Rattling east on board the train from Taunton to London in the time before Covid I spotted the place where I once attended a Defra event to commemorate the signing of the Convention on Wetlands - and the memory prompted me to return and take a walk out across the big, empty, beautiful polders of West Sedgemoor. The area was designated as a “Ramsar” site (after the Iranian city of Ramsar where the convention was signed in 1971) because of its importance as a wildlife habitat.  And so I did return one day, when birds flew about the place in great profusion and the Levels did their usual thing of becoming a huge skyscape - all sky and wing - with just a thin horizontal band of autumnal earth and water to remind you that this really is one of the loneliest and loveliest places in the West Country. That Defra event several years ago took place at the RSPB’s Dewland’s Farm, just north of the village of Curry Rivel on the Taunton-Langport road - but I began my walk by the side of the River Parrett near Oath Farm.  From here I could look north-east out across Aller Moor to Aller Court Farm and its church. A footbridge took me across the Parrett and onto the plain, then another bridge (which crosses the River Sowy - actually a flood relief channel) placed me on the path that heads dead straight across the meadows to the church.  What terrible things went on here in 1645. The English Civil War was in full swing and the high ground to the rear of Aller and Langport was the scene of a huge battle that took place between 7,000 Royalist and 10,000 Parliamentarians. After a brave and hard fought initial stance by the former, the rout was on and soon panic was spreading through Royalist ranks. Groups of men fled down into these low lying marshes as they attempted to make for Burrowbridge and Bridgwater beyond. Rout and skirmish is what they call it – hard pressed soldiers would regroup and make a stand to fight, only to give way and take to their heels again. No one knows how many people died out here on the 10th of July that year, but it is likely that the rhymes ran red. Hard to think of that now, in this most peaceful of places. Only swans rout and skirmish today – or at least they did last week when there seemed to be huge numbers of them in the vicinity. I also spotted a crane (at least I think I did - it was a long way off) which will have been the happy result of the successful project to introduce the birds to the Levels. After crossing various tiny footbridges over drainage ditches I eventually made it to a track next to Aller Court Farm – a handsome old place built upon a slight eminence which was one probably an island in the middle of impenetrable swamps. The map reckoned the footpath should continue in front of the farm and so we continued – though I had to duck under several electric fences. But soon enough I was in the churchyard and admiring the views from between the trees. I recalled visiting here a few years ago when a man called Ted Knight arrived to tend his parents graves and I asked him if he knew where my great aunt’s grave could be. He didn’t know, for sure but certainly remembered the old lady who played the church organ with one hand.  Ted was one of those friendly and amiable countrymen who had time on his hands to tell us about the local village of Aller, where he was born and bred. After musing a while in the churchyard, and recalling boyhood memories of my aunt’s home which neither electricity or running water, I found my way across to Aller Drove which took me away from the village. It is a paved lane that shoots more or less straight out across the polders towards distant Othery. The area was at the centre of the dreaded Civil War rout, but we had very little trouble with either Parliamentarians or with traffic as we wandered along its lonely length - and every single step of the way I thought about my late grandfather who was born and bred at the northern end of the drove. Not only thought about him, but could almost feel his presence as I recalled him telling me how, at the age of eight, he’d been employed to come out here in summer to scare birds away from the few fields where crops had been planted. He was a very good chucker of stones, my granddad.   Eventually the road crosses the Sowy River near the hamlet called Pathe and, just on the other side of the bridge I found the gate that took me onto the public footpath which, in turn, took me in a great arc back along the waterside to join the Parrett at Stathe. This is where the humble path becomes the grander River Parrett Trail and it was simply a matter of continuing along it to Oath. A lovely, lonely circular walk full of birds taking to the blustery skies. Thank goodness someone 49 years ago had the good sense to realise that wetlands are worth preserving. Fact File Basic Hike: from Oath on bank of River Parret, across the river to Aller Church, then north-west along Aller Drove to Pathe Bridge, taking footpath on the left to return along Sowy River to Oath. Recommended Maps: Explorer 140 (Quantock) and 128 (Taunton).  Distance and going: four miles, easy going (specially when it’s dry). Local knowledge All’s well at Aller Visit the church at Aller while on this walk - the font is Saxon, one of only three in England - possibly the one used for the baptism of Guthrum after his defeat by King Alfred at the Battle of Ethandun in 878. It was retrieved from the pond of the vicarage garden. Hike up to High Ham From this walk you will see an escarpment rising to the south - up there, out of sight in the hills, is the enigmatic village of High Ham. One corner of the escarpment is National Trust owned Turn Hill - a fabulous place for views if ever there was one.

From pickled onions and piccalilli to Barbados… This site is nothing if it is not eclectic. Anyway this New Year’s Day everything is cold and grey and drab in England, so I have been recalling a press trip I enjoyed staying in one of the most charming hotels in all the Caribbean… Here’s what I wrote at the time - and in recalling this trip I must pay my respects to the late Graham Ross who was of the great doyens of the British Travel PR industry… Barbados is arguably the most beautiful democracy on Earth – a place where local fishermen sit shoulder to shoulder with international celebrities in rum bars built on stilts overlooking palm-fringed bays, an isle where the great outdoor happy-go-lucky Caribbean culture is celebrated communally by rich and poor alike.  Travel by powerboat down the “Platinum Coast”, as the western shoreline is sometimes known, and the local skipper will point out villas and mansions in a litany that sounds like a contents-listing for Hello magazine.  Yet tucked between the $multi-million homes belonging to the mega-rich and famous you will see the fish markets, shacks and rum bars that add the vital and wholly enjoyable touch of local colour, without which any location soon becomes bland and wearisome. From a visitor perspective at least, Barbados does local colour better than any other island in the Caribbean. Why? Because Barbados is friendly. I know of staggeringly beautiful islands in those warm seas where that is not the case – where, no matter how fine the views, there is an edge that has you watching your back. Indeed, some don’t bother offering visitors local colour at all - you find yourself spending a week trapped in some lovely but boring gated resort sealed from reality.  Barbados is the opposite. It is very real, very exciting and very lovely to look at. You can step from the cocooned air-conditioned luxury of your hotel into a shack that passes for a bar and feel as snug as you would in an Exmoor pub.  Which actually isn’t stretching an analogy too far because you will, surprisingly, hear Somerset accents in some of the more remote parishes of Barbados. An historian told me this is because a whole bunch of West Country hot-heads were deported to the island after the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 – and they obviously passed on their slow burr to the slaves on the sugar plantations… More of all that later. What about that cocooned air-conditioned luxury I mentioned? Well, places don’t get much more cocooning or luxurious than the amazing boutique hotel known as Cobbler’s Cove which is located in a heavenly bay towards the northern end of the Platinum Coast.  When the people who run it claim it is one of the “best-loved hotels in the Caribbean” they are not exaggerating. Set in exquisite tropical gardens this English country house removed to the Caribbean coast has more style in its little fingertip than you’ll find in an entire Somerset-Maugham novel. In fact, you can image someone like Maugham frequenting the place, or Graham Greene, or Noel Coward. Modern celebrities go there too – although the staff will refrain from telling you which ones.  For people with busy lives this place is an ideal antidote. A tropical peace pervades and the excellent staff go about their business with a quiet efficiency that is laced with good humour. This hustle-free, noise-free, TV-free zone is both beautiful to look at it and extremely comfortable to be in.  The suites all have a full opening frontage of slatted doors that fold back to open your living room to the gardens with their humming birds – without even leaving your bed you feel you’ve suddenly attained millionaire status.  The daily afternoon tea, the cocktails, the general unhurried but luxuriant ambience… All add up to provide the perfect getaway for a person who drives themselves too hard in their working life.  As for the dining, enjoyed in the open terrace above the beach – it was just about faultless. A daily catch brought in by the hotel’s very own fisherman (the charismatic Barker) supplements each menu and the fresh seafood was dealt with in superb ways.  Executive chef Brian Porteus is French trained and has a sparkling and infectious enthusiasm for local Caribbean ingredients. One morning he took me to the island’s main fish market in Bridgetown so I could see the amazing array of seafood that is caught around the island’s waters. The flying-fish-filleters had knife skills I couldn’t believe – flying-fish being one of the great staples of the local Bajan diet.   After an hour spent in the heat of that mad loud seemingly anarchic free-for-all it was a relief to get back to the cool quiet of the hotel – which is something you find yourself thinking quite a lot on this holiday.  Only a person looking for plenty of noise, glitz and bling could possibly dislike Cobbler’s Cove – those looking to unwind in a world of tropical luxury will run out of superlatives… Oddly enough, though, getting out of the haven and into the heated, pleasant, always jolly, maelstrom of Bajan life somehow highlights the charm of the hotel. Leaving the luxury-zone is a very easy and altogether joyful thing to do - all the happy resident need do is stroll half a lovely mile along the white sand beach under the palms to turn a coastal corner into Speightstown. After a few rum punches and a fried flying fish or two in the Fisherman’s Pub perched on stilts above the lapping Caribbean you’ll find yourself gently falling into the laid back mañana attitude for which this island is so renowned. If you wanted to shake off the idyllic torpor you could visit the town’s new museum and learn all about the sugar plantations and the slave trade on which the island’s economy was originally built. At Speightstown we’re in the parish of St Peter, which is one of the most northerly parts of the island, but of course a trip around the entire 166 squares miles is a must – so too is a visit to one of the old plantations where you can learn more history and buy single estate rum. Barbados, like a football match, is a game of two halves. This odd statement is actually highly relevant to sightseers going around the island because you can basically divide the place east and west.  The West Coast has fabulous beaches and safe calm seas, and as a result is fairly built up. One of the best ways of seeing it and learning all about those famous celebrities is to cruise up the coast in one of the many charter boats. We enjoyed a day out in a sleek catamaran called Silvermoon – the crew were a joy and kept us wined and dined for hours, stopping here and there so we could dive over reefs and meet gentle giant sea turtles. The East, or Atlantic, Coast is breezy and beautifully wild. Its rugged terrain sweeps down to miles of untouched, windswept beaches bordered by rough seas.  Swimming here is not recommended, but walking most definitely is. There’s even a disused railway line that takes you along the scenic cliff-tops safely away from traffic. It was opened in 1881, closed in 1937, and makes for an ideal hiking route. I was delighted – and amazed – to discover just how empty the East Coast is. It is no exaggeration to say that the 20-mile long littoral is one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world – and yet you can walk for an hour or two without seeing a soul. Tucked just behind the booming beach in a particularly green, hilly and scenic bit of the island is tiny remote Shorey Village where we visited Aunty Benn’s Bar – the aunty involved being the female relation of the boxer Nigel Benn. What you get is a concrete shack boasting a counter and two homemade stools, but this belies the great charm of the place which seems fossilised in the steamy sugary syrup of the Bajan rural idyll. This is where I heard local men talking in a pure Somerset dialect – albeit one with a touch of Africa about its vowels. Further down the coast we called in at beautiful peaceful Bathsheba where a stately church on a hill looks down upon a windswept tropical beach-fringed paradise - and where I was tempted to make permanent retirement plans. From here we headed due west across the widest part of the island to descend the low hills to the capital. Apart from its famous cricket stadium where I was lucky enough to watch two of the 20-20 World Cup matches earlier this summer (and what an altogether heady experience that was) Bridgetown boasts an amazing array of shops as well as some fine restaurants.  The most pleasant of these are located down in the Waterfront area where jazz musicians mingle with waiters to bring you an entire musical and culinary experience in the heat under the stars.  And so once again you find yourself heading back to Cobbler’s Cove after a long hot busy day. Put on a robe, stroll down to the beach for a moonlit swim, have a night-cap in the al-fresco bar under the stars on the way back to your air-conditioned room… It is very, very hard trying to find what’s not to like about a week at Cobbler’s Cove – unless it’s the fact that seven days is simply not long enough…

When years come to an end you tend to have a look back over your shoulder - but this year didn’t particularly offer much to write home about thanks to the pandemic - so I’ve been looking back longer than 365 days. Being a professional food writer, people often ask me about memorable meals - and one I come back to again and again was the very first Low Tide Pop-Up staged on a sand bar between the islands of Tresco and Bryher in the Scillies. Here’s what I wrote… The idea of eating seafood where fish normally swim might seem a bit odd to some, but on three occasions this year 100s of diners will attended a pop-up restaurant on a Scillonian sandbar that is normally home to sea-bass and shrimps. The pop-up low-tide picnic staged halfway between the islands of Tresco and Bryher  is a truly unique event. Nothing like it is held anywhere else in the UK or even in Europe.  It’s a picturesque and delicious concept that was invented back in 2015 when more than 300 people turned up to dine on low-tide mussels and other shellfish served in the place where they normally live.  These unique occasions are made possible by the ultra-low seasonal tides which sweep the chilly clear waters from the gulf that separates the two popular islands of Tresco and Bryher. During normal low tides you can often wade from one else to another, but it is unusual for the entire straits to into a sandy desert. Albeit a very temporary one… I was invited to attend the very first low-tide pop-up three years ago when brilliant sunshine was illuminating the archipelago and organisers had to cater for more than twice the number of diners they'd planned for. A Tresco manager who was overseeing the event told us: “This is many more people than we ever dreamed would turn up. We thought we'd have 100, even 150 - but there must be over 300 here. It's great to see so many people. “We dreamed up the idea of the pop-up restaurant because this part if the Scillies is unique when the tide goes out,” he added. “You could only do this at certain times of the year - but when these low tides happen this is where people can walk between the two islands. It's so good we'll do it again.” Amanda Pender, who is a member of the Bryher fishing family and who runs a business called Island Fish, was busy selling fresh seafood on the sandbar, said no islanders had ever seen anything like it. “I've lived in the islands all my life and no one has ever put on anything like this before at low tide. That is why we had no idea how many people were going to turn up.” Amanda went on: “My father Mike goes out in his boat to catch all this shellfish and fish we are selling with my brother Mark. We all work together to make fishing work here in the islands. And now we've done this once, we'll do it again. Two hours after she spoke those words, the place where she'd been selling lobster and crabs had been returned to their living cousins and was 12 feet under icy clear seawater.

An awful lot of people are feeling pretty fed up at the moment - what with the Covid going on and on and on and Christmas being over and all that. It could be worse, of course, you could have Covid 19 and be feeling very ill indeed. But right now I know a lot of people are feeling pretty down and depressed - waiting patiently or impatiently for their vaccines which are probably some months down the road. So I’ve been thinking about wonderful occasions I’ve known and loved - and this is one. A picnic in Provence on a really hot day. Just me and six young women. Why it should have worked out like that, I do not know - I didn’t organise the picnic - but that was the way things were the day we cycled from a lovely hotel called Crillon le Brave to the old sand quarry where they used to dig for the stuff which made the first Perrier bottles… Here’s part of what I wrote at the time… Television adverts have come a long way in 50 years - look back and many were eye-wateringly bad, while some of the epic Christmas ad’s we watch today could win movie awards. But there were one or two memorable mini-masterpieces that hit the screen in the 1960s and 70s - one of the first stand-out artistic creations being an evocative Dubonnet ad’ showing a young woman walking through gorgeous French countryside, backed by Canteloube’s haunting Shepherd’s Song. I was too young to taste Dubonnet at the time, and never have since - but I can still remember sitting in a bleak West Country council estate in winter dreaming of the delights of a balmy Southern France. For most viewers the advert didn’t so much sell some obscure alcoholic drink as convey a superior, warmer, more exotic, romantic lifestyle.  You can imagine how I pinched myself, then, when I recently found myself enjoying a picnic deep in the Provencal hills with not one, but six, young women - working my way through wonderful local French food and wine in the strong heat of an autumn sun.    It was one of those grab-this-and-keep-it-forever moments. Maybe it was the cool and surprisingly delicious Provencal rose, but I lay there thinking that it might well be that life would never, ever, be quite as good as this again.  But then, that was something I felt time and again during the long weekend I spent at an amazing, breathtakingly, good hotel called Crillon Le Brave.  Its staff had laid on the picnic, brought us the bikes so we would could cycle through beautiful countryside to the picturesque old quarry (where they used to get the sand to make Perrier and, for all I know, Dubonnet bottles), and generally arranged our every need and happiness for days on end.  Of all the hotels in all the world, I end up writing about this one… I say that because in my newspaper travel pieces it’s rare that I concentrate on just one establishment. I will this time, though, because I was so impressed and because all this luscious loveliness is just a two hour flight from the West Country (if you take a flight out of Bristol Airport, that is).  Let me describe the basics of Crillon Le Brave to give you some idea of why I should write about just one hotel…. Most of us know and love the type of medieval hilltop villages they go in for around the Mediterranean. Southern France is rich in them, as are parts of Spain and Italy. But, although beautiful to look at, they can sometimes feel austere and unwelcoming - which is actually part of their nature because that is what they were designed to be in more troubled times.

In the real world things are never quite as they seem, but cross the border into the supernatural and everything turns mercurial, deceptive and illusory. However, it could be that there’s a wafting and ephemeral frontier-land where those two worlds meet - a place where you can never quite know what is truth, and what is not.  Here is a West Country example of the phenomenon - one that came to me as I was shopping the other day in a supermarket, which happens to be in the workaday Somerset community of Wellington… The area is dominated by one massive needle of an obelisk which is one of the most famous structures in the South West, but the town also plays host to another historic, albeit lesser-known, stone structure. Both are related in a most sepulchral and spooky way to this story. Every reader will know Wellington Monument, the great triangular stone skyrocket that points heavenwards on the Blackdown escarpment high above the M5 - it announces to motorists travelling south that they have at last reached the West Country-proper. Way beneath - in Wellington’s large, red sandstone, St John the Baptist Church - is an elaborate tomb that supposedly contains the remains of Sir John Popham who left this mortal coil aged 72, in 1607. I say ‘supposedly’ because legend has it that the illustrious Englishman who was, in in his career, Speaker of the House of Commons, Attorney General and Lord Chief Justice for James 1st, isn’t in the tomb at all. Nevertheless, our story begins with these two very concrete and worldly factors: a famous and mighty monument perched up on a hill, and the tomb of a great man.  Concrete and worldly maybe, but the nether-world of the supernatural nothing is as it seems - both these solid structures hide an altogether more ethereal tale…  Wellington Monument casts a shadow over a dark secret that comes in the form of a gloomy hidden pool that is countless times deeper than the pinnacle itself. The rank pit is said to stretch downwards all the way to Hell.  If you believe the local legend, it is this pool that plays host to the remains and the soul of our long lost Lord Chief Justice, not the splendid tomb in Wellington churchyard. Go there in a few days time on New Year’s Eve and you might actually see the old rogue come back to Earth for a second or two. For that, it seems, is what Sir John really was. The nation’s most upright and respected citizen - the man who presided over the trials of Mary Queen of Scots, Guy Fawkes and the other Gunpowder Plotters - was, according to legend, a thoroughly nasty piece of work. His story goes something like this… When young, Sir John was anything but a law-abiding fellow.  Born in Huntworth, near North Petherton in 1531, he apparently neglected his studies and - as he turned from boy to man - preferred the “profligate company” of criminals, with whom he “was wont to take a purse”. According to writer John Aubrey in his book Brief Lives, drinking and gambling with ne’er-do-wells was the order of the day for Sir John as he grew up at a place called Wellington Court. However, it seems the young waster must have eventually hitched up with a girl who was more persuasive and influential than his criminal friends. His wife managed to turn him to the more serious and upright business of practicing in law. And so, after the age of 28, he began a career which was to see Sir John rise and rise to the highest legal seat of office in the land. He served as MP for Lyme Regis in 1558 and was a Justice of the Peace in Somerset. After that he was promoted to sergeant-at-law and appointed solicitor-general in 1579. In 1581 he was elected speaker of the House of Commons and later that year appointed attorney-general. In 1592 he became Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, retaining the position until his death. Furthermore he was credited as being a kind of lynchpin who “maintained the stability of the British State”, and is said to have been one of the “real colonisers” of the British Empire. He funded and organised communities in the New World - one, located at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine - was called the Popham Colony.  An illustrious career indeed… But there was something about the Somerset man that always created shadows. “He was widely considered to have been both cruel and corrupt in his judgements,” says one history book, which goes on to state: “There were scandalous rumours that he had unjustly enabled his cousin ‘Wild Will’ Darrell to escape a charge of murder, in exchange for being made heir to the latter’s estate at Littlecote House in Wiltshire.” One thing is certain: Sir John Popham amassed a large fortune by the time his life was suddenly cut short on June 10 1607. As well as Littlecote, he owned estates at Publow in Somerset and Hemyock in the Blackdowns. This wealth is apparent in the elaborate tomb at Wellington church - there are stone effigies of himself and his wife, surrounded by figures representing his parents, six daughters, three maidservants, his only son and his wife and their 13 children. An inscription reads: “Sr John Popham Knighte and Lord Chief Justice of England and of the Honorable Privie Councell to Queene Elizabeth and after to King James, aged 76, died the 10th of June, 1607 and is here interred.” But as we reach the subject of Sir John’s death, we begin to enter that nether-world I was speaking of earlier… Here is the first clue that not everything was quite as it seemed in the great man’s life. After he passed away Sir John’s estate was held in Chancery and his descendants - for reasons that have never been known - were barred from grabbing their inheritance.  One relative who believed he was about to inherit a fortune was so furious he changed his name to Smith, and so severed his links with the Pophams forever. But it is the actual death of Sir John that brings us to the ghost-story. He was killed while riding to hounds up in his beloved Blackdown Hills - probably on lands owned by his Hemyock Castle estate.  His horse stumbled while galloping across the area upon which Wellington Monument now stands - and, in the tumble, Sir John rolled down into a gully, and into the aforementioned pit or pond. The hunt servants ran to his aid but - pull and tug as hard and as energetically as they could to get him out of the ooze - down, down, down went the great man. Not surprisingly, there was a great to-do - and that determined and persuasive wife of his took to praying and beseeching. She may have suspected that the Devil had claimed his own - but she wanted her husband’s soul to stand some chance of repentance.  Legend has it she eventually had her way. Either the Devil, or perhaps God himself, at last delivered judgement on the soul whose earthly counterpart had sent so many to the gallows during his own judging career… The deal was - or is - that Sir John Popham can come out of the bottomless pit which now bears his name and make his way back to the more holy and respectable resting place in Wellington churchyard. But he can only do it by taking “one cock’s stride” in distance, just once a year.  This tiny step is undertaken each New Year’s Day. As the journey is over three miles in length, it’s going to take the old ghost from now until kingdom-come. Some local people believe Sir John is actually proceeding at this impossibly slow pace down a tunnel - an idea that has been corroborated by the fact that the residents of one farmhouse situated in a direct line between Popham’s Pit and Wellington Church had to call upon the services of a white-witch to rid the place of terrible knocking sounds that rose up through the floors.  Added to this, an article in the local newspaper, The Wellington Weekly News, on 23 June 1090, gave further substance to the legend when it was reported that some local woodmen working in the area had refused to chop down an oak tree “which uttered pitiful groans” every time they struck it with an axe. The woodmen concluded Sir John’s ghost must be sheltering somewhere deep within the tree and decided to leave it standing for a few years “to give him time to move on”. The old ghost’s course will take him right across the M5 motorway - and if you happen to be driving along that section this or any other New Year’s Eve - I’d advise caution.  You never know if, or when, the man who put Mary Queen of Scots and Guy Fawkes to death and caused 100s of others to be hung, drawn and quartered might appear in some gruesome on the central reservation.

Went for a stroll on Blue Anchor beach today and shot a little video - which I’m putting on here for all my city friends who suddenly won’t be able to come to the coubtryside for Christmas this year… Will do some more of these videos as the so-called festive season continues…

Every year I used to go to the Cutcombe Christmas Fatstock Show so that I could get a report into the Western Morning News - and so that I could buy the giant turkey, as mentioned in the last post… And even though that post has only been up for an hour I’ve already had requests from a few people asking if I had any of the old reports I wrote for the paper. Here’s the one from 2016… When it comes to the annual Christmas feast, Bill Liversidge knows a thing or two about placing a premium item on his festive table.  Not only was his massive 32 pound turkey named overall poultry champion at this year’s Cutcombe Christmas Fatstock Show, but his best goose won first in class and was named reserve champion. The December fatstock show, which is staged every year by Exmoor Farmers Livestock Auctions at the company’s Wheddon Cross market, has become a Christmas fixture in the diaries of the hill folk and is the largest of its kind still left operating in Southern England.  Christmas fatstock shows - at which farmers and producers large and small traditionally compete with one another in all manner of categories - used to take place in just about every market town in the country before strict EU wide regulations began to restrict the proceedings.  “This is probably the biggest Christmas fat stock show left in Southern England - we’ve no cattle, but today we’ve got 100 poultry, 69 lamb carcasses, 100 live show lambs and 40 show ewes,” said David Powell, chairman of the annual Cutcombe event, part of which is held in aid of local charity.  Mr Liversidge, who ran the West Somerset Community College’s Farm Unit for 25 years and still looks after his own smallholding near Dunster, told us: “It is all about breeding, feeding and presentation. You can buy the breeding from the marvellous breeders we’ve got - and you can buy the feed from the marvellous feed companies we’ve got - but the presentation is down to you.  “And you never stop learning. For example, last year the young girl who now helps run the college farm told me that to avoid scratching the backs on the turkeys when you tie them up, you need to keep the feathers on that patch and remove them later. Which is why she’s beaten me for the last couple of years. “I never knew that before, even though I’ve won this show several times,” said Mr Liversidge who, despite rearing winning geese, says he can’t afford to have one for Christmas so it will be turkey as usual. Poultry judge, Devon based Mike Wright, told me he was looking for well fleshed birds. “A turkey has to have a lot of meat, obviously, but also a good layer of fat on it. Otherwise it’s not finished completely - it also enhances the cooking.  “On top of that in a show like this they have to be well presented. There are one or two that haven’t been dressed properly which would have got higher marks if they’d taken the trouble.  “With the geese you are basically looking for weight and meat - they can be over fatty,” said Mr Wright. “The one I picked out obviously isn’t. You have to have a bit of fat on a goose but not too much. The biggest goose you can get will only feed eight people - whereas a turkey of the same weight would feed double that.”  Over in the lamb carcass section, schoolboy Dominic Blackmore was showing more experienced Exmoor farmers how things should be done by having his Dutch Texel-Black Beltex cross win the overall championship.  “I am absolutely chuffed to bits,” he told me. “This is the first time I’ve ever entered a competition. And no… I don’t want to be a farmer - I want to be a livestock auctioneer.” He certainly has the right eye to be one.

Things come and go in the world of food and drink - bandwagons occur upon which everyone jumps for a while, until the next big thing comes along. It’s particularly true when it comes to alcoholic beverages - newly created artisan ciders and gins have both been flying the public relations flag with great success over the past couple of years in the South West… But what about that good old British staple, beer? Will it ever be in danger of being squeezed out thanks to all the trendy new drinks which appear on the bar and on supermarket shelves?  Of course it won’t. The British will always love their ales - but more than that, beer keeps reinventing itself.  That’s what I found out at a West Country brewery a year or two ago. I spent several hours following the process that Otter Brewery follows when it is making a new beer (in this case Otter Pale Ale) and heard a great deal of talk about the kind of flavours and hints of sweetness and bitterness which attract modern day beer drinkers.  I also am aware of the constant reinvention of beer because I receive emails and even samples of new products from breweries large and small around the West Country. For example, barely a month goes by without Salcombe Brewery talking to me some new brew or other - and very good they all are too. Salcombe Brewery has for some time been excited about its new range of barrel-aged porters and recently launched two new limited editions. They have been created by ageing the award-winning Island Street Porter in a Speyside whisky barrel and also in a Heaven Hill bourbon barrel.  Brewer Sam Beaman comments: “Our porter has been a huge hit since its launch and has gained prestigious accolades. We wanted to build on its strengths and see if we could create a very special version as a limited edition gift. “We age the porter in wooden barrels for six months to allow the flavours to evolve. The process creates beers with the characteristic undertones of our porter - chocolate and dark cherry - but with a far greater depth and complexity of flavour.” The Speyside Whisky barrel aged porter has already won Gold both regionally and nationally at the SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) digital awards 2020.  Limited edition gift boxed porters can be found at www.salcombebrewery.com . But let’s get back to my day out at Otter Brewery, high in the Blackdown Hills and the forward-thinking socially and environmentally conscious ethos shared by the McCaig family, who own and run the brewery. But this time we were there to witness the making of a refreshing new beer better known as the abbreviated OPA… As we began our brewery tour Patrick McCaig told me: “We’ll be meeting Keith Bennett, our head brewer, did a four year brewing degree and has worked here for the best part of 18 years. He’s a class act - a next-generation artist. He is definitely one of the younger school and he recognises what makes new brewers click with the new drinkers. The beer we are brewing today is definitely part of that.” Walking to the main brewing block at the eco-friendly site which is located at the top of a deep valley in the hills, Patrick went on: “It all started here at the family home in the Blackdowns. If we had moved down to an industrial estate the brand character of the brewery - what we stand for - all begins to fade away. It would probably have made the bank manager happier - but there are loads of people making good beer in this country now - and every business has to strive to have its own individual character.  “If we can live in the hills in the old family style it just makes a difference between us and everyone else.” When it comes to the ales the brewery chooses to create, Patrick said: “The temptation of any brewery is to have a scattergun approach and brew too many beers - but we’ve always felt we should have a stable of beers that everyone knows. Although we have extended that so we have a seasonal range.  “The latest one we released was Otter Amber, which was the first time we went into the world of American hops. As the nation began to move away from the classic bitterness of English hops, so they began to move into a slight sweeter American hop-based drink. And what we are doing today is an evolution of that - taking the next step forward. “We trailed OPA last year, based on an American IPA - and it’s got some pretty wonderful American hops in it,” continued Patrick. “But it’s taking the hop character to a different level. Keith wants to balance everything - so there’s a balance of alcohol and strength - and the bitterness and the maltiness. A good beer should just slip down, whatever the strength. American beers tend to be a bit more challenging in terms of balance.  “The hops have two functions,” he explained. “One is to give the bitterness within the beer - and that can range from flavours of pure bitterness through to citrus. The other thing they give is aroma. If you had no aroma on a beer - when you go for a slurp it, there’s nothing there. It would seem almost quite naked.” By now we’d reached the first room in the brewery plant which was the malt store and milling room where Keith was preparing the malted English barley for the brew. He proceeded to show me through the entire brewing process which, basically, is like a massive chemistry set that includes grinding and boiling and macerating. Some parts of brewing are like tea making, others resemble a mild form of pressure cooking - but one of the most important elements is in letting nature get on with its own work fermenting and turning sugars into alcohol. Given a bit of equipment and just a couple of ingredients, anyone could make a beer -  but creating a good beer is, of course, another thing altogether. So much of it comes down to the individual skills of the head brewer and the flavour profiles he selects. And he really earns his money when it comes to making good beers retain a consistency of taste and quality, batch after batch after batch. Beer making is fascinating. It really is a form of alchemy, in which some malted cereal grains and a few bitter flowers are turned into something which appeals to many millions of people. If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. What I do know for certain is that we are fortunate nowadays to have some very good beer makers creating fantastic new ales here in the West Country.  Otter Pale Ale At 4.9% ABV and made with 100% spring sown barley (Propino, Crystal, Cara and Wheat Malt) it has been designed as a proper craft beer with hoppy highs and malty depths. The strong American hop flavours come from the El Dorado, Summit, Crystal, Delta, Bitter Gold and Nugget hops which give it a striking bitterness not usually seen in Otter beers. Essentially deep amber in colour. Big apricot and peach, pink grapefruit taste and a long bitter finish.

A few years ago I took a flight to Iceland from Bristol Airport, aboard an old WOW Air Boeing 737. Alas, the service no longer exists, but as the weather has become a little colder in the UK, I’ve been recalling the adventures I had in that most magical and mystical of all islands.   My long meanderings in a four-wheel-drive included an exciting snowmobiling adventure one day that took me to the top of the spectacular Mýrdalsjökull glacier, where you can - if you are lucky - enjoy breathtaking views. I have never been anywhere else like it. The place is vast and indistinct and it would be very easy indeed to get lost up there in that lunar landscape of ice and crevasse. Snowmobiles are easy to drive but I was very glad indeed that I had a guide because there are deep crevasses everywhere and much of the vast ice-cap is amazingly featureless so it would be easy to get lost.  Like every Icelander I met, the guide was a wonderful and friendly chap who spoke perfect English - though I began to wish he didn’t when, at the very top of the glacier, he told us the whole thing was sitting on a live volcano that was more than 50 years overdue blowing its top. He said when it did the 900 feet of solid ice would melt in just two hours and the resulting explosion would be far, far, worse than the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull which stopped Atlantic flights. We drove up to the glacier in this remarkable old four-wheel-drive Mercedes lorry - and then it was a day spent blasting about at high altitude on the snow-mobiles. A lot of fun - as long as the volcano doesn’t blow - if it does you’ve had it. There’s not much warning apparently - I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the Icelandic villages directly under that bomb waiting to happen.

Ranges of hills and mountains have high points, and these big peaks are the ones that will always win out in the altitudinous public relations war – so that Everest is even more famous than its great hosts, the Himalayas; Mont Blanc tends to loom in mind and body above all other Alps; Dunkery comes top in Exmoor’s roll of honour and even modest Brown Willy can lay claim the Cornish throne without too much in the way of competition. But strangers who don’t know the lovely Quantock Hills tend to be forgiven when they ask which local eminence claims to be the range’s crowning glory. To find the reason why Will’s Neck avoids the limelight we’ll quote one of the finest rural writers ever to bless the South West peninsula – Berta Lawrence’s book Quantock Country, first published over half a century ago, is one of the best written guides you’ll find … “The range of hills runs from north-east to south-west, 12 miles long and nowhere more than a few miles wide, their highest point reaching 1,260 feet on Will’s Neck - so that Quantock country will not appeal to those who admire only the magnificent and grandiose,” wrote Mrs Lawrence. “It’s beauty is simple and unsophisticated and the motif of its pattern constantly repeated, without monotony but without much variety – red earth and green grass, apple orchards and stack-yards, farm and round-pillared byre, roofs of thatch and russet tiles, brown barn and cider house, colour washed cottage and rose-red church, red herds and white flocks, deep red lanes, titled red banks and running streams, coombe and wood and heathery moorland.  “That is all. The beauty lies in the simplicity - and the variety only in changes wrought by the cycle of the seasons…” No one could put it better. And if Will’s Neck is Quantock’s highest point, then it only nudges its crown a few feet higher than some of the other wonderful hilltops that line the ridge.  Despite not lording it over other high-points in the landscape, the hill is well worth visiting. The best way of finding it is to follow the signposts to Triscombe, which lies just off the main Taunton to Minehead road. Within a mile you will be in one of the loveliest hamlets in Somerset – tucked, as it is, under the central massif of the Quantock ridge.  Tucked, also, under one of the county’s biggest quarries. Triscombe’s red aggregate was used in all manner of famous places - I seem to remember writing that the rock of the Quantocks was the first thing most visitors see when they come to Britain, because it was at one time incorporated in the runways at Heathrow. I was also once told that the regal red road outside Buckingham Palace was made of the stuff. Thankfully, the quarry is quiet nowadays, and there’s not much at Triscombe save for a handful of pretty cottages and a pub. A steep dirt track climbs directly past the quarry and eventually issues out on to the ancient drovers’ road which is a wonderful feature of the Quantock ridge, no matter where you meet it. There’s something antediluvian about walking on this unmade track. If you’ve seen Lord of The Rings movies and you want to feel what it might be like to be in such a world – try taking a turn along this prehistoric trail. Ancient gnarled beeches are a feature of the wide rutted road and somehow it’s easy to imagine Somerset’s answer to a bunch of Hobbits marching along here. The old name for this section of the track vouches for its antiquity – a 13th century document calls it “Alferode” and it’s thought that King Alfred marched along here with his men on his way from Devon. Close to the junction where it meets the track from below there is a two-and-a-half foot high menhir called Triscombe Stone which I’d recommend sitting on. Why? Because local legend has it this benign monolith will grant you a wish if you do. To your right (or to the south) a path ascends gently uphill and this is the way up to Will’s Neck. The strange name comes from “Ridge of the Wealas” - which refers to a local tribe that, according to tradition, fought with the Romans up here. The 360-degree views are most definitely in the region’s list of superior panoramas - on a clear day you will see the whole of North Somerset, including the vast expanse of The Levels and the Mendip Hills, and beyond you’ll even glimpse the new Severn Bridge spanning the upper limits of the Bristol Channel and the Brecon Beacons. The vistas south include all the northern escarpment of The Blackdown Hills, a corner of central Devon, distant Dartmoor, the Brendon Hills and Exmoor.  My father, Peter Hesp, who was to become a well known West Country journalist, came up here on his very first visit to the region and saw a thing he had never witnessed before, and has never spied since. He was sitting on a motorbike, which he’d ridden to the top (not something you’d be allowed to do today) when a whirlwind came whipping along the ridge picking up branches and small trees as it went. Hesp-senior had to cling to the handlebars with all his strength as it blasted past. The whirlwind left him bemused, but hugely impressed – and he thought: “I have come to a land of great beauty, and even greater excitement – I think I’ll stay.” I am glad he did, otherwise there’d have been no subsequent meeting with a local girl and no Hesp-junior tramping around extolling the many virtues of the mountains of the West Country on this website

What’s the zaniest, craziest, thing you could do food-wise this Christmas? I’m not talking about boiling the turkey or mashing the sprouts or anything so daft or mundane… I’m interested in suggestions that really push the boat out - like having a beach picnic in the teeth of a raging December gale, for example. I wrote those words two years ago after enjoying a really good day out with my old mate Dan the Fishman. The well known purveyor North Devon’s of seafood, Dan Garnett had invited me to what passes for our annual Christmas party…. A cooking session on a beach. As we both work alone, away from any kind of company office, neither of us get invited to the usual Christmas work shindigs - so we thought it might be a good idea to stage our own right out there on the wild Atlantic coast. And why not? Why not do something a bit different and memorable? At the end of the day, life is all about memories - and, once it’s been swallowed, food is too. So why not do something interesting, different, colourful and memorable at this time of the year when everything tends to get covered in tinsel and can become just a bit repetitious and unremarkable? Hikers often mutter an oft-used phrase first coined by Alfred Wainwright when it comes to meteorological conditions at this time of the year: “There’s no such thing as bad weather - there’s just unsuitable clothing.” Which is basically how some eccentric folk (me included) regard the idea of dining al-fresco in an English winter. Why should a picnic or a beach-cook-up be limited to just the few short months of summer we have in this country?  I’m not prescribing that everyone head for the beaches at a drop of a hat this Christmas, but a well planned excursion undertaken with the help of some good warm weatherproofs can provide you with more lasting memories than 100 office parties or drab Christmas dinners endured on sufferance.  We chose the wildest bit of coast we could find, donned the kind of waterproofs which the late Wainwright would have approved, built a fire and piled on the fish for a seafood extravaganza, just a few feet from where the marine creatures were caught or harvested by Dan Garnett’s fish-crew. “We’re going to cook up a festive fish treat with our merry crew,” beamed Dan as the WMN contingent reached a spume-covered, salt-sprayed Hartland Quay. “We are going out on the beach - to prove that we can go out on the beach - and enjoy some good local produce at this festive time of the year.  “We’ve got local oysters and fizz - then we are going to have a taste-off with some gravlax I’ve made and some from Plaistow Mills on Exmoor. After that we’re going to send the youngsters across the beach to collect shellfish - some mussels, limpets and winkles - and boil those off in a broth of cider. “And I’m going to pan fry on the fire a nice bit of local hake landed just around the corner at Appledore.” Dan loves this sort of day out, and his enthusiasm is infectious… “The sun’s out, the sea is nice. This is Devon! We get sunshine here 300 days a year,” he grinned, brushing off any suggestion that his meteorological statistics may have been on the optimistic side. “A whacking great big storm has just gone by - which is why the waves are so big - I’m glad we are all ashore and safe on the beach. You don’t mess with this coast,” he continued, as I reported the loss of an expensive GoPro camera (my own fault entirely) which had been snatched by an unusually enormous wave.  “A camera is a loss to you, but many people have come to grief around here down the years.  “Just eat and enjoy,” laughed the bearded wonder, patting me on the back. “The wild foraged shellfish with a bit of seaweed for extra flavour has made a fantastic broth now that I’ve added a bit of cider and butter. “This is real festive food,” grinned a hugely satisfied Dan. “It’s worth pushing the boat out at this time of the year. Come on down to the beach! Everything tastes better when you’ve got your own fire and you’re eating.  “Here we are surrounded by crashing waves - this is Christmas… A Happy Fishmass to you all!” Dan the Fishman’s hake with foraged seafood broth “Find a good beach where you’re allowed to build a fire and it’s safe,” says Dan Garnett. “Make a fire-pit from beach stones - use dry logs and driftwood. Light the fire place a flat griddle over it when it’s getting super hot. As the fire its getting into its stride, forage for handful mussels, limpets, winkles and seaweed. In a small saucepan soften shallots and red pepper which you’ve diced finely and add some crushed garlic to the sizzling butter. Add a glug of dry local cider then throw in your washed and rinsed shellfish and seaweed.  Bring to the boil and add the rest of cider with lid on for five to seven minutes (longer if you have limpets). In a buttered frying pan cook the hake fillet skin down, turning only once. To the shellfish, add a tablespoon of double cream and season with pepper. No salt is required in this dish as the shellfish will have plenty. Finally, sieve the shellfish broth liquid over your cooked fish - dip some good bread into your delicious broth and eat. Dan the Fishman’s beach recipe for three fish thermidor - serves four “This is a really, fast one pot dish that can be cooked on the beach, delicious and health just right for happy hungry winter walkers or surfers.  First make a small fire with driftwood and dry kindling. Place stones from the beach around it to support an improvised grill. In order to place your cooking pot on it. Get the fire really hot and cook on the hot embers. Alternatively, use a gas cooking ring.” Ingredients:- Fresh live cockles in the shell, good handful  Local sustainable pollock, filleted 454 gms approx Undyed natural oak smoked haddock fillet 227 gms approx Salmon fillet, 350gms. Approx 5 shallots or one large onion 1 red and green pepper 4 cloves garlic Fresh or dried herbs of your choice I like mixed herbs d provence, one desert spoon full Noilly Pratt or white wine Dijon smooth mustard Double cream Salt and fresh ground black pepper  Finley chopped parsley, two dessertspoonfuls Method:- Wash and rinse cockles in plenty of fresh water  Heat pan on hot fire, add whole cockles, and let them steam with lid on for a minute. Add a good glug of Noilly Pratt or wine keep lid on until the cockles open. Carry on cooking with the lid off for 2 minutes stirring occasionally, letting the cooking liquid evaporate a little. Remove from heat, carefully take the cockle meat out of their little shells, put them to one side and drain off the cooking liquid into a container While the cockles cook, finely dice shallots, peppers and garlic - add to the pan with a little oil and gently sweat until soft stirring frequently. Add chopped herbs. Keep the heat low add a few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid Skin the fish and cut into big chunks, now add to pan keeping on a medium heat and gently stir. After a couple of minutes add two desert spoonfuls of mustard keep stirring to allow the vinegar in the mustard to evaporate. Add the cockles When the fish is soft and nearly cooked add a few spoonfuls of retained cooking liquor. Taste and season with pepper and maybe a little salt. Remember the smoked haddock is already salty. Add the chopped parsley To finish the dish stir in one dessert spoon per person of double cream. Stir and serve with warmed French bread and a glass of dry white wine A real taste of the sea and hopefully a great view. www.clovellyfish.com  -Dan works across North Devon selling and promoting local fish

I once spent an afternoon at wonderful, magical, Tamarisk Farm in a place called West Bexington down on the Dorset coast, but as I began the long drive home I caught a glimpse of a car park just a mile or two to the west.    It was the one that allows passers-by to reach Cogden Beach - and before I knew it I was enjoying a good walk along the shore.  To find this particular corner of our glorious littoral you need to travel along the scenic coast road that climbs east out of Burton Bradstock to eventually reach Abbotsbury. Just a mile along the B3157 you will see a National Trust car park, that seems to be there for no other purpose than to give motorists a glorious view. However, a paved path descends a quarter of a mile through trust-owned land down to Cogden Beach which is renowned for its sculptural “artworks” – and this marks the beginning of our walk. You could, if you wish, begin the seaside stroll further west at Burton Beach, which is the coastal end of the village of that name – then scrunch your way along Hive Beach - before reaching the spot where I descended  to the sea, but you will only see more of the same if you do… What I did was walk down from the Trust car park and turn left to stride along the shoreline back to West Bexington where I’d been earlier. Be warned: this is more arduous than it sounds - as anyone who has ever attempted to walk the length of nearby Chesil Beach (of which this is the most western part) will tell you, the loose gravel that these shores consist of does not lend itself to the human gait.  Your feet sink down in the stuff in the same way as they would in soft sand, so that walking one mile in it requires the same exertion has marching three on a good hard surface. What you find yourself doing is walking in a peculiar flat-footed kind of way because the normal action of planting down your ankle first then exchanging your weight forwards using the length of your foot is guaranteed to sink each footstep deeper. One flat-footed style is an inelegant stomp which will make you look either like some kind of rustic moron or a weird spawn of Frankenstein. The other is the kind of mincing gait sometimes used by pantomime dames. My companion and I experimented with both as we made our way the two miles to West Bexington and eventually came out on the side of the hip-swinging, mincing gait. Fortunately for us – and for you should you do this walk and take my walking-style advice - not many people stroll east along Cogden Beach, probably because it is so exhausting.    Well worth the while, though, because it is one of those big long ozone-filled beaches that is guaranteed somehow to invigorate the inner areas of one’s dusty soul. This is partly thanks to the fact that the most amazing artworks made of flotsam and jetsam are to be found along the shore. Anyway, eventually we reach West Bexington and, don’t worry, you do not have to return along that sinking gravel doing your best “he’s behind you” walk impersonation. The return route leads us slightly inland of the beach and the reed-beds that line its inland edge. Some years ago the National Trust purchased land along this coast to preserve the integrity of the entire length of Chesil Beach, and now leases the inland areas such as the acres around the aforementioned Tamarisk Farm – and much of the area is now designated as the West Bexington Nature Reserve. The seaside hamlet looks modern, being basically a single street lined with villas, but the place is actually rich in history. The Domesday Book refers to a village called Bessintone and down the centuries there was a lot of smuggling hereabouts.  One local who defied the excise-men was farmer Isaac Gulliver who lived above the coast here close to the Iron Age fort at Eggardon Hill. Apparently his farm was used as a logistics centre for industrial scale smuggling activities.  If you’re driving along up on the road you do not get the full atmosphere of just how lonely and empty this stretch of coast is, but down behind the reed-beds you can certainly see why the smugglers of old liked the place for their arcane goings on. The coast path weaves its way west behind the reed-filled lakes or meres and eventually brings you back to the concrete track that leads down from the trust car park. It’s not the longest or even the most dramatic coastal walk in our region, but it is breathtaking in its own way – and a great deal more magnificent than any shoreline some countries can boast. Fact File Basic walk: from Cogden Beach east of Burton Bradstock to West Bexington along the shore, returning via the coast path.  Distance and going: four miles – difficult going thanks to beach gravel on way out, easy coming back. Local Knowledge Hive Beach Cafe (above) You might face queues, but there’s a reason. The Hive Beach Cafe a couple of miles west of this walk serves fabulous (albeit slightly pricey) food in a wonderful location. http://www.hivebeachcafe.co.uk Tamarisk Farm shop If you like eating truly fabulous organic vegetables, you’ll find plenty up in the village at West Bexington where the wonderful folk who run Tamarisk Farm (one of the first organic farms in the UK) have their humble but excellent shop.  http://tamariskfarm.co.uk West to West Bay If this rather lonely empty coast causes you to desire the busier funfair of a traditional English seaside resort, pop over to West Bay where there are more watering holes and eateries than you can shake a lollipop stick at.