxygen can cause a tray of wood-dust to burn away in just a couple of hours.   Also avoid heat-waves - the Mac BBQ Pro Q is black and the temperature can build to unhealthy levels just with the sunlight hitting its sides.   Now, just before we put the lid on and walk away to leave our salmon turning terracotta orange and delicious - it is worth asking if there might be one or two other products to hand that you could bung in, just for the smokey pleasure. And, believe me, there always are. I never get my smoker going without insertinh a large chunk of plain cheddar cheese and a pat of butter.  Place these in tin-foil “dishes” you’ve made specially to size - and please do always throw in a few whole garlic bulbs, which smoke beautifully. The cold-smoked process won’t melt either dairy product - and in a few days time, when you are fed up with eating cold salmon, you can always add it to a warm pasta dish… Chop up any smoked salmon you have left over and fold it in with the cooked pasta along with a knob of smoked butter, a dribble of cream and a fistful of garden herbs. This is a ten-minute lunch you will find hard to beat, no matter how long someone’s spent over a smokey stove.

La Palma is one of the most beautiful islands in all of greater Europe - what a terrible shame it is in such trouble now… I took these photos a while ago in exactly the place where the volcanic action is occurring now. The main town of Santa Cruz de la Palma is a charming place - we can only hoe it remains untouched by the volcanic action.