Keen walking types will know all about Munroes - they're British hills, mountains and peaks that manage to haul themselves more than 3,000 feet above sea-level. The collective name comes from one Sir Hector Munro who compiled the first catalogue of more than 280 such elevations in the early 1900's. Climbing and hiking enthusiasts go mad attempting to 'bag' all the Munroes, often turning mild eagerness into wild passion during the quest. But the big peaks are all far to the north of the West Country - not a single grain of South West soil comes anywhere close to the rarefied altitude of 3,000 feet. However, I don't see why we should be excluded from all the fun. We have big hills - mighty eminences that can be seen from Devon-pillar to Cornish-post - and I can think of nothing better than to collect these colossi. I've notched up another mount on my list of great West Country hillocks. Godolphin Hill is as fine a mound as any. It is perfectly formed - being almost completely dome-shape. It rises high among lowlands (unlike most of those Scottish Munroes which have lofty brothers and sisters to contend with). And it is relatively close to two different seas so you get salty, fabulous views of both the English Channel and the Atlantic at its remarkable summit. Added to this, it is owned by the National Trust, so you can wander about its airy, springy, peaty heaths where'er you will. The Trust hasn't owned the big estate at Godolphin for long, and is still in the process of consolidating its new holding. For instance, some excellent new literature is at present on its way to the printers, and it will go a long way to explaining Godolphin's long and fascinating history. In the meantime there is a shorter leaflet which will help you get around the place and enjoy the numerous walks which stretch from riverside woodlands to craggy downs. Having completely misread this leaflet's map, my exploration of the estate started sort of head-over-heals. The pictorial diagram is printed so that north points towards the bottom of the page - which always confuses a dullard like me. And so I found myself near the Leeds Shaft chimney of the Great Work Mine rather than at the twin car parks near Godolphin House. You'll find the perpendicular industrial relic on the shoulder of land between Godolphin and Tregonning Hills (I know I said Godolphin is set amidst lowlands - and it is - with the one exception of this neighbouring southerly spur) which you can reach by taking the lane that leads up to the watershed from the village of Godolphin Cross (about three-and-a-half-miles north-west of Helston). At the top of the lane the National Trust has built a car park adjacent to the massive chimney and engine house. It doesn't really matter which direction you approach Godolphin Hill from, you are guaranteed a good walk and here - at wonderfully named Mount Whistle - you are closest to the summit. Before walking a few yards up the Millpool lane to find the footpath, I took a quick look at the engine house. The Trust has cleared the scrub so that you can explore the place, but don't go if you're frightened of big black holes. At the foot of the chimney there is a bottomless pit leading to Hell I should think, thankfully capped by a heavy-duty grating so that you can peer into the void without fear of falling in. The traveller John Leland was impressed by this mine when he visited in 1538 - he wrote: "There are no greater Tynne (tin) works yn al Cornwall than be on Sir William Godolcan's ground." Apparently Leland wasn't exaggerating - two centuries later people were still recording the fact that this was the most productive tin mine in the county. The Leeds Shaft engine house, built in 1829 to house a 60-inch pumping engine, is the last remnant of the workings. The place eventually closed in the 1890's, but was briefly reopened for an unsuccessful bout of grubbing about in the 1930's. The spelling Godolcan (or Godolghan) was used way back in the 12th century when the family took their name from the place where they'd built their manor. "Through mineral wealth, land expansion and judicious marriages the Godolghans gradually secured their position as one of the foremost families in Cornwall," explains the yet-to-be printed Trust leaflet. Having met their Lordships, let us enter what was once their private demesne. The footpath heads north towards Godolphin Hill between a productive looking leek field and a yard full of junk. Somehow, I don't mind junk - it's all part of the charm of some parts of the countryside - and certainly this corner of Cornwall. You get the feeling that the people around here are farmers and flower growers rather than tourism providers. We gain access to the moorland by crossing an ancient granite stile. Paths shoot off in all directions, but it was cold and I was in a hurry to make a beeline to the top. Be warned - the footpath that heads due north towards the summit will take you there, but it does switch and turn so that, occasionally, you are tempted to take one of the smaller paths that looks more determined in its upward course. Don't. You'll be lead on a wild and brambly goose-chase. Stick with the bendy one, and it'll get you to Godolphin's summit eventually. And what a worthwhile climb it is. You can see almost all of West Cornwall - from the giant dishes of Goonhilly Down to the south, right around the coast to St Michael's Mount five miles distant, and beyond to Penzance in the west. There's an excellent panorama of the moors of Penwith and these lead up to distant St Ives where our view of the north coast begins - stretching past Hayle and its Towans all the way to St Agnes Beacon and Carn Brea. A path took me north-east, down from the summit to a wood-lined lane called The Slips, which in turn took me to the edge of the garden at Godolphin House. This is still owned by the Schofield family (who sold the rest of the 550 acre estate to the Trust) and the place was covered head-to-foot in scaffold as I walked by. But I believe the house is sometimes open to the public (tel: 01736 763194 for details) and is reckoned to be "easily the largest and grandest house in 17th century Cornwall," according to the Trust leaflet. The land continues to descend north, down through woods to the River Hayle and, as much of this is owned by the Trust and riddled with footpaths and interest, I shall return again. But, time was pressing, so I turned west along a track called Vane's Lane which skirted the hill to the west until I reached another path on the left - which returned me, along the side of a field, up to the moorland part of the hill. Now it was simply a matter of turning right and following the perimeter path around the western base of the great cone, back to the ancient granite stile. Godolphin Hill might not be 3,000 feet - in fact it's only a humble 517 - but it's well worth climbing. Fact File Basic hike: from Leeds Shaft of the Great Work Mine (three miles north of the A394 Helston-Marazion road) up Godolphin Hill, then onwards to Godolphin House - to return via footpaths around western flank of the hill. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 102 (Land's End) - or National Trust Leaflets (extensive updated version available soon). Distance and Going: Three-and-half miles easy going.

Following the last hike I managed to find an old newspaper walk that I wrote more than 20 years ago which includes the area west of Lamorna Cove. Here it is… We walked west as far as St Loy from Lamorna Cove and turned up onto the hills so that we could find a stone circle where we could watch the suns going down. That's right - suns. Two of them dipped towards the great, vast illuminated void of the Atlantic Ocean and I said to my friend Bins: "Who needs an eclipse when you can watch double-sunsets in Cornwall?" The whole of England's most far-flung peninsula was bathed in light to the extent that even our chins and my long nose cast no shadow - so brilliant and all-embracing was the glow of these twin orbs. We were standing amidst the standing stones of the Merry Maidens watching this cosmic phenomenon with incredulity when a band of hippies galloped up on two horse-drawn carts. As they had arrived with their backs to the suns we pointed out this somewhat miraculous occurrence and were instantly repaid by a chorus of 'wows' and 'far-outs' from all but one of this merry gang. The unsmiling exception - a tall, emaciated youth who looked as if he'd be more at home on University Challenge than galloping across the rocky downs of Penwith behind a pair of unshorn horses - stroked his wisp of a beard and said: "Interesting. Rather a rare meteorological phenomenon commonly known as a 'sun-dog'. And, in case my trusting readers thought I had finally lost my few remaining marbles, I am glad to report that the wayward young boffin was right. I phoned the Met. Office's enquiries desk at Bracknell and the knowledgeable chap there informed me: "Parhelia - otherwise known as a sun-dog. Quite rare, noteworthy at the very least. "It happens when there's a very high layer of ice-crystals which causes the light to bend. Then you can get a halo and, more rarely, a mock sun or even two - to the left (as ours was), right, both sides or even above the real sun." So there you have it. Although this extraordinary apparition caused me to have a bolstering snifter later that evening in Zennor's Tinners Arms, I hope that you will now believe that not a drop had passed my lips before I saw the twin-suns. Indeed I had been doing a good deal of driving and little else because that's what it takes to get from almost anywhere to Lamorna Cove... Ah, Lamorna Cove. Even the name is worth repeating and in the shadowy silence of a sunlit evening it's as romantic a place as any to be found along our rocky coasts. Not that it was in the least bit romantic last time I visited its granite strewn shore. My daughter Nancy had just learned to walk and, in that contrary way typical of children, she insisted on clambering along the path under her own steam rather than riding in that well known object of parental torture - the back-pack. Her mother still has nightmares about Nancy teetering along this path which, for the first half-mile or so, is riddled with unexpected abysses and sudden, vertical drops. And so it was with particular ease that I strode out west of Lamorna on the evening of the two suns with my family tucked up safely at home and only my pal Bins to worry about as he cantered off like some wily old goat in the general direction of Zawn Gamper. Zawn Gamper just happens to be a cove along the way, but I have a weakness for places with weird names. This one sounds a bit like some half-boiled psycho in a second-rate backwoods horror movie. Anyway, it's a lovely enough place and you get to it by walking up out of the shadowy setting of Lamorna Cove, along the sunny headlands of Rosemodress Cliffs, past Carn Barges, Gazell, Tol Toft and Tater-du. The names won't mean anything to anyone except the lobster-pot fishermen who work along here, but like I say, I just can't resist them. Indeed I can't resist this fabulous hike. As for Bins he couldn't resist a word or two with some American girls who were 'doing' the peninsula from St Ives around to Penzance. They complained that this south coast was too "bitty" and they much preferred the bolder, emptier northern cliffs past Zennor and St Just. Once I would have agreed, but now I'm not so sure. There is something Du Maurier-esque or even Secret Seven about this stretch, as if the most natural thing in the world along here would be to stumble across a French-speaking pirate bidding a secret and passionate adieu to the lady of the manor, or perhaps a Nazi spy counting the hours until darkness would cloak his escape in a U-boat. This is especially feasible when you get to St Loy's Cove where there are a couple of remote houses - one watching over the sea as bold as brass, the other lurking in the woods in a clandestine sort of way. A footpath climbs up through these woods and along this you must go to reach the B 3315 which will take you back east. I'm sorry about this road bit, but if you really don't want to be on the tarmac there is a zig-zag route on a footpath across the fields from Boskenna Cross to Boscowen Rose and then up to the ancient stone circle known as the Merry Maidens. For us it was getting late and, having spotted the twin-suns sinking fast we wanted to hop along to the sepulchral stones which seemed the perfect place to soak up an atmosphere which seemed half Camelot, half X-File. So rich is this corner in ancient remains that within just a stone's throw there's a 4,000 year old stone grave on the grass verge of the road and two enormous monoliths called The Pipers looking ominous and vibrant with hidden meaning in the next field - not to mention what must be one of the finest stone circles in the country. We were soaking up all this ancient rune meets cosmic-happening type stuff when the hippies arrived on their horse-drawn traps and wandered about in their robes wafting scents of wood-smoke and horse in the warm evening breeze. There was something rather beautiful and alluring about them and my youth-yearning, middle-aged bones wanted to stay up there on the hill in the hopes that some of their carefree existence would rub off on my own, but instead we turned down the cool leafy lane that leads back to Lamorna so that we could reach Zennor in time for a bracing drink. After all, it's not every night that a chap sees double before the sun goes down. We stayed in the are with Classic Cottages

Here's a hike that's been enjoyed by many thousands of people down the centuries. It's a bit of a tradition, the walk from Mousehole to Lamorna Cove, the origins of which have been lost in the mists of time... Fact File Basic hike: Mousehole to Lamorna Cove via Coast Path and back across the fields. Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 102 (Land's End). Distance and going: five miles, up and down a bit, muddy in many places. We stayed with Classic Cottages at the following property https://www.classic.co.uk/holiday-cottage/desc-4608.html "When I was a boy dozens and dozens of people would do the walk on a Good Friday," I was told by Douglas Williams, the man who knows more about the distant south west corner of Cornwall than anyone else. "And before that it was hundreds and hundreds. "The people of Mousehole and Newlyn mainly - a few from Penzance - would walk out to Lamorna. Why? I don't think anyone really knows. It was just a tradition. What did we do when we got there? Nothing much. Sit down and a have a lemonade. I think it may have had something do with going out to see all the flowers. You know, Lamorna is in a very sheltered spot and you get any number of primroses and daffodils down there in the valley. "It was a young people's do really, although parents might go along as well - making it a thing for all the family," remembers Douglas. "But it's all come to an end now. I'm not sure anyone does it any more - I think it may have dwindled when bikers and the like started turning up and being noisy. Maybe there were one or two incidents. But the people from Newlyn would have to pass my house and I don't think I've seen any doing the Good Friday walk for years." Time to revitalise tradition then. Let's re-inaugurate the old Lamorna walk. I can think of nothing more civilised and altogether pleasant than a mass migration to somewhere so utterly beautiful. Douglas told me that the walkers of yesteryear wouldn't necessarily take the Coast Path - they'd get to Lamorna anyway they could. And, as there are several options, I've made this a circular hike. Moreover, I start in Mousehole - not because I'm lazy - but because the Newlyn route takes you along the road, which isn't much fun, especially on a Bank Holiday. At Mousehole we parked on the quay - which I imagine will be mission impossible from this weekend onwards - there were only three other cars parked in the pouring rain and the famous little fishing port was as empty as it will ever be. St Clement's Isle, Mousehole's own ship-wrecking reef, looked particularly black, grim and dangerous just a few hundred yards offshore. Staring at the surf that surged around it, I recalled a tale once told me by the port's harbour master, Frank Wallace. It was to do with the wrecking of the Thames sailing barge Baltic in November 1907. Apparently the beleaguered crew set fire to paraffin-soaked mattresses to alert the coastguard of their plight. Half-a-dozen brave Mousehole men hauled a fishing boat into the wild seas so they could cross to the island and, after five attempts to land, they were able to save three men and two women from the stricken ship... "One of those rescued men was my cousin's father," said Frank. "He came ashore, stayed and married the harbour master's daughter. I'm harbour master now and I've got three daughters. They're all married - but for years I wondered if there'd be a ship-wrecked sailor coming off St Clement's. "Yes, I remember doing the Good Friday walk," sighed Frank when I asked him about it. "So many did it - the hill would go black with people. And when you got there there'd be stalls all over the place - a real fairground atmosphere. Trouble was, at this time of year you could never be sure of the weather. I can remember taking my wife and daughters round there in the snow." NOTE: I have done this walk several times including just a week or two ago - and I must say a lot of the undergrowth around the tops of the cliffs really has grown at an alarming rate. The path is not in a good state either - but it’s still a truly wonderful hike. I wrote the following account of the walk some 20 years ago… It was far from snowing when we climbed the hill out of town. A heavy drizzle hissed at us on a breeze so mild that we began to regret having to wear our billowing waterproofs. Good growing weather, I should say. In fact I know it must have been because we were treated to any number of flowers throughout the walk - flowers that won't be popping their heads out on my native heath for a month or more. The road veers inland just above Point Spaniard, and this is where the Coast Path begins its trudge south in earnest. Basically this is a saunter among the quinells. Quinells? Well, I think that's what the little fields are called. We've seen them time and again along the south coast from Lyme Regis to Land's End - the miniature, cliff-hugging, paddocks that were once groaning with new potatoes, beans and other early edibles, not to mention swathes of flowers. The Corsican and Monterey Pines along here took one hell of a beating during a mighty storm in the early 1990's, and 90 percent of the trees were blown down. The Cornish Wildlife Trust is now busy making sense of this marvellous, tangled, place. NOTE 2: Be warned that when we walked along this section recently we were attacked by the most angry hit-squad of angry wasps it’s ever been my displeasure to encounter. Several other walkers on the coast path had been stung by these really aggressive insects. In 25 years of walks-writing I have never experienced such a thing before. They had made a nest in a hole an inch or two from the coast path, which at this point is surrounded by impenetrable thickets of gorse on either side. As I walked past thousands of the little blighters spewed upward out of the two inch wide hole like so many sparks firing out of a large Roman Candle firework. I was stung three times on the arm - and my friends ran one way while I legged it on towards Lamorna. It took them ages and a long detour to catch up with me.. At last we came to Carn-du, which is the ragged headland that turns the corner into Lamorna Cove, and we sat there for a while watching trawlers setting out to sea. The conditions were so wild that they regularly disappeared in the enormous troughs between the waves. It was difficult to imagine thousands of Good Friday hikers milling around stalls as we walked into Lamorna, there was not a soul in sight, but perhaps this article might inspire one or two of you to take up the old tradition again. In the meantime we must get you back: it's simply a matter of climbing north out of the cove, following the footpath to Kemyel Wartha, and beyond past Kemyel Crease and on again past Kemyel Drea. These are farms and at the latter you pass right through the milking yard, which comes as a bit of a surprise both for walker and for cow. But soon you are deposited back on the road above Point Spaniard - having enjoyed what I promise is the perfect, traditional, coastal, hike on a Good Friday or at any other time of the year…

There’s been a lot of talk in the regional news over the past few days about the Tamar Bridge and it’s 60th anniversary. Well, here’s the article I wrote for the Western Morning News a decade ago when the famous bridge had knocked up half a century… We tend to take a lot in life for granted, even impressive man-made structures eventually pale into the background – but imagine if something important like a big bridge suddenly disappeared… The Tamar Bridge, for example, has being doing sterling work for 50 long years this month – yet most of us give it hardly a thought and even moan about the occasional traffic queue we may encounter on the vital Devon-Cornwall link. But can you imagine what the queues for the Torpoint ferries would be like if there was no bridge? Can you envisage what it would be like to drive all the way to the next nearest Tamar crossing at Gunnislake along narrow roads? Not likely… Which is why all West Country dwellers should be celebrating the bridge’s half-century anniversary later this month. It was on October 24 1961 that the late Queen Mother officially opened the big span which, at the time, was the longest suspension bridge in the UK.  Since then countless millions have made the crossing. To give some idea of the numbers, present monthly traffic averages at around 650,000 each way – which works out at around 16 million crossings a year. Or to put it another way - it’s estimated that of the longest-serving toll collectors working in the booths located on the Devon bank has personally taken 10 million tolls in the last 20 years. Not that any of these staggering statistics regarding tolls is making anyone rich – the Tamar Bridge is publicly owned and all monies collected are spent on maintenance, upkeep and the occasional improvement.  Most readers will know that a major example of the latter was carried out in 2002 when the bridge was strengthened and widened to carry five lanes rather than three.  Far from taking the bridge for granted, we decided to take a long hard look at the vital link in the run-up to the 50th anniversary celebrations which will culminate in a special ceremony on 6 December when HRH the Princess Royal will revisit the structure having reopened it after the widening work. The first thing to say about our visit is that climbing to the top of the bridge’s 200-foot towers is a breathtaking thing to do – both in the number of ladder steps climbed and in terms of the amazing views you get at the top. But before we went aloft we met David List, who is general manager of both the Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferries – a combined job which is the only one of its kind in the UK. “There’d been proposals for a bridge since the 1920s,” said Mr List when we met in the Tamar crossing offices situated on the Devon bank next to the bridge. “After the War talks started again and the two authorities either side of the river - Cornwall County Council and Plymouth City Council - promoted the idea of a bridge. They lobbied government without success, but by 1955 they were saying: ‘Right we’ll go our own way and build it ourselves’. “The first process was to get the Tamar Bridge Act through parliament because you need more than planning permission to put a toll bridge up. Obviously you’ve got to have the landfall each side, and the approaches - you’ve got to cross the river which is invariably owned by somebody - in this case the Duchy of Cornwall and we actually pay them a small rent for using the airspace above - and then you need power to take money off people because it’s a public highway.  “So what you need is primary legislation,” Mr List went on. “The Tamar Bridge Act got Royal Assent in 1957. It is a very carefully worded piece of legislation because it is a public facility - it controls us and what we do. We can’t take loads of money off people then use it for Plymouth schools, or Cornwall social services or whatever… That money can only be used to operate maintain and improve the bridge and the ferry.  “Because the Torpoint Ferry was then in Cornish hands the decision was made to combine management of the ferries and the bridge - both are in public ownership so it makes sense that the tolls, traffic management and everything are kept in one place.  “Tragically, seven people died in building the bridge. There was a boating accident and five lives were lost in that - and two other people died on the project. In those days it wasn’t that unusual I’m afraid. Today it would be very tragic and unusual for someone to die on such a project. But if you look at the photos of the construction, people were just sitting on beams with no harnesses or anything.  “The bridge itself is a steel structure - there’s a truss which stiffens the section that carries the vehicle deck. A suspension bridge works on a washing line principle - the suspension cables are the washing line, the deck and road is like the washing - and the hangers down from the cables are like the pegs. “A rope suspension bridge wobbles - you have to stiffen your bridge for traffic - and that’s what the truss does. It spreads the load so one peg isn’t taking all the weight - and also makes it stiff enough. This bridge has a relatively deep truss.  “I think all trainee engineers have seen the video of the Tacoma Bridge which goes into a sort of galloping resonance in high winds,” said Mr List referring to the infamous events which overtook the span in Washington State. “There is a view that our truss is particularly deep and stiff as a reaction to that incident - so ours is not the most slender suspension bridge.  “This is an exposed structure but because our span is relatively short high winds are not a big issue for us,” he added. “Also our prevailing wind is the south westerly and we’ve got a nice railway bridge here which baffles the worst of that.” Looking back over the 50 year life of the bridge Mr List told me: “To begin with the crossing wasn’t cheap. Four shillings and sixpence - which is 22.5 pence today - that was a hell of a lot of money in 1961. The crossing is only 75 pence now for the discounted toll.” He also talked about the strengthening and widening work: “Europe said all member states had to look at major highways and if there were any structures they had to handle European standard traffic into the future which includes vehicles up to 40 tonnes. “On structures and highways it’s the big trucks that do all the damage. The cumulative damage can be to the power of four of the weight of the axles - so 10 times the axle weight – that’s 10,000 times the effect on the steel. One large truck can do the damage of 10,000 car axles.  “When an assessment was done of our bridge there was some good news - the towers and main cables were in good shape - but the problem was the deck was relatively weak and some areas of the truss needed strengthening. So if you’ve got to change the deck where all the traffic goes you’ve got a big problem - how do we take the traffic off there to do the improvements? So that’s why the cantilevers were added - the initial thought was that they would be the diversion - but they subsequently decided it wouldn’t cost much more to make those permanent and add capacity for good. “It’s the first time a bridge has been strengthened and widened and open to the traffic at the same time. We did win a world first for that and got a lot of accolades like the British Construction Industry Award for that year.  “When I first came here in 1997 you regularly had traffic queuing back beyond the tunnel,” said Mr List. “Recently we’ve had congestion again with the resurfacing because we’re down to the old number of traffic lanes - just three - and that’s what happens. We are only resurfacing the Plymouth side span - this is where the heavy goods vehicles are approaching the toll plaza and the slower they go the more damage they do.” Mr List also talked about the payment systems which had been used: “We had prepaid vouchers from the beginning - we only phased that out in 2007 - it’s always been a case of prepaying gets a better deal. Here’s it’s been up to 75 per cent discount over the years - usually around 50 per cent - which is the highest anyone gives in the country. “We are trying to get people through the booths quickly and a voucher is better for that than money. So front-up with the toll in advance and you get a cheaper crossing.  “When we strengthened and widened the bridge we added capacity for traffic, but the toll booths became the bottleneck so that was the catalyst for the new TamarTag electronic toll system. You attach a transponder to the vehicle in the right place so it can be read easily. The roadside equipment talks to it - checks its ID with the records in the office - is it the right bridge for instance or is it a Dartford tag? The barrier goes up, vehicle departs and the tag is told, ‘I’ve taken a toll off you’. If you get to a certain threshold there will be a warning saying low balance. People can buy on the internet or over the phone. “The limit we were hitting with manual tolling was about 500 vehicles an hour - with the tag systems we can get 700 to 800 an hour. In the morning rush hour there will be typically four or five cars waiting for each toll booth - every morning without fail it used to be back across the bridge and often into the tunnel. We now have over 84,000 tags out there which puts us ahead of all other operators except Dartford. “The limit we were hitting with manual tolling was about 500 vehicles an hour - with the tag systems we can get 700 to 800 an hour. In the morning rush hour there will be usually four cars waiting for each toll booth - every morning without fail it used to be back into the tunnel. “The bridge should be here for well over another century because at the time of strengthening and widening we had an estimated 120 year life. The Brunel Bridge has outlasted that and it was built without the same control standards we have,” said Mr List talking of the bridge’s future.  “Our paint isn’t perfect and we have to do a full re-coat of the bridge in the next five years which is going to be expensive. It’s the kind of work the tolls are paying for.” At this point we were joined by Mike Pender, one of two bridge operations managers, who’s worked on the bridge for over 25 years – and it is a poignant fact that Mr Pender’s father was one of the seven people who died during the building of the big span…  “I’ve thought about my father working here – it is very poignant, but me being here is a pure coincidence,” he said, explaining that he literally walked into the job while working for a security firm after police had uncovered a massive fraud operation concerning the tolls.   “I’m basically in charge of the day to day running of the bridge,” said Mr Pender. “We’ve got six toll booths and seven lanes of traffic. In the main bridge control room we’ve always got a duty supervisor and they are helped in the busier period by a control room assistant. The control room is in use 24 hours a day so we need a team of five supervisors and three assistants to cover. We have contracted toll collection staff – they are currently provided by OCS.  “I was here in 1986 when they were constructing the Saltash Tunnel and that made a big difference,” added Mr Pender who has put together a scrap book containing press clippings about the bridge.  “In the old days there were only two cameras - it was just a case of controlling the three lanes of traffic with a dial switch. Now it’s a lot more complicated,” he said, showing us the high-tech control room which overlooks the bridge.  And it was onto the bridge we went next in the company of engineering manager Richard Cole. It was he who fitted photographer Steve Hayward and me with harnesses so we could climb the tower on the Plymouth side.  “We’re going up 75 metres – that’s over 200 feet from the water level. We come up here regularly to inspect the structure,” he said as we climbed a series of ladders inside the tower. “The cables are important - we regularly inspect them and also the hangers which we and contractors abseil down in a bosun’s chair.  “You get used to it,” said Mr Cole as we looked down into the watery abyss. “The main cable is about a foot wide and it has anti-slip paint which is important - and we clip on so we’ve always got two points of contact. It gets pretty windy. It does get to a state where it gets uncomfortable - you will feel the tower is moving – so we have maximum wind speeds for that type of work.” It occasionally felt like the tower moving as large trucks passed by below – and nothing, not even a royal edict, would persuade me to step out onto the narrow cables which Mr Cole has to inspect on a regular basis.  But what I could see from the lofty vantage point is that the Tamar Bridge is a very impressive structure indeed – and never again will I pass over it and take a single nut or bolt of it for granted… Tamar Bridge Fact File Main span is 335 metres between the two towers.  The side spans between towers and the land are 114 metres long making the bridge a total of 642 metres long. The towers are constructed from reinforced concrete rather than steel and rise from the caisson foundations to a height of 73 metres.  The tower walls are 0.6 metres thick and taper inwards as they rise. The caisson foundations were founded on rock at an average depth of 13 metres below ordnance datum. The main road deck is suspended at approximately the mid-height of the towers, 37m.  The two main cables are each 350mm in diameter and each comprises 31 galvanised coil wire ropes 65mm in diameter. The locked coil ropes are each made from approximately 120 individual wires.  Each of the 31 ropes weighs 14 tonnes and is approximately 670 metres in length.  The coil ropes are connected to steel rods which are embedded in the concrete anchorages 16 metres into the rock. The total weight of the two main cables is approximately 850 tonnes. The roadway was suspended from the main cables using 120 separate locked coil wire hanger ropes, 60 to each cable and spaced at 9.1 metre centres. The road deck is supported by a steel stiffening truss constructed in sections each weighing approximately 80 tonnes, with a total weight approaching 3000 tonnes. The recent strengthening and widening work added two new cantilever lanes, 18 additional wire ropes and additional steel strengthening plates.  The original suspended weight of the Tamar Bridge was 7900 tonnes. The current structure now weighs 7925 tonnes despite the addition of new lanes, cables and strengthening.  In the year 2010 approximately 16 million vehicles crossed the bridge.

If there is one thing an ever-changing world can demonstrate, it is that even the most commonplace jobs we do everyday on autopilot can often be improved upon. From the way we brush our teeth in the morning, to the way in which we prepare our bed for sleep at night, almost all our undertakings can be upgraded with a little extra know-how, a bit of modern technology or a new technique. When it comes to food and drink, nothing - no single simple task - is as open to improvement quite as much as the act of making a cup of coffee. Until this week I’d never have dreamed of saying such a thing. But that was before I joined a barista training class staged by one of the country’s leading organic coffee companies. Now, after my visit to Owen’s Coffee in Devon, I make the claim because I know a thousand percent more about making coffee than I did before my visit to the company’s state-of-the-art headquarters just off the A38 dual-carriageway near Ivybridge. The new building, close to the well-known Endsleigh Garden Centre, includes an all-important roastery, but also features a training centre where anyone - from an amateur like me to professional caterers - can learn how to make a perfect cup of coffee. I’ll put my (lack of) credentials on the table because I know quite a few people whose coffee habit more-or-less matches my own. I’m talking about the sort of person who loves good coffee, but who - for various reasons - limits their consumption to just one or two cups a day. The self-imposed rationing means they want that cuppa to be the very best it can be.  I haven’t tasted instant coffee in decades - ever since I learned to use what’s known as a mocha-pot in Italy. And because of the connection, I have purchased the same brand of Italian ground coffee for the best part of 40 years. That regime came to an end this week. The mocha-pot will stay, but I’ll now buy Owens coffee and the way I go about preparing my daily shot will change.   That’s partly because in recent times I’ve begun to find my coffee tasted a little bitter and astringent.  I realised the reasons why during my barista-training session - and learned how to make a more rounded and delicious cuppa that does not have any ashy, tarry, undertones.  Owens’ head barista trainer, the informative and personable Jenny McDonough, took me through the procedure on the sort of £6,000 espresso machine you will see in good coffee shops. The underlying principles remain the same no matter which technique you are using, so it all comes down to the type of coffee you are using, how the beans have been roasted (and their all-important degree of freshness), the grind-quality, the tamping procedure, the bar pressure of hot water, the length of time the flow takes to pass through the coffee and the proper way to “stretch” (or aerate) the milk.  And, by the way, Owens like to use the sort of milk I know many readers prefer - by which I mean proper full fat cow’s milk produced in Cornwall by Trewithen Dairy.  We do not have room to go through the entire procedure, but here is part of the process which I found particularly fascinating, because it shows just how fine an art proper coffee-making is. Having clamped a well tamped container of Owens Coffee into the machine, Jenny used three clear glasses so that she could demonstrate to us the very different flavours which the 20-second process of blasting hot water at nine-bar of pressure through the tamped coffee can produce. The first glass captured the first five second’s worth of flow and was light in colour compared to the next ten second delivery. Last came a third glass in which Jenny captured the final five second’s of flow.     Using teaspoons we tasted all three - the first was not so flavoursome and just a little bit bitter, the second main shot was deep, nutty and fruity in flavour, and the third was highlighted by a noticeable bitterness.  As Jenny told us, the combination of these three parts of the flow create the perfect espresso - a short strong form of coffee which requires complex layers of flavour. She also explained that the professional machines will make the classic “flat-white” (so popular nowadays) without the third part of the flow adding the deeper darker undertones.  So much for the training session - if you love coffee I’d highly recommend booking a visit to Owens…  But what of the company itself? How was it that a female scientist, and her husband who had a successful career in the tourism and leisure industry, changed tack to start roasting coffee beans?   Lorraine and Tim Bridden were joined by their marketing manager Liz Orgill as we sat down over the inevitable cup of coffee for a chat.  “Owens was set up in 2010 - we purchased the assets of a start up created by an American lady who lived in Modbury, which is where the name came from,” explained Lorraine, who began her working life as a microbiologist. “She did it because, being American, she was used to being able to get good coffee from a local roastery, and she couldn’t do that here. However, for various reasons she had to move back to America. I took over and started to roast. “We started going to local markets and letting people taste the products and building a pool of customers. Then, in 2018, we were getting far too big and we developed this bespoke unit in Ivybridge, and moved over.”  So why would a scientist suddenly want to become a coffee roaster?  “It’s all about the process,” Lorraine replied. “I am quite structured in my approach and it is about making sure I get the right profiles developed to make a fantastic coffee and creating a consistent product. That is where the science comes in because you need processes, you need to be able to quality-control to make a consistent product. For example, if you can’t get hold of a certain origin of coffee beans, you need to be able to match from other origins to get the same flavour profile.”  The business quickly flourished… “We were ahead of our time, especially in this region” Lorraine says. “Serious coffee-drinking was taking off in London and Bristol, but not really down here. And we’ve always roasted our own beans - we’ve done that from day one and built the business out of that - so we know our stuff.”  Tim added: “We came into it being fairly naive. Like a lot of industries, when you start scratching the surface you realise there’s a lot more to it. One of the things we did not inherit was a good espresso coffee - and you need that to be able to go to the hospitality trade. Lorraine managed to produce a really good espresso - called Bantham. “Most of it was self-taught,” smiled Lorraine. “I had some training, but really it was a case of learning myself first, then getting professionals to advise. That’s good because then you know what to ask. The importers of organic coffee helped us get the right product from the start. You are dealing with quality graders - people you put a lot of faith in. They’re the ones who go to farmers to make sure what we are getting home here is the right product.” Tim explained: “The coffee we use comes from all over the world - then we produce a blend, which is a recipe effectively. Coffee beans are an agricultural product and vary from farm to farm, country to country, and they are influenced by the weather - so you need to get conformity throughout your range. To do that you need to be able to tweak and adjust the type of beans, and the way you are roasting them, to maintain that flavour. That is why our beans are coming from Africa, South America, Indonesia.”  “It’s been a steep learning curve,” said Lorraine. “And we’ve always been organic. We were in Modbury, home of the ban on the plastic shopping bag - so it seemed like the right thing to do. It was about wanting a sustainable business from day one. It is our USP.  “And we know Fair Trade is making a difference. The Fair Trade money goes into entire community structures and so on, which you can’t do on your own.  “Added to that we know our product hasn’t travelled too far,” said Tim. “A lot of coffee travels around the world a couple of times before it reaches a cup. If we buy some coffee from a farm in Rwanda, we know it comes directly from that farm. We have a contact who is a refugee from Rwanda and he set up the whole thing with his family there. We know the people, and they are getting a very good price for their product. We think customers will increasingly want to buy coffee which has that kind of story.” “We are importing a raw product, so it’s not like wine which is made at origin,” added Lorraine, who explained the company had invested in one of the best coffee roasting machines on the market. “With coffee, the product is made only once it’s been roasted. When it’s in the raw form it can last in the right conditions for a year or more - but once it’s been roasted it’s fresh produce, so being aware of the roast date is very important.” As for the trade customer base, Tim told me there’d been a proliferation of people wanting to open coffee shops in recent years. “We get about four or five calls a week from people who say they are planning to set up a coffee shop.”  “We become part of their business,” explained Lorraine. “With coffee, you need to be trained - you need to understand the product and what it should taste like - so having that relationship is key. We get involved and become part of their business - so if they do well, we do well.” Some of Owens’ excellent reputation came from the fact that the product was named the UK’s Best Organic Coffee a couple of years ago by the Soil Association. The company now also blends award winning teas and has seen its Devonshire Tea become hugely popular in recent years. Owens Coffee HQ is open Monday to Saturday - you can pop in to buy a cup or a bag of coffee, or tea or book to attend one of the popular training sessions.  Just be warned that if you do you might find yourself changing the way you’ve been making coffee for years - which in my case has turned out to be a very good thing indeed.

If there’s been one form of social gathering which has really been gaining momentum over the past decade it is the food festival - a type of event which, needless to say, has take a major knock-back over the last couple of years… But, as the pandemic hopefully lessens its grip on our lives, the increasingly popular get-togethers are coming back with a vengeance.  Indeed, the general feeling is that the classic food and drink festival will be more popular than ever - simply because so many of us spent so much of our socially-isolated weeks and months honing culinary skills and falling even more deeply in love with the idea of eating good food.  Next weekend marks the comeback of one of the region’s most popular culinary events - the annual Dartmouth Food Festival which has been punching way above the weight that could be expected of one small Devon estuarine town for nearly 20 years. Despite having a population of fewer than 7000 people, Dartmouth is in the premier league of annual West Country food festivals attracting well over 20,000 every October. Here’s how the organisers describe the event… “Having grown from humble beginnings in 2002 into a first class feast of entertainment featuring workshops, seminars, tastings, competitions, demonstrations and over 120 hand-picked exhibitors (70% of which are from Devon), it truly is the very best that the South West has to offer.” One national newspaper described Dartmouth Food Festival as a “heady mix of celebrity chefs, parties, food markets, tasting shacks and demonstrations.” “What gives us extra stand out is the fact that we’re a free festival,” a spokesman commented. “Anyone and everyone is welcome to come along and take part without being charged an entry fee.” There are, however, some ticketed events - and I will be hosting the first of those next Friday when Food Drink Devon opens its marquee and market at the festival with a ‘meet the producers’ series of interviews (£6.50 a person - all proceeds of which will be going into the festival’s coffers). It’s a chance for keen foodies to get up close and personal with a range of local producers and taste their wares and learning more about the provenance of their produce. In a series of six half-hour chats I will be interviewing Sea Arch founders Sarah and Geoff Yates who make a delicious distilled non-alcoholic spirit which is “inspired by the Devon coast and bursting with seaside botanicals”.  Next I’ll be chatting with Tom and Shannon Burnell, who live on the family farm just across the river at Kingswear. Tom, a skilled butcher with over 10 years experience, is the youngest of three generations still working on the family dairy and beef farm - and now he and Shannon have created Grove Meadows, a company which delivers fresh meat boxes across the South Hams area. All their produce is sourced locally and is grass fed and naturally matured.  After that I’ll be talking to the folk who run Huxbear Vineyard, a family owned business producing hand crafted wines in the Devon countryside. It was in 2007 that Ben and Lucy Hulland planted the vineyard, situated on 14 acres in the Teign Valley - they later added another acre at the fully sustainable vineyard so that they now look after more than 16,000 vines which create mainly sparkling wines.  I will also be talking the producers behind Dartington Mill, an innovative venture that sees two farmers, a miller and a baker working together to grow organic and biodynamic specialist wheats, grains and pulses, and mill them into flours and flaked products for sale to the public and bakeries. Their mantra (and who could disagree?) is one that says: keep our food systems local, sustainable and simple is crucial to help mitigate climate change. And who could resist hearing from a coffee roaster who uses a traditional wood-fired technique when dealing with those all-important beans? The Curator Cafe Coffee Roasters of Totnes are the only roasters in the UK using sustainable local wood to roast coffee beans. They say this makes their Curator coffee unique thanks to the slow heat from the fire and the speciality beans they source.  As a (very) amateur maker of sourdough bread I am certainly looking forward to the team from Buckfastleigh’s Hylsten Bakery, because the reputation for both their bread and their sourdough-making classes has grown and grown. I will be asking for a few hints and tips and the team will be explaining how the bakery and the school are helping to build a resilient local food system, supporting local growers and millers. After all the talking, the eating and the drinking will begin when the Food Drink Devon marquee turns itself form an interview theatre into a full-fledged local market next Friday afternoon.   Later that evening Salcombe Gin - bar-sponsor for the entire Dartmouth Food Festival - will be staging a Live Distillation Event at the Chefs Demo Tent in Royal Avenue Gardens (£25 per person). Angus Lugsdin, co-founder of Salcombe Gin, will be demonstrating a live distillation of this award-winning local gin - the audience can expect to be informed and entertained and, of course be able to sample the now world-famous product. Angus will also be involved in two other events which include the Salcombe Distilling Company - one on Saturday with chefs Mitch Tonks and Mark Hix and one on Sunday with chef Ellie Wentworth.  And talking of Dartmouth chef Mitch Tonks, another thing to look out for at this year’s festival will be the unique coming together of two legendary seafood restaurants. It’s a story which began more than 20 years ago when Mitch (who owns Dartmouth’s famous Seahorse restaurant) stumbled across the husband and wife team at the legendary Trattoria al Gatto Nero restaurant located on the island of Burano in Venice while on a food research trip. A friendship began, and next weekend at the festival the family behind the famous Venetian institution will be bringing their huge reputation for impeccable seafood to Dartmouth. Trattoria al Gatto Nero is considered one of the best seafood restaurants in the world and Mitch explained:“I was visiting Venice and I asked the concierge where I should eat, he recommended a place his mother loved and told me to head to Burano and go to al Gatto Nero. I was met with a pretty life changing experience and had the most wonderful seafood meal I’d ever eaten. It’s a magical family restaurant, I fell in love with the place and I remember exactly how it made me feel. It was my inspiration behind The Seahorse. We’re honoured to welcome Ruggero, Massi and the family to guest host with us again for the Dartmouth Food Festival.” The Seahorse will run a series of guest chef events over the weekend - and the al Gatto Nero team will also set up a traditional Venetian Fish Fry at the festival outside the restaurant. The Seahorse will also have the bespoke charcoal grill trailer from its luxury event arm also serving food on the embankment. Each year the festival welcomes many special guests, from internationally renowned chefs to celebrated writers and critics, to provide a huge range of exciting, informative and downright delicious entertainment. Local and national food heroes include top local and regional chefs - names such as Richard Bertinet, Romy Gill, and Angela Hartnett will be appearing alongside TV and radio personalities, Matt Tebbutt, wine experts Susy Atkins (Sunday Telegraph, Saturday Morning Kitchen), Fiona Beckett (The Guardian), Will Lyons (The Sunday Times) and award-winning Tim McLaughlin-Green from Sommeliers Choice.    One of the festival organisers told us: “We want to provide a great visitor experience for all and a key part of this is making sure everyone feels invited. Keeping entry free helps create a much more inclusive event and contributes greatly to the festival’s unique atmosphere. “The festival serves up an appetising menu of exciting and enjoyable food and drink encounters to suit all tastes with over 100 of the finest local and regional food and drink producers exhibiting. Stallholders are hand-picked by the festival with over 70% from Devon and most others from within the South West. “It’s of the utmost important to us that the festival retains a local feel, promoting the very best of what is on offer on our own doorstep here in Devon.” To find out more about the events on offer visit: https://www.dartmouthfoodfestival.com/

Imagine an area that is very remote - it is exceedingly beautiful and loads of artists and craftspeople live there - but the Covid pandemic more-or-less completely closed down its tourism industry for a while and, added to that, the area’s main cultural centre, a famous museum, was shut down literally overnight because of severe structural problems.  It is the exact scenario which has hit the Isles of Scilly over the past year and which has left the cultural side of island life struggling. After all, where exactly do you rehouse more than 10,000 valuable and historic items which have lived happily in a museum for decades? Where can you display them for the benefit of the huge surge in tourists which returned to the isles this summer? And how do you rekindle an interest in the archipelago’s cultural offer? Well, those ever-resourceful islanders have come up with an answer and it begins this weekend. The Creative Scilly Festival is a celebration of music, theatre, storytelling, visual arts and island life which continues until the end of the month. “It’s all about promoting the cultural dimension of the visitor economy and it’s also for residents,” says Jeremy Brown, project manager for Creative Scilly who invited me to take a preview recently. “Getting to Scilly feels rather an adventure in itself; the tiny twin otter Skybus takes off from Land’s End airport and immediately you’re looking down at Longships lighthouse below, before crossing the short stretch of Atlantic, where often you glide above its counterpart, the Scillonian passenger ferry - and minutes later the islands themselves come into view” Jeremy explained that for years the archipelago has staged an event known as  Arts Scilly each spring… “It allows people to throw open galleries and studios, run pop-up events, workshops and classes - and it encourages participation in a lot of our creative industries. But last year was a disaster - I had to cancel 70 events - so we’ve been reviving things under the Welcome Back fund to stimulate business and increase footfall.” Working with local artists such as the women who run the Phoenix arts cooperative just outside the island capital, Hugh Town, Jeremy’s team have booked a couple of theatre companies which will be staging performances and running workshops and bringing in writers and bands to compliment the arts and crafts offering already burgeoning across the isles.    “It’s a bit of an experiment to see if we pull some additional visitors over here during the autumn half-term period,” he told us as we began a tour of St Mary’s in one of the island’s fleet of hireable golf buggies that are a handy way of touring the myriad lanes. First stop was the temporary new museum space which has been put together at the town hall. Called Isles of Scilly Museum on the Move , it has been replicated across the four off-isles where other mini-museums have been step up in hotels and public halls.  “We had to do something fast because the old museum, which was built in 1967 and which was held up on a metal frame, was condemned,” explained Jeremy. “The structure was more or less disintegrating and the surveyor literally said, ‘Put on your hard hats and clear out everything of value!’ “So the trustees have been phenomenally resourceful and we’ve had support from Cornwall Museum Partnership in helping to store some 10,000 artefacts from small pieces of ancient pottery to large scale gigs.” Now there are ambitious plans to completely rehouse the vast and impressive collection in a new extended museum at the town hall which, having structural problems of its own, is to be massively refurbished. But until that happens the resourceful Scillonians have developed a mobile phone app. “The Museum on the Move allows visitors to still enjoy some of our artefacts with the help of the free app,” explained curator Kate Hale. “A barcode leads you to a walking companion app which was developed with Cornwall Museums and Falmouth University Gaming Academy, funded by ERDF. You come to the museum here at the town hall at the beginning of your holiday to see what’s on offer. “People really get into it - it is a walking companion app so you have to walk to the actual spot to gain the information.  And the off-island communities really appreciate it - there are a lot of artefacts relating to shipwrecks around the different isles and people love to see them.” Jeremy added that the museum was a crucial cultural ingredient of the isles, partly because of the fact that, for years, it had been the archipelago’s only wet-weather tourism facility. Driving the buggy out of Hugh Town on our Creative Scilly tour, we were told that there are some 40 freelance artists and designer-makers currently living and working on the islands. “Obviously all that was really hit by Covid, but in normal times there is a real market for Scillonian made products - from gin to watercolour paintings, from cosmetics to chocolate. “We’ve just been granted priority status by the Arts Council last week - one of just of 53 regions in the UK which have been recognised as areas that have not had enough arts funding,” said Jeremy. “There is a job to do - partly about rebuilding confidence after Covid. All our accommodation providers took a hit and we are recovering from that.  “There are opportunities for ‘experiential tourism’ - with these additional experiences our visitors can go away remembering what made that trip more special. It is perhaps about recognising that we can’t be too complacent.” Our trip took us to the Phoenix Craft Studios (to be found on theislandmakers.com ) where eight female artists and craftspeople create all manner of Scilly inspired treasures.  Studio founder and glass-artist Oriel Hicks told us: “Scilly is becoming a bit like what happened in St Ives and with the Newlyn School 100 years ago. Artists come here for the light, the granite and the silver sands. There is nowhere else quite like it - there are no rivers pouring into the sea here so there’s no sediment, which gives the water that perfect clarity - and that, in turn, allows for all those amazing colours people love to see.” “There are new people coming to the isles because they’ve been inspired and want to create things - and quite often it’s alongside another job,” added linocut artist Vickie Heany.  “Most of the work here at the studios does reflect the islands and the landscape - but people aren’t just buying something to take home, they are also buying a memory of coming to see the artist at work. And every time they look at the item they remember that.” Next, our tour took us to the watercolour artist Stephen Morris’s Glandore Galleries, after which there was lunch at the ever popular Juliet’s Garden perched so scenically above St Mary’s Harbour. And in the afternoon there was a chat with island story-teller and wildlife expert Lucy McRobert who will be entertaining Creative Scilly festival goers with tales of the now famous Wally the Walrus. “The story-telling is part of the festival’s wet weather alternative and my tale, When the Walrus Came describes the absolute chaos he caused around the islands. I am a marine medic, so I attended the various meetings which took place once Wally was here - first it was called the Walrus Management Group, but soon it became the Walrus Emergency Management Group. “In many ways it was hilarious,” said Lucy. “Even though it was serious about how kept the walrus safe and how we also kept people safe. He sank a fishing boat and did all sorts of damage, but the tourists loved him. There was even talk at one point of importing pool bear poo to gently scare him away!” Only on Scilly, as they say.  There is no doubt the archipelago’s new autumn cultural festival will be varied, different and interesting, if nothing else. Isles of Scilly Travel Skybus prices start at £93.25 from Land’s End, Scillonian passenger ferry starts at £59.95 from Penzance. Day trips start at £30 for return Scillonian or £84 for the Fly/Sail option. www.islesofscilly-travel.co.uk Scilly Cart hire – start at £46 for the day http://www.scillycart.co About Islands’ Partnership- who programme and manage Creative Scilly; The Islands’ Partnership (IP) provides strategic leadership of Scilly’s visitor economy – an industry that support 80% of all employment across the islands. The IP also leads the marketing of the islands under its Visit Isles of Scilly brand. It is funded entirely by membership subscription together with corporate sponsorship. It also sup-ports 300+ member organisations by providing them with the resources, energy and focus to grow their individual businesses – thereby enabling Scilly’s tourism economy to develop to its full potential. The IP reaches out to all sectors of the business community championing their needs and providing a shared platform to develop and achieve common goals. www.visitislesofscilly.com

The other night my old pal Robin Turner and his lovely wife Rebecca invited us up to their house on the hill above Newlyn for supper - and I knew it would be a very good supper indeed because the pair run the highly successful Indulgence Catering outfit down there in West Penwith. We were not to be disappointed. It was a fantastic evening - with great food and great company. But one thing that has stayed with me was the taste-test Robin put on to show us the difference between a classic Cornish lobster and a crawfish, caught somewhere out past the Scillies on the edge of the Atlantic shelf. These creatures do not have the big front claws which are the most noticeable - and arguably the most delicious - bit of the lobster’s anatomy. But, blimey, they do have an amazing flavour and texture - one that is quite appreciably different from that of their more common cousin. The flesh is not quite as sweet as a lobster’s - specially not as sweet as the claw-meat - but it does have an interesting slightly nutty flavour, and this lingers rather wonderfully on the palette long after you’ve swallowed the morsel. No wonder the French and others are willing to pay a lot of money for one of these little beasts. And when I say a lot, I really do mean quite a few quid - at present I can see that you’d pay between £42 and £80 for a crawfish this size. So weren’t we the lucky ones tucking into this fabulous feast up at Robin and Rebecca’s place…

There’s a media-shorthand which constantly repeats the claim that eating meat is bad for the planet. It is uttered without any underlying qualification that might suggest we should eat less meat - and that, when we do eat it, we should make sure it’s the right kind of meat. However, as an increasing number of food-producers take an interest in environmentally sensitive options such as regenerative-agriculture, the “right meat” message is beginning to gain traction.  And it plays well when it comes to the consumer guilt felt by millions of carnivores who feel constantly battered by the all-meat-is-bad message - especially when they learn that some less-industrialised forms of meat production can actually be good for the environment… It’s a bit like seeing morning mists clear above a Devonshire wildflower meadow - which happens to be a case in point because wildflower meadows tend to rely heavily on the very grazing animals which get the bad press, but so many of us like to consume.  To put it another way, there’s a multiplicity of stories to be told beyond the overly-simplistic narrative that one important and traditional part of the human diet is just plain bad. Stories which concern wildflower meadows, grazed woodland areas, different types of heath, mire, hedgerows, copses and many other elements which should make up Britain’s multitude of habitats and landscapes.   Now two men whose careers have been bound up in telling stories about the environment, wildlife, nature and much else in the great outdoors, have joined forces to tell a very real and commercial tale about the meat they oversee, which is being sold from a website launched today*. Their venture, called Farm Wilder, is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) based on the concept of providing nature-friendly beef and lamb to a public which is showing an increasing interest in the “right kind of meat”.  In other words: West Country meat which is good for wildlife, good in the fight against climate-change and good for human health - meat which can be enjoyed without the consumer fearing their next bite will damage the planet.  At this point a cynic might query the idea of nature-friendly meat. “Sounds like a couple of businessmen cashing-in on the guilt which some meat-eaters feel when tucking into their next burger…” is what some might mutter… But when they learn one of the founders behind Farm Wilder is former BBC Natural History Unit executive producer Tim Martin, they might be more convinced by the authenticity. Why would an award winning film-maker and passionate naturalist - frustrated after years of watching and documenting the relentless decline of British wildlife - set up a company designed to cash-in on something as ephemeral as the guilt of a meat-eater? Fellow director, Dartmoor-based Luke Dale Harris, has a similar story - he’s a former investigative environmental journalist who currently provides farm and policy advice with the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group. So these are passionate people, convinced that their not-for-profit enterprise can make a difference. Here’s what Tim told me when we met in a Devon wildflower meadow recently… “It’s like electricity - you can have good meat and bad - just like you can have power from renewable or fossil fuels. There is a sort of meat which is actually a very important part of the ecosystem and you can eat that meat, which has a much lower carbon footprint or is even carbon-negative, because it’s the kind of meat that is essential for wildlife.  “If we didn’t have grazing animals - especially cows - we would lose so many of our wildflower meadows, so many of our rare plants and animals - skylarks, butterflies, orchids - all sorts of things… So, as a flexitarian, I am someone who eats a bit less meat and who pays more for it because it’s higher quality. And I know this meat is helping to make wildlife better and helping with climate change as well. It’s not that complicated.” Now our armchair cynic might retort… “All very well, these high ideals - but in a cutthroat market like food-retail, how many people are willing to pay extra to help a few birds and bees?” Which brings us to the second part of this story. The wildflower meadow Tim and I were sitting in happens to belong to a man whose company is well known by those working in the West Country meat industry and beyond. Andy Gray is CEO of MC Kelly, a Devon-based company which supplies to hotels, restaurants, butchers and “anyone else who wants meat” - and his large and impressive existing organisation is now heading up the commercial side of Farm Wilder.  “I am a very enthusiastic environmentalist as well as running a meat company - and, looking at the way the wind is blowing when it comes to global warming and the crash of biodiversity, I felt that - as butchers - we have an opportunity to influence the future of farming,” said Andy. “This gives us an opportunity to reward farmers who have looked after wildlife rather than farmers who haven’t, which is what the government normally does… Tim and Luke have identified people who have maintained habitat, which is good for biodiversity and good for the wildlife we all love.  “This is our opportunity to reward them by paying them a little bit more,” he continued. “We have set up a direct marketing proposition which allows people to buy very high quality meat from wildlife-rich farmland.  For MC Kelly it will be an add-on to what we do - but now we will have an on-line presence where we are direct-marketing to the public. This is something we learned to do during Covid and it’s an opportunity for us to sell direct to anyone in the country.” Tim told me: “The problem is that when you go into a supermarket or a butcher’s, you have no idea where the meat has come from.  It could have come from somewhere brilliant for wildlife, or it could have come from industrial farming. You have no way of choosing. So as a consumer I didn’t have a mechanism to allow me to buy meat that I knew was making a difference. That is what we have set up.  “Organic is great - I buy as much as I can. But the problem is that it does not take us to where we need to be. Organic guarantees a lot of bugs and worms and so on which nature needs - but wildlife needs a lot more than that. Wildlife needs specific habitats - heathland, woodland, wildflower meadows. So we need to step-up from organic.  “What Farm Wilder does is add wildlife to the equation. Some of our farms are already organic - some are 100 percent pasture fed - we basically add extra measures that mean you get biodiversity as well as sustainability.” It’s Luke who carries out Farm Wilder’s work in the landscape. Part of his job is to identify farms with great wildlife and farmers who want to work more sustainably and regeneratively. “We put groups of farms together,” explained Tim. “In Devon the group is all about rare species - cuckoos, marsh fritillaries and a boggy environment called Rhos Pasture. One farm isn’t enough on its own. You’ve got to be connected - so we’ve got a group of farmers on Dartmoor who share ideas.  “One group has cuckoos - another group has marsh fritillaries. By having the grouped farms it all starts to connect because they have the same habitat and wildlife can spread between them. That’s our vision - to have connectivity across a super-group of farms which share similar wildlife that can spread between them.  “A single farm with cuckoos isn’t enough, because they would not survive. You need landscape-level conservation. Together, the sum is much greater than its parts. That’s what will bring back wildlife.  “It’s a bit like WWF focussing on pandas or tigers,” Tim went on. “Those animals represent a whole habitat or landscape full of wildlife. And it’s like that with cuckoos. Because, to get cuckoos you need meadow pipits, and meadow pipits need that mosaic of short grass, boggy areas and scrub to nest in. So you are guaranteeing all those habitats.  “Cuckoos also need big hairy caterpillars, which have become increasingly rare. So you need the right field margins, heather and other plants and shrubs. To get cuckoos you need to have all these things lined up and working…” “With internet marketing you can tell that story,” added Andy. “If you haven’t got a good story then, in marketing terms, you are just the same as anyone else. But this is a tremendous story - this is the best story around - which is why I am so keen to be working with them.  “I think the emotion in this country has changed,” he continued. “And this is the best story around at the moment because huge numbers of the public are very worried about the environment. And we’ve got a brilliant young generation coming along who are much less cynical - young people are much more tuned into this stuff.  “If you take the silvo-pasture stuff here on my farm - we had 60 volunteers come here to plant trees. That just shows the market - they were willing to come out in wind and rain and be engaged. And if those 60 are engaged, how many millions are there if you’ve got a population of 60 million? Yes, there’s going to be people buying something else or who can’t afford it - but that’s a hell of a big market for a small company like ours to be selling into.” Farm Wilder meat comes in packs with information about the rare wildlife which exists on farms where the meat was raised - including Cuckoos and Marsh Fritillary butterflies. Tim says the meat is slightly more expensive than a similar supermarket product, but cheaper than most organic offerings.  “We give farms three years to transition - to become regenerative or Pasture For Life certified,” Tim explained. “We’ve had some farms which don’t make it and drop out - because it’s a massive change - they have to reduce stocking densities, sow herbal leys and so on. However, we pay them a better price and also they are not spending anywhere near as much on fertilisers and feed for the animals. “So that’s appealing, but not all farmers are ready to go the whole hog. Maybe they will come back in a few years. If they’re not meeting our standards, then they have to stop,” he added. “But most farmers we have are up for it - they are planting herbal leys and silvo-pasture - and they are on that journey and succeeding. But we do not underestimate what a big deal it is for farmers.” Andy Gray sums up the transfer from industrial-style farming to a more gentle and traditional agrarian regime in a different way… “We humans spent 20,000 years learning to grow stuff - then we got a chemistry-set and in 40 years we chucked a lot of that knowledge away. This is simply going back to the efficient nature-friendly techniques we developed over thousands of years. Tim concluded: “The public is effectively subsidising the really intensively produced food, which is damaging soil and damaging wildlife. Really, it’s those intensive systems who should be paying for the damage. But that doesn’t happen, the taxpayer picks up the bill. “We are basically putting back the connection from the meat we eat to the farmers who grow it - because we have all that information and we tell the story of those farms. So you are eating this food and you can think: I am doing a good thing by doing this, by eating this steak. That is a really positive message.”

Having put the video below up on Twitter and Facebook earlier I had a lot of people enquiring where the view is. Well, this walk explains - and talks about the very place where Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander wrote the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful… In fact, I have spent months writing a 35,000 word children’s story - or a modern fairy tale - based on this walk and I will be talking about that on this website very soon. Having parked in the small car park near Gallox Bridge (turn left at the Forester’s Arms as you leave the village on the Wheddon Cross road) I followed the old packhorse trail into the hills south of Dunster. The packmen of old used to frequent an inn called the Horse and Crook somewhere around here – the pub’s long gone, but they used to take their trains of horses, mules and donkeys across the old pack-horse bridge that still stands at Gallox. If you look over your right shoulder while walking across the bridge, you will see Grabbist from where, legend has it, a super-sized ogre used to reside at the locally named 'Giants Seat'. Apparently he was a nice old giant, the villagers would get him to dry their washing by wafting one of his huge hands. The village has another ancient giant legend which claims one huge fellow had been locked in a dungeon. This one eventually turned out to be true - a massive manacled skeleton was uncovered during the last century in Dunster Castle's Gatehouse. Having reached the forest gate above Gallox Bridge, I turned left and followed the path towards Carhampton. This took me up over a pleasant corner of down-land, affording the most fantastic and unusual views of the famous castle.  The last time I was up here was when I was writing an article about a friend who has continued the tradition of collecting ash branches to make the ashen faggots which are ceremoniously burned on Christmas Eve. Somehow in the sweltering heat last week, I couldn’t bring myself to think of Christmas.  At Carhampton Gate, we come to the old deer park boundary. I turned right and followed it along a track called Park Lane which ascended up over the hill to Withycombe Hill Gate.  This is where I re-entered the park by walking through the gate on my right to continue straight on, out onto the big bald hill that play’s host to Bat’s Castle. This is one of the most tremendous prehistoric remains in the West Country – and I say that not only because of its extraordinary ramparts (which play host to whortleberry bushes aplenty), but because of the sublime views you get in just about every direction from the top. In fact, you get more-or-less the same view of the Avill Valley running up to the high point of Dunkery Beacon as the one Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander enjoyed from Grabbist more than a century ago. She was so impressed that she wrote the famous hymn 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'. Dunkery might not be exactly a "purple headed mountain" - but the rest of the hymns rings as a pretty true description of village and vale. From Bat’s Castle I continued along the ridge in a north westerly direction to the neighbouring prehistoric settlement perched on the top of Gallax Hill (yes, the spelling is different from that of the bridge – but that’s what the map says). Yet more stunning views, especially of the strangely shaped knolls - like the one at Avill Ball - which are a feature of the hillside opposite. To the west of the old settlement there’s a path that will take you down around the flanks of strangely named Vinegar Hill, and introduce you to a track that leads east directly back to the packhorse bridge. Having crossed it, I’d recommend a little detour to the working flour mill that plies its trade just a few yards downstream. It’s a fascinating place where you can watch the flour being ground with the help of waterpower, before purchasing a bag of the stuff to take back home. Where you can use it to make a whortleberry pie – if you are lucky enough to find some of the delicious berries on this most spectacular of walks.  Fact File Basic hike: from the southerly quarter of Dunster, across Gallox Bridge to the Deer Park. East to Carhampton Gate, south to Withycombe Hill Gate, north west over Bat’s Castle to Gallax Hill and back around Vinegar Hill. Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer OL9 Exmoor. Distance and going: three-and-a-half miles, a little steep in places – can be muddy.

I was talking to someone earlier about an article I wrote a few years ago when Otter Brewery’s Patrick McCaig and I visited a corner of Somerset I later called the Parish of Plenty. So I’ve dug out the old article from my files and placed it here - I do not know if all the people mentioned are still producing amazing food and drink - let’s hope so - but it’s interesting reading about this place anyway… As more and more people become convinced by the idea that this region should be the nation’s premier, go-to, zone for quality food and drink, it is worth asking a question about proof… Is there, amid the plethora of regional foodie tales of wonder and success, a single story that shows the West Country is what Tuscany is to Italy, or Provence is to France? In other words, the food capital of the UK, if not Northern Europe? Well, today we travel to a small area of Somerset which is a kind of microcosm that effectively and rather dramatically shows how the South West rules the British roost when it comes to home-produced food and drink. In just a couple of parishes around a low eminence of hills called the Pennard Ridge there are an amazing number of producers making all manner of high quality edible or drinkable examples which show why the region can hold its head above the rest. We are talking about quality wine, award-winning artisan cheeses and remarkable fruit liqueurs…  This occasional series sponsored by Otter Brewery was meant to be only about drinks producers - but when poet and regional food and drink expert James Crowden came up with the idea of visiting the Pennard Ridge we immediately agreed to include the local cheese-makers as well. After all, cheese and wine do go hand in hand. “People think about cheese and wine parties as being from the 1960s, but they do go extremely well together and here there is stunning wine and stunning cheese within a two mile radius,” said James as we travelled, first to the village of Wraxall a few miles east of Glastonbury. “This is a food and drink hotspot,” he added. “There’s a reason… The area has good grazing, a good climate. The soils are good generally - grass grows really well here, and apples grow well too.  “I’ve known about the local cheesemakers for years,” he went on. “I knew there was a particularly interesting cheesemaker and an interesting organic vineyard - but more recently I was taking a walk through Wraxhall Vineyard and I saw a guy pruning… That is how I came to meet Brian Shirley and Jacky Brayton.” Which is where we began our foodie safari in deepest darkest East Somerset. Wraxall is located on the south-facing slope of the ridge as it marches east to divide the Vale of Avalon - home of the Glastonbury Festival - from the wider expanses created by the River Brue.  The vineyard faces south across this great fertile vale and it’s a warm slope - on the morning we visited, my own West Somerset garden had been under frost while this place had been ice-free. The vineyard was originally planted in 1974 and during the 1980s won many accolades, but by the mid 1990s it had become neglected. I have just phoned the vineyard actually and learned that Brian and Jacky retired this year but that it has been taken on by a couple called Lexa Hunt and David Bailey - anyway - I’ll continued with the old article I wrote some years ago… “I didn’t know brambles could grow so big,” laughed Brian, who used to be a head-hunter working in California’s Silicon Valley before looking for a “retirement project”.  By the time he and Jacky bought the place in 2007, all the original plantings - with the exception of the Madeleine Angevine vines - were lost. So the couple set about restoring the vineyard and planting new varieties. “We were looking for somewhere to live in Somerset or Devon and one day we were in Sherborne and there was a vineyard for sale. You don't see that very often - and we bought it instantly,” said Jacky. “We kept saying we’d keep the vines that were here, but we would not restore the whole vineyard. But after three months we did.  “Our wine-maker, Steve Brooksbank, trained at Pilton Vineyard so he's local to the whole thing,” she said, explaining that she and Brian concentrate on nurturing the vines while Steve does the actual winemaking. “Steve was already making for a number of vineyards and had invested in a very professional winemaking operation. He’s very local to here, so we couldn’t be luckier - we pick our grapes and half hour later they are being pressed.”  The couple showed us how the vines are trained in a modern system known as the Geneva Double Curtain. “The Geneva bit is from the name of the university in New York State,” said Brian. “It’s about having a high canopy - that gives you more sunlight exposure and very good air movement, which is much better for vines in damper environments like the West Country.” I can vouch that Wraxall Vineyards award-winning wines are superb. There’s a Sauvignon Blanc style; a Madeleine Angevine - a Loire-type grape that grows well in Somerset to make a fruity white; a Pinot Noir Rosé; a blend called the Somerset Dry; and last but not least a couple of sparkling wines which are fabulous.  Fabulous with cheese, as well as fish, light meats and just about anything else summery. And talking of cheese we were off down winding lanes - past the big Barber dairy installation which, it must be said, makes a very good cheese - to meet a man with a wonderful name, who creates sublime hand-made cheeses that are the pot of gold at the end of a dairy rainbow. Meet Philip Rainbow who he has been making artisan cheeses for longer than just about anyone else in the country. Philip can notch up just over half a century in the game, and for the past decade he’s been running his own outfit called the Somerset Cheese Company.  Mr Rainbow is a modest man who operates out of a modest set of buildings. When he opens the door in the concrete block wall in what looks like a disused farmyard you wonder if your guide hasn’t made some mistake - but soon you find yourself in a rabbit warren where some of the best cheeses in the West Country are made.  “We do three different goats’ milk cheeses,” said Philip. “The Pennard Ridge, which is a Caerphilly-make. The Pennard Vale which is in the cheddar style. We also smoke that. Then we did another one because I realised all goat cheeses were white, so I made a red one - basically a Red Leicester only made with goats’ milk. “Then we do a sheep’s cheese - the milk comes across Somerset from Carhampton. That’s a cheddar style. We also have a water buffalo cheese which people with milk intolerances can eat.” Finally Philip got on to the cows’ milk cheeses: “You can see six churches from this hill so our Six Spires is a cheddar-style. Being different to everyone else we make all our cheese into wheels rather than big trucks,” he explained as he showed us the system he uses. “Finally we have a Channel Island cheese which is matured and then washed with a beer solution twice a week, and that is called Rainbow's Gold.” The Somerset Cheese Company also does a range of flavoured cheeses, which are all delicious.  Now, for more twisting lanes - and another cheesemaker. This time it was Fred Gould whose family has been making cheddar cheeses in the area for decades at East Pennard. A unique recipe handed down over the generations is used and the cheese is matured for anything up to two years to give it flavour. If you like plain and simple cheddar (who doesn’t?) the Gould cheese is as good as anything on the market. We met cheerful Fred, who looks after the farm side of the operation - but alas his sister Jean Turner, who’s in charge of making the cheese, wasn’t around.  So we bought supplies and continued to our final stopover, the Avalon Vineyard. After having witnessed the neat efficiency of the Wraxall Vineyard, this place was a bit different. Both the land and its owner, the inimitable Dr Hugh Trip, have a relaxed laid-back air that seems to suggest life, the vineyard, and everything else can look after itself.  “What brought me here was escaping London in the 1970s,” said the retired zoologist. “I didn't have any ambition at the time. Having an extra bit of rough old land I couldn’t think what to do with it, but I'd been picking grapes at a local vineyard and I thought: if they can do it, why can't I? “I had no idea I'd end up doing this years later, but it evolved and grew. The grape variety I liked best was the Seyval, so I thought - that's what I am going to plant, and I am not going to spray anything. Everyone threw up their hands, but in my arrogance and foolishness I stuck with it. So I carried on without spraying and the vines looked fine, the grapes were fine, and we had bumper crops. “We planted in 1981 and they've never been sprayed. So we thought: right - organic wine - at a time no one had heard of organic wine. Compared to most vineyards we are very hands off,” said Dr Hugh. “I just let the vines get on with it. They don't seem to mind. We are not after massive crops - we just want enough to have bit to sell.” But Hugh’s best sellers are to be found in the range of fruit wines he makes. “We have things like gooseberry, tayberry, raspberry, cherry. Everyone seemed to love them so I got into buying honey to make mead. In fact, Glastonbury is the mead drinking capital of the world. Then I encountered other people's liqueurs so I thought I could do that too.” Avalon Vineyard’s fruit liqueurs throw a fruit filled punch - but if I had tasted any more than a single tiny sip, I wouldn’t have been able to end my day long food and drink safari in what I now call the Parishes of Plenty. Later Patrick McCaig, of Otter Brewery, commented: “This series is all about quality producers mixing the West Country’s natural resources with a little imagination to make delicious and distinctive drinks.  “Today’s two vineyards are a great example of just that. The resurgence in British winemaking is great to see and this little pocket of Somerset is clearly setting a very high standard. Just like our brewery, both of these vineyards have been real labours of love. But you could see the sense of pride on their faces as they poured the end result of all that hard work.  “Matching each of the wines with local cheeses, as we’ve done today, is a great way for anyone to taste the local landscape, support these small artisan producers and be reminded just how lucky we are to live in the West Country.” RECIPE Wherever my food pages go we attempt to find a recipe - and this is Jacky Brayton’s favourite way of cooking with her excellent sparkling wine. Of course, buying a bottle of the Wraxall vineyard would be best, but any sparkling wine will do…  FILLET OF SALMON WITH CREAMY CHAMPAGNE (Wraxall Sparkling Wine) SAUCE WITH TOMATO GINGER SALSA. SAUCE 200 ml fizz (use sparkling wine - still white wine will not do as you need a delicate taste) 2 tubs 280 ml fresh fish stock ……1 fish stock cube will do or those little concentrated pots. 2 spring onions Few sprigs parsley double cream season to taste  Put fizz, stock, parsley, spring onions to in pan, boil for about 20 mins until much reduced. Add double cream. You want a good amount of sauce and I play this by ear and taste - but I take the parsley and spring onions out just before serving.. SALSA 4 – 6 tomatoes depending on size.  If using cherry or small plum toms use a few more – finely chopped 1-2 shallots peeled and finely chopped 1 level tablespoon root ginger, grated ½ teaspoon dark soy sauce 1 tablespoon rice vinegar I usually put a little bit of caster sugar in – but only a tiny bit. 2 level tablespoons fresh basil or parsley or 1 of each. Mix ingredients together and leave for at least ½ hour SALMON 1 fillet of salmon per person about 6 oz each  Slug of dry white wine, lemon juice, olive oil.  Bake for 15 mins.  Assemble.  A good puddle of sauce, add cooked salmon and top with salsa.

Last week this website brought you the story of a fantastic 25-mile-menu - this week we get even more local by talking about a five-metre-menu. We refer, of course, to the stuff that is marching en-masse, and in volume, out of West Country gardens this month. If ever there is a season-of-plenty in an English vegetable plot, now is that time.  I say that even though the home-grown vegetable project at Hesp Towers is… Well, not exactly Gardeners’ World. That nice ever-calming Mr Don might choke on his artichokes after seeing our rather lacklustre efforts - talking of which, I have actually grown and now eaten one globe artichoke this year.  But a single artichoke doesn’t make a bumper harvest, and we’ve certainly suffered a few failures. However, kilos of runner beans have been run down to the kitchen day after day for weeks, so they do deserve the annual ‘glut’ label. We’ve never had such a good year - and all ours are coming off a twin row just eight feet in length.  But to slice or not to slice? It’s a running argument between runner bean aficionados. Some people believe the invention of the little bladed box which you can buy for not much more than £1 in most kitchenware stores has been the best thing since sliced bread. Others believe the runner bean slicer is the work of the Devil and that the pods should be simply relieved of their stringy sides and chopped at rakish slanting intervals. I am of the former persuasion, at least, when the beans are young and not too leathery. Pushing fresh runners through a slicer provides you with green and succulent strips that look almost like vegetable spaghetti. Lightly steamed, the results can be tossed in butter and served with no more than a sprinkling of sea salt, plenty of fresh ground black pepper and a mere hint of lemon juice. Indeed, I hit upon a fabulous innovation this week when I decided to allow some extremely ripe Sharpham Brie to gently melt into a pile of steaming beans.  Which, I think, is a good example of one of the truly great things about home-cooking. You’d never see such a simple dish in a restaurant, but wow..! The salty creaminess of the Sharpham Brie blended beautifully with semi-sweet greenness of the runner bean flesh, so that a small bowl dressed only with a grind of pepper provided an early autumnal starter from heaven.     As the bean novelty wares a little thin and the runners keep producing, I begin to add other enhancers, such as strips of crisp fried, dry cured, streaky bacon or pounded anchovies, lemon zest and garlic.  And now that the runners are beginning to grow bigger and tougher (simply because I cannot keep up with the endless supply) I do give up with the box-slicer and grab a sharp Y-shaped swivel-peeler (much better than the straight handled versions). With an extra-large runner bean (the older ones which my wife swears are now inedible because of the tough skins) all you do is run the peeler down the two stringy edges and then place the pod on a flat surface so that you can pull it along the ultra-thin, wrinkled, rather waxy, skin on either side. It sounds like a delicate operation and that is why you need a good quality sharp peeler (you can get one for less than a tenner), but I find it a rather relaxing and meditative procedure (with a glass of wine) and you do end up with fat and very juicy chunks of tender runner bean.     My other great autumnal culinary revelation this year has come in the shape of a pan. Which might seem like an odd thing to say - but when my friends at the quality British pan-making firm, Samuel Groves, announced a new range of their Britannia cast iron cookware (https://www.samuelgroves.com/Products/Britannia-Cast-Iron-Cookware) my tastebuds leapt with joy.  Why? Because the range includes three sturdy cast iron pans which have just small handles on either side - which means they’ll fit inside a Japanese style kamado barbecue. Which in turn opens up a whole new world of opportunities, because suddenly you can be cooking a range of dishes over charcoal which would be impossible on a basic wire grill.  So, continuing the bumper garden crop theme, I made a fabulous ratatouille this week from our courgettes, tomatoes, peppers and aubergine. By adding just a small handful of apricot wood chips to the fire from my pals at the Devon based company Hot Smoked (https://hotsmoked.co.uk/shop/smoking-woods/wood-chips), this modest vegetable stew was raised in status to something you’d pay a great deal for as a vegetarian option in a restaurant.   But my Holy Grail on the wood-fired front has always been a paella, having once eaten a truly amazing version of that dish cooked in a kind of pizza oven in an ancient restaurant on the side of a remote Spanish mountain. I’ve made a thousand paellas at home since, but not one has ever come up to the memory of that rice-masterpiece served in the hills above El Port de la Selva.  Now, thanks to the folk at Samuel Groves - and also to a friend who brought me some fresh caught prawns from our local beach - I’ve reached the Holy Grail. Putting together an extremely simple paella dish using Spanish bomba rice, some garlic, celery, green pepper and saffron, I let the whole thing cook in a filtered stock made from the prawn heads and shells in my new Britannia pan, adding the fat prawn tails just a few minutes before serving.  You could do this in any barbecue with a lid, but I’d recommend the Kamado Joe (https://uk.kamadojoe.com/) range because the whole point of the stone-lined kamado is that you can cook more gently and also because these weatherproof appliances allow you to cook outdoors right through the winter.    Oh, and talking of both the kamado and Hot Smoked, I did also bung in a local organic chicken this week using some of the Devon firm’s applewood chips and, blimey… If someone asked me to name a single dish which was both incredibly delicious and ludicrously easy to make, it would have to be a hot-smoked chicken. I realise my five-metre menu has expanded a bit but (ignoring the bomba rice, saffron and some olive oil) we are still only talking about five miles to include the chicken and the prawns - which is still what I call local.