We’ve all heard of surf-n-turf - and some restaurant critics are sniffy about the prospect - but there’s a new seascape-meets-landscape kid on the West Country block which has nothing to do with matching steak with lobster. The well-known Sharpham Dairy has launched a delicious new cheese which utilises the very best from Devon’s fields and blends it with a healthy and sustainable harvest from the county’s beaches.  What the cheesemakers at Sharpham have done is to take the diary’s classic and popular “Rustic” product and married it up with the umami-flavoured delights offered by dulse and sea-lettuce, two seaweeds which are harvested locally…  The result - which has already been recognised at both the Virtual Cheese and Taste of the West Awards - is a wonderful sweet-salty, creamy-crumbly cheese that delivers a subtle hit of umami which is so pleasing, you can almost taste a hint of truffle. Which is a bit of a coincidence because only two weeks ago in these pages we were saying exactly the same about the amazing Black Queen scallops now being harvested in the Fal estuary.   “Probably not a coincidence,” shrugs Tony Coulton of Ebb Tides - the Sidmouth-based seaweed company which supplies Sharpham with dulse and sea-lettuce. “Both clams and seaweeds filter seawater for their nutrients, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a connection.” More from Tony later in the article - but first what inspired the award-winning folk at Sharpham to start producing one of the first UK cheeses ever to utilise seaweed as an amazingly effective flavour-enhancer?  The dairy’s managing director, Greg Parsons, replied: “I’d taken my family to an exhibition at the Royal Albert Museum in Exeter where Tony was doing some sort of presentation, and I got talking to him. He’d done stuff with seaweed and butter and he was telling me about what worked particularly well - the dulce and the sea lettuce being two he mentioned.  “It was something I’d previously thought would work well with cheese - so meeting Tony and learning about his Devon-based business at the museum was the kind of moment of fate where you think: this was meant to happen. Our Sharpham Rustic has been a firm favourite for many years and, while many fans would say you can’t improve on a classic, we wanted to try something new to sit alongside the original. “There has been a growing awareness of seaweed during recent years - and I was impressed by what Tony was telling me and by the range of sustainably hand-picked seaweeds his company sells.  And I must have been impressed because, when it comes to our classic Rustic cheese, we don’t want to be seen adding any old thing to our award-winning product - it has to work, be authentic and have a real link with Devon and the area.” So, having made sure seaweeds were safe to use in the cheese-making process and sustainable for the environment, Greg and his dairy staff began trialing a number of Ebb Tide’s products before they eventually settled on the perfect marriage. “We’re really proud of the new cheese,” says Greg. “The seaweed adds a delicate umami flavour to our classic - it’s lovely just to nibble with a cracker and a nice dry wine - but also, because it has that delicate flavour, we think it is really nice combined in dishes with seafood.” Tony Coulson loves it too.  In fact, Tony is a man who cannot understand why seaweed isn’t used in a great many more products. When he took the plunge after a lifetime working in aquaculture and decided to set up his Ebb Tides seaweed business, it was partly with a sense of mission… To convince the British to join other island races (such as the Japanese) in embracing the seaweed which grows around our coasts and adopting it as part of our mainstream diet.  “I realised that, with all the different food movements looking at sustainability, this was an ideal resource,” says Tony, recalling the moment in 2016 when he launched Ebb Tides from his Sidmouth home. “I decided to look into it - did my own little surveys looking at the different species and availability - and luckily I found a suitable area close to where I lived. Then I obtained a licence from the Crown Estate and got the go-ahead from Natural England for the process I use to harvest seaweed sustainably.” Tony’s business has been going from strength to strength ever since - and you can see and buy the products he has developed on his website www.ebbtides.co.uk . “Seaweed has been consumed since ancient times by people of Asia and for a very good reason,” says Tony. “ Seaweeds are wholesome, delicious and a great alternative to salt, herbs and spices. Our dried seaweed comes in pouches which are ideal for garnishes or a quick snack - and also in shakers making the seaweed useful for everyday life cooking without the hassle.” If there is a mystery surrounding seaweed, it is this… Why is it that (with the exception of a few North Devon laver-pickers) the English have traditionally totally ignored this safe, bountiful and hugely healthy source of nutrition which grows for free around their shores?   “I don’t understand it myself,” shrugged Tony. “I just don’t get it - because it’s so dense in nutrients and it is delicious - and it can be harvested sustainably. I even wrote to the government pointing out that we should be farming it at sea - because then you get better growth and you are not limited by the tides time - but I never got a reply.  “Which frustrates me, because the Irish government is so keen it has even bought equity in seaweed sea-farming projects to help get them off the ground.” We hope to visit Tony again in these pages to learn more about the wonders of seaweed - in the meantime you might like to sample Sharpham’s new Rustic with Dulce and Sea-Lettuce. You never know, it could be the first in a vast array of delicious products which will become ever more popular as we British discover the delights of the sea-vegetables that grow around our shores.  Sharpham Cheese Rustic with Dulse and Sea Lettuce, a mouth-watering crumbly is available in 1kg packs from the new website   www.sharphamcheese.co.uk   or through wholesale from  Hawkridge Farmhouse Dairy Produce.

One of the most exciting things that can happen in the life of a mature food-lover is the increasingly rare moment when you realise there’s an ingredient or perhaps an entire type of dish you have never tried before. And it is especially exciting if the revelation comes your way in the area or region where you live.  And all this becomes even more electrifying when you’ve been a professional food writer for over a quarter of a century and you learn there’s a delicious new item right there on your patch waiting to be discovered.  A deliveryman has arrived with a big white chiller box at my Exmoor cottage as I write these words - and it contains a type of Cornish shellfish I’ve never tried before. I cannot tell you how excited I am about the prospect of cooking and eating them.  They are called Black Queens and they are a bycatch of the highly sustainable Fal Estuary oyster fishery, which - as most readers will know - is carried out under strict laws that mean no vessel with an engine can be involved. The Fal oyster smacks are famous - and I believe they make up what is the only professional fishing fleet in Europe where all the work is done under sail or simply by manpower. The oysters (and therefore the Black Queens) are also caught by fishermen who use special rowing boats with hand-cranked dredges. Anyway, the point is that the dark but delicious estuarine clams have always been regraded as bycatch and were always simply thrown back into the water once the dredges full of oysters had been hauled on deck.  My old friend Robin Turner - who has spent his life working in and around the Newlyn fishing port - takes over the story. “I was an auctioneer and wholesaler at Newlyn for many years and my work would take me to France where I had a lot of contacts. I had seen these small dark clams on sale in the fish markets along the west coast of France down by Bordeaux. They are highly sought after by the French and Spanish.  “And I realised I’d seen the Black Queens being thrown back on the Fal. Not so long ago I was in France and I saw an old friend of mine one day and asked if he’d be interested in buying our Cornish version of this delicious shellfish. He said, ‘If you can get a good supply and they are clean we can sell them’. “So we started to see how we could get permission to harvest these previously unwanted shellfish as a food stuff. That meant getting them registered in this country and getting permission to fish them - getting the depuration (cleaning and purging process) sorted - and getting the paperwork to have them sent over to France,” said Robin.  “We’ve been going for four years now - and they really are sought after on the Continent, but hardly any are sold in the UK. They have an amazing flavour - a bit like normal clams but sweeter and somehow they taste slightly of truffles - which is probably because they live in the river sediment rather than on the sea-bed, which is where all the other clams on the market come from.” He added: “I became involved with the sales across The Channel but have no involvement if the clams are sold here in the UK. A company called Fal Catch sells them and I am only too happy to help out the British fishing industry in general to promote anything that’s caught, because once Brexit happens it could be that the Cornish fishing industry needs all the help that it can get.”  Robin, by the way, has kindly agreed to become a regular contributor to the new RAW food and drink pages which appear in the Western Morning News each Saturday bringing us all manner of seafood news relevant to the South West - you can read about him in the panel… So what are Black Queens like to eat? Well, I have just shucked open half a dozen and dealt with the insides - which I must say is a little fiddly as they are small and you need to cut away the digestive tract which will still have some debris inside even though the shellfish have been purged by the fishermen.  So fiddly, yes - because you only get a chunk of meat which is about the size of a fat £1 coin - or a two quid coin at the largest… But! The flavour is astonishing.  For my taste-test I simply dolloped a tiny dot of Trewithen Dairy’s salted Cornish butter on each and grilled the meat on the shell for just under two minutes. I promise, the Black Queens are the sweetest shellfish I have ever eaten - and believe me, I have eaten marine molluscs of varying species all around the world.  But it’s more than sweetness. Robin is absolutely right - the little flavour-bombs do have a background essence of truffle. So here’s what I am planning for dinner tonight… I reckon the Black Queens of the River Fal will make the ultimate spaghetti vongole - which happens to be my all-time favourite pasta dish.  It will take me twice the time to process the clams than it will to cook the dish - but if we’re talking quarter of an hour’s prep’ followed by eight minutes cooking, then my wife and I will be having the best seafood dinner we’ve had in 2020 with less than half-an-hour’s work.  The plan will be to heat through some Trewithen Cornish butter so that some chunks of garlic can very, very, gently turn golden over the mildest heat on the hob, as I prep the Black Queens.  I’ll discard the bits of cooked garlic, then toss the clam meat in the flavoured butter as I cook the pasta. The Italians would no doubt choke on their spaghetti, but I will also add a spoonful of Trewithen’s Cornish single cream as I toss the pasta into the clams, and I’ll finish the dish with just a few droplets of truffle oil. We’re talking about a unique form of truly Cornish seafood heaven here. An extremely simple dish but you really, really do not want to be disguising the flavour of the amazing little Black Queens in any way whatsoever… (Visit Fal Catch Ltd website for details of various Cornish seafood - www.falcatch.net) FACT FILE 1 The Queen scallops found in the Fal estuary are believed to be a mixture of two species - Chlamys varia and Aqupecten opercularis. They live attached to the seabed by byssus threads similar to those used by mussels to cling on to rocks. They are fast growing and highly abundant animals that are found growing on empty oyster shells on the Fal and Helford  oyster beds. FACT FILE 2 Robin Turner, of Newlyn, is a well known figure in and around one of Britain’s busiest fish docks - and he has kindly agreed to give us regular foodie updates from the far west end of the South West region. Nowadays Robin helps his highly skilled and talented wife Rebecca run Indulgence Catering ( http://www.indulgence-catering.co.uk/ ), which is based in West Cornwall… “We are very lucky to come from two very different directions to cooking and preparing meals in the catering industry,” says Robin who used to be one of the auctioneers at Newlyn Fish Market.  “The weather here recently has been inclement, but we have had an interesting supply of fresh produce for our business. We also have been privileged to have catered a number of small weddings over this time. “Now that October has arrived we can concentrate on autumnal meals. Game, shellfish, great joints of meat, fresh veg and very importantly Rebecca’s baking. Her cakes are a delight - and I should know - I am the company’s Quality Control. “To give a brief idea of some of the shellfish we have provided in the last fortnight… We’ve had crawfish, lobster, crab, scallops, white queens and black queens. Soon to be joined by local fresh prawns, velvet crabs and winkles. Over the coming weeks we will describe these shellfish and how to enjoy these fabulous Cornish ingredients - and occasionally my friend Stephen Barrett will pair some wines with these wholesome foods.”

For 20 years I visited Cornwall as roving feature write for the main daily newspaper in the region - and on a grey dark rainy day like today I miss my sojourns to the extraordinary coastline which wraps itself England’s south west peninsula. Over the years I grabbed the occasional video shot with my camera… Here is an article I wrote a few years ago about the importance of the Cornish coast. It marked what was then the 40th anniversary of the National Trust’s Neptune Campaign - and I think it’s all very interesting… The West Country has a lot going for it. The peninsula is adorned with a plethora of fine features, from fertile vales to the great high moors. But it is the sea coast which acts as the most important mantle upon which the favourite jewels our crown are displayed.  Ask any visitor which single element of the West Country they identify with first and foremost, and the reply will probably have something to do with the seaside.  Unspoilt coves, big broad surfing beaches, picturesque harbours, noble headlands…  Most visitors to the region will spend at least some time at the coast and it is generally recognised that the shores of the West Country are among the finest in England. Which makes it all the more pertinent that we should mark the anniversary of the National Trust’s Neptune Coastline Campaign.  It was launched in May 1965 by Conrad Rawnsley, grandson of one of the trust’s founders, and it was designed to prevent “inappropriate development along unspoilt coasts.” Anyone who has been to the littorals of Southern France, Spain or Italy will know just how crucially important this scheme was to prove.  Compare, for instance, the wild and wonderful Cornish coast with the Cote d Azur section of shoreline stretching from Menton on the French-Italian border, a couple of hundred kilometres west to Marseille. Travel the whole of this over-developed coast and you will find only a couple of tiny areas of unspoilt countryside. The trust’s original objectives were to focus public attention on problems faced by various seaside areas and to acquire control over the places deemed most worthy of preservation.  And Neptune has been hugely successful thanks to the generosity of landowners who’ve gifted property, and the public who’ve bequeathed monies in wills and made generous donations.   The original aim was to raise the sum of £2 million by voluntary subscription. In 1965 a survey of the 3,000 miles of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, showed approximately one third was already ruined and a third was of little interest. The final third of some 900 miles was deemed important to save.   The trust now owns just over 700 miles of coastline having raised a staggering £45 million through the Neptune campaign. Fiona Reynolds, the trust's Director General when I wrote this article, said: “As a result of Neptune and the generosity of those who have supported it, millions of people are now able to access miles and miles of natural coastline of often stunning beauty. These landscapes represent some of the nation’s greatest natural and recreational assets. “Sea Britain and the 40th anniversary of Neptune provide a perfect opportunity for the trust to celebrate the glories of these dramatic places. It is also the perfect occasion for the trust to provide a timely reminder that we need a different approach if we are to sustain the coast as a place of awe-inspiring natural beauty and a haven for wildlife.” Just over 30 major seaside areas in Devon and Cornwall have been acquired by the organisation through the auspices of the Neptune campaign, and we’ll be finding out why they were bought and why it is so important that they remain carefully managed into the future. After all, places like the tip of the Lizard are not only major jewels in the West Country crown – they are important treasures held dear by the entire nation.  Neptune in the West Country – all, or part of, the following coastal sites were acquired with help from the campaign. Cornwall  Boscastle Harbourmaster’s House (small part of larger ownership in Boscastle including harbour area, Valency Valley and cliffs either side of the harbour). The Dizzard – 59 ha headland of stunted oak trees. Rusey Cliff – 97 ha. Tremoutha - 32 ha of pastureland. The Dodman Dodman Point - 32 ha including Lower Penare Farm. Hemmick Beach – 17 ha dominating the two small valleys behind the beach. Lambsowden Cove - 28 ha. Duckpool to Sandymouth Houndapit Cliffs – 44 ha/108 acres of open farmland. Sandymouth car park and café. Fowey Coombe - coastal farm of 60ha /148acres. The Gribbin and Polridmouth. 48 ha/120 acres. Godrevy to Portreath Godrevy and part of Gwithian Beach (23 ha). Lizard Peninsula and Bass Point.  Part of Bass Point including cliffs and quarter of a mile of coast including the Lizard Wireless Station. Chynhalls Point & Cliff – 19 ha. Lizard Point - Polbrean Hotel - now renovated and refurbished and the most southerly youth hostel in the UK. Tregullas & Tregominnion Farms (50ha) including Pen Olver headland. Predannack – 273 ha/674 acres. The Loe and Penrose Higher Pentire Farm – 18 ha (part of extensive ownership including Loe Bar and Pool.) Maer Cliff, Bude 45ha/115acres of clifftop pasture, with access to several small coves.  Morwenstow Rectory Farm - the farm protecting the famous church of St Morwenna made famous by Reverend Hawker. Mount’s Bay 12 ha/28 acres of coastal farmland at Trenow Cove (Boat Cove). Nare Head, Gerrans and Veryan Bays Portloe - 0.2ha of cliff land. Treluggan Cliff – 36 ha/89 acres overlooking Gerrans Bay – all part of extensive trust ownership at Nare Head, Gerrans and Veryan Bays. Park Head  St Eval – 77 ha/192 acres of wild headland which forms the backdrop to Bedruthan Steps, including Pentire Farm and Diggory’s island with eight small coves and the rock-arch. Pencarrow Head, Lansallos, Lantic Bay and Lantivet Bay. 73 ha of Lansallos Barton Farm and 50 ha of Highertown Farm. Pentire Head and Port Quinn Bay Lundy Bay - 8 ha of farmland above Epphaven. Trevan Cliffs - 4.4 ha / 11 acres completed the acquisition of a six mile stretch of coast. Porthcurnick Sandy beach and fields surrounding the beach acquired. St Just in Roseland 48 ha/118 acres of farmland and 34 ha of farmland, foreshore and coast. St Mawes Nancorras Farm – (part of) 16 ha/40 acres. St Ives to Pendeen Bosigran and Carn Galver – 201 ha/498 acres stretching from St Ives to Lands End including the Iron Age cliff castle of Bosigran and Carn Galver tine mine. Boswednack - 5.7 ha of cliff and farmland. Carn Naun Point – 48 ha of cliff and farmland. Rosemergy and Trevean cliffs – 81 ha. Watchcroft – 47 ha of heathland. Pendeen to Penberth Bollowall, Carn Gloose and Cot Valley – 72 ha/176 acres of mainly cliff land once intensively mined for tin. Boscregan Farm and Hendra Cliff – 28 ha/69 acres of cliff and farmland. Carn Hoar (Escalls Cliff) – 3 ha/7 acres. Levant – 3 ha/7 acres of traditional field system above the engine house. Nanjulian Farm – 37 ha/90 acres of farmland, cliffs, coastline and an Iron Age settlement. Whitesand Bay Trethill Cliffs – 28 ha / 66 acres of farm and cliff land.  Devon  Avon Estuary to Erme Estuary Higher & Lower Manor Farms 99 ha/245 acres of farmland and one mile of coastline. Plus Scobbiscombe Farm 200 ha /496 acres. Branscombe Part of Branscombe ownership (cliffs & coombes 89 ha). Brixham: Southdown Cliffs Cliff and farmland 47 ha /116 acres and 58 ha /144 acres. Dart Estuary – Dartmouth 64 ha were bought in 1970 with Neptune funds and funds from a local appeal. Heddon Valley: Heddon’s Mouth North Cleave, with Parsonage Wood. Lee to Croyde Morte Point. Salcombe Bolt Head to Bolt Tail. 15 ha at Higher Soar Farm. Portlemouth Down. Prawle Point and Gammon Head. Snapes Point - all 63 ha/154 acres. South Milton Wembury Bay and Yealm Estuary. Woody Bay – 49 ha /120 acres.

Another blast from my past - a short video package from the days when I used to do some TV presenting with ITV Westcountry in conjunction with the Western Morning News. It was a happy match. We published the articles in the newspaper on the day of screening - so there was a bit of mutual publicity going on between the TV channel and the newspaper which worked well for viewers and readers as well as the various bosses involved. And worked well for me. I loved working with the film crew and over the years we had a great deal of fun. I am still in touch with my old mate - TV cameraman Chris Harris - and one of these days, when the wretched pandemic is over, I fully intend meeting up with him to perhaps discuss some future projects. The packages appeared on the regional evening news programmes and so were cut far too short, really - but they did give viewers a taster of the scenery and the landscape, and I had a huge amount of positive feedback. And I mean. enormous feedback - because throughout the various series we took TV cameras where they’d never been before Ah…. those were the days. The camaraderie of working with a TV crew was refreshing for a feature writer like who normally only ever worked alone. Our producer Cathy Sayers always made sure we had a good pub lunch - and basically, as jolly good time was had by all…

It is dark and raining heavily here in Exmoor National Park - we’re in coronavirus lockdown once agin so it’s all a bit lonely and grim - - so I was looking through some of my old videos from press trips in the past - and this is one I particularly liked… The flight from Barbados to tiny St Vincent in the Grenadines brings back very happy memories - I will add more details with stills photos soon.

The first wisp of wood smoke smooched its way up the valley this week. It lingered over the village and, under cerulean skies, loitered amid the orchards just beginning to bend with fruit, then snaked its way towards the woods that are a long way yet from showing signs of the golden tints to come.  But the smell of that smoke spoke of a thousand comfy, cosy, fireside moments that will define the cool clear autumn days ahead. There is no better time for walking in my opinion. Many of us will have suffered from close sweaty heat while hauling ourselves somewhere nice this summer.  Don’t get me wrong - I am certainly not going to complain about the weather we’ve had, but hot humid conditions aren’t fantastic for hiking. Nor are severe midwinter days. As for spring, it’s too full of showers so you never know whether you should be in an anorak or a T-shirt. But autumn (by which I mean the long cool days of September and the slightly shorter nippier ones of October and November) often offers the West Country walker the most perfect conditions for country hiking that, in my opinion, are to be found anywhere on the planet.  Walking in the countryside is, officially, Britain’s favourite outdoor leisure activity - a fact that means £millions to this region’s economy. According to the latest survey on how the British spend their leisure time, the countryside is the second most visited place for people taking trips purely for pleasure - after towns and cities which accounted for the UK’s greatest addiction, i.e. shopping.  Just over a quarter of all trips taken for leisure purposes end up in the countryside or by the seaside, according to Natural England’s latest statistics. In total a massive 57 per cent of people said that a walk or a ramble was the main activity enjoyed on any kind of outdoor leisure visit inside the UK. Of course, in a region like ours we are hugely fortunate to have a lengthy coast. By which I mean hundreds and hundreds of miles of coast. And there is something about coastal walking that is both profoundly exhilarating and deeply meditative and peaceful, all at the same time. There is a theory which suggests it’s all to do with ozone and negative ions. We are, after all, a walking bag of chemical and electrical reactions, and these two things can alter what happens inside us. Now I’m no technical expert, but as far as I understand it ozone - while being extremely toxic in a concentrated form - is good for you in small doses. And tiny amounts of the stuff accumulate at the seaside. It has the effect of making us feel altogether more jolly. In fact, spend a day walking around one of the South West’s great headlands, and you can feel high as a kite. Which might be also be something to do with those negative ions. Some folk buy ionisers to put in their homes – others walk the South West Coast Path. No one really knows how these things effect us, but what we do know is that - when a thunder storm is approaching - many people suffer bad headaches and are overtaken by a feelings of oppression. Negatives ions are believed to have the opposite effect – and there are plenty of these at the seaside – or anywhere that has plenty of crashing waves and tumbling water. And then there’s SADS – or Seasonally Affected Depression Syndrome. Again, I don’t know if this really exists or if it’s some machination made up by those who may earn money from treating such a thing. But what I do know is that a blast of bright light makes you feel good. In fact, walk along a southerly section of the path in bright winter sunshine after days spent indoors – and we’re back in high-as-a-kite territory again. The south-facing capes are good for this: go to Portland Bill, Start Point, Prawle Point, Rame Head, The Dodman or The Lizard on a such a day and I can guarantee you’ll come home dizzy with joy. For me coastal walking is also special for its sound. I’m a great lover of natural noise. I think we all are, if we stop and think about it. The crashing of waves… No sound is so splendid – especially when the rush and the roar is punctuated by the screech of gull. It is wild. It inspires a gut feeling of wilderness – it speaks of limitless voids.  Such thoughts are good for the soul. Then there’s the haunting cry of the oyster catcher – no other bird, no other creature, creates such a melancholic sound. It is as if they speak from beyond our world – which, in a way, they do. Down there, on the squelching, oozing border of the low-tide zone. Beyond our modern world – beyond even the South West Coast Path. But, as I say, what other right-of-way could take you even close to such things? I have often written - and no one has ever argued the point - that the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth helped invent the concept of walking purely for pleasure when they lived in the Quantock Hills just over 200 years ago. Their constant rovings were thought so odd and out-of-the-ordinary that the government even sent a spy to Somerset to see what they were up to. The fact that Coleridge took to the Somerset hills and dales simply for delight and gratification says a lot about him, his work, and his acute powers of observation. “Sea and hill and wood With all the numberless goings on of life Inaudible as dreams.” Those words of Coleridge’s ring out long and true to me whenever I am walking across the airy ridge of the Quantock Hills. Sea, hill and wood is exactly what you see – but on either side of the ridge there are the great vales of West Somerset and the Tone, not to mention the Somerset Levels – where all the numberless goings on of life do somehow beam their way up to you inaudible as dreams.  And if you look at these priceless lines you will see that Coleridge was also addicted to coastal walking. “Ah slowly sink, Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,  Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue Ocean.” Of course, Coleridge was also haunted in later life when the laudanum addiction became a bit too much to bear - then even his country walks were tinged with darkness… “Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread,  And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.” What strange, haunting, apprehensive lines are those… I prefer to think of the man who invented country walking in these more jolly terms. “He on honey-dew had fed,” he wrote while living in happier times at Nether Stowey. “And drank the milk of Paradise.” Call me an old fool, but I believe we can all taste honey-dew and the milk of Paradise by following in Coleridge’s footsteps by taking a stroll in the Quantocks - or anywhere else in this glorious region - on one of those cool clear autumnal days when the metallic blue skies seem to go on forever and there’s just a whiff of the first winter woodsmoke in the air.

There are strange places, spooky places, unworldly places, surreal places, really weird places… And then there’s Goonhilly Down If you ever want to go for a walk somewhere that is absolutely, completely, different to anywhere else on the planet - if you want to wander through a landscape that would look more fitting as a set for Dr Who than for a zone that has anything to do with an afternoon stroll - then go to Goonhilly.  You will not forget the experience, that I can promise. Months later, after eating too much cheese at supper, you will awake from a strange and disturbed sleep in the middle of the night and you will think: “Well, at least that dream wasn’t half as odd as Goonhilly Downs.” Please do not think for a minute I’m writing any of this in a disparaging way. I love Britain’s strangest landscape and would urge all readers to go there and wander about the place at least once. It is a floral and environmental treat just as much as it is a visual, sensory, thrill.  But, let’s be honest, the great bald heath that dominates the centre of the Lizard is a location most of us have driven past in a hurry to reach the peninsula’s dramatic and beautiful beaches. People don’t stop at Goonhilly - unless, that is, they were visiting the famous Earth Station visitor centre which, when I was last there, was closed for refurbishment.  The reason I can now write about Goonhilly and heartily recommend it as a location for a hugely interesting walk is because Sir Ferrers Vyvyan took me up there a few months ago when I was fortunate enough to stay in one of his luxury holiday cottages at the neighbouring Trelowarren Estate.  Goonhilly used to be part of that great demesne, and it still has a place close to the heart of Sir Ferrers who likes to go up on the massive heath for a walk and a muse upon all things interesting and celestial.   We left the estate’s venerable Land Rover at Natural England’s small car park just south of the famous Earth Station. In case you haven’t been there, this is one West Country landmark that you cannot possibly miss - just look out for the huge satellite dishes which border the B3294 Helston to St Keverne road.  Numerous paths head off in various directions across the heath from the car park - indeed there is an interpretation board which introduces visitors to various walks - but we took the one which led us directly towards the vast dishes. That was because Sir Ferrers wanted to show me something that put this whole massive weird shooting match into a very strange and rather wonderful perspective.   As we strolled through the low scrub and past stunted trees, he told me: “I love to come up here - it is an extraordinary and much unappreciated landscape. Yes, it is an incredibly austere landscape, but it is full of interest. For instance, it is the home of the Wandering Heath (otherwise known as Cornish heath or Erica vegans), which was purportedly the bed of Joseph of Arimathea when he landed in Cornwall. It is purple and white and blooms in late summer with an extraordinary scent. “But this landscape is bleak,” Sir Ferrers continued as we got closer and closer to the big fence that guards the satellite dishes. “It is studded with barrows and standing stones that speak of an older culture here - but at the same time is married to the most extraordinary 20th and 21st century landscape of the satellite station and wind-farms. “It is a peculiar and quite eerie mix of cultures. You can be lost in an old, old, old landscape that has 21st century technology right beside you. It is very evocative…” Mow we reached the thing Sir Ferrers wanted to show me - a huge, singular, sepulchral, standing stone pointing heavenwards just like the neighbouring satellite dishes…   “My great-uncle Courtney found this menhir lying on its side in the heath and, with a bit of gentle archaeology, he also found the original site from where it had fallen over - and he raised it again in the 1920s.,” said Sir Ferrers as we walked around the great rock which is called the Dry Tree. “It is right in the middle of the peninsula - and in the middle of Goonhilly Down. Placed at the very point where the five parishes of the Lizard Peninsula meet at one spot,” said Sir Ferrers in a voice that somehow spoke of awe and admiration. “It is a truly prehistoric spot - this menhir was here two or three thousand years ago - maybe before that.  “And it is a lovely spot which I come up to often to walk in and think about the older history. Here it is - slap-bang next to this 20th century site - the satellite receiving station at Goonhilly. This place must have had an astrological significance in prehistoric times - but also, in our time, it was the only site in the UK where they could track the first satellite, Telstar, as it appeared over the horizon and travelled through 180 degrees, and also 360 degrees around.  “So it was an incredibly rare and important site for the engineers who built the Earth Station - and for the people who erected this menhir. One can’t help but think that those two levels of importance - one prehistoric, one modern - are somehow peculiarly linked.”  Sir Ferrers is right: there is something fantastic - almost too perfectly science-fiction-like for words - about the idea that the massive ancient standing stone has a direct, celestial, relationship with the burgeoning hi-tech world just feet away on the other side of the security fence.    With such thoughts in mind we continued our walk, heading south west across the downs. After a few hundred metres Sir Ferrers had another surprise in store… “Goonhilly might look empty, but it is full of surprises,” he said, ducking left from the track to clamber through some stunted trees and enter what looked like (and indeed was) an ancient field system. “Right here in the middle of the Downs there are medieval farmsteads - probably older…” And with that, and bit more rummaging, we came across one such place. Totally hidden deep in a thicket lurked a very, very old and very ruined farmhouse. Someone long ago had put a corrugated roof on the place, but this hadn’t stopped time taking its toll. For interior design - think moss and lichen. For domesticity - think crushed stone cupboards and fallen fireplaces.  As we continued our walk in a great loop out to a place marked on the map as Carn Mear, Sir Ferrers mused: “You can look at Goonhilly and drive past it and you may be tempted to think there’s not anything worth exploring - but if you stop in the Natural England Nature Reserve car park next to the satellite station there’s so much to explore.  “Within minutes you are lost. Peculiarly lost, given that this place is just about flat… And suddenly, here we are in the middle of this rare heathland. There’s the old farm site, there’s fantastic flora, there’s wildlife and, bizarrely, there’s normally a distinct absence of people,” grinned Sir Ferrers. With that we began our walk back to the car park. Following various paths that took us past a place called Croft Pascoe, we worked our way in what was generally a north-easterly direction - there’s not much point in my giving accurate description of the route here because there are numerous trackways and all you have to do is head towards the giant Earth Station.  Maybe in a very thick fog you’d have difficulties, but in most conditions this is the one landmark in the West Country that it would be impossible - and inadvisable - to miss.

The upper tidal Fal is without doubt one of the most unvisited, peaceful, tranquil and somehow mesmerising locations in our region. Some stretches are so fantastically Amazonian you almost expect to hear the sharp sudden puff of a blowpipe and find a poisoned dart lodged in your neck.  The thick tree cover on either side of the waterway drips over the creek with not a single break for miles. No tracks, no roads, no homes, not even much in the way of old deserted wharfs and quays…  Voyage up here on a warm autumnal evening and you are transported out of the West Country into some kind of fantasy world that is every bit as exotic as the tropics. Then, just when you were getting used to being in South America or Borneo or wherever, your flat-bottomed boat noses its way into huge sweeping tidal lakes where the lonely cries of a thousand wading birds are the only sounds to break the complete and utter silence.  I’d go as far as to say these are the most silent places in the peninsula because their great empty spaces are protected both from the soughing of the west wind and from the noise of the 21st century. Old Kea is a hamlet, if the title isn't too grand, at the head of tiny Church Creek. This is an aptly named stretch of water or mud depending on the tide because just about all there is at Old Kea apart from a farm and a cottage, is a church. And what a church it used to be. You can see that thanks to the ruined tower where now only jackdaws ascend instead of prayers. It's a noble old piece of perpendicular even now, and is all that's left of a mother church which was once the temple of the parish. The trouble was that it was a particularly large parish and Old Kea was at the very edge of it. For centuries the locals moaned, until the year 1802 when All Hallows church was built three miles inland.  But Old Kea was an important holy site because of the Celtic monastery that was founded here many centuries ago by Irish St Kea, so a small replacement church was built just a few yards from the forlorn tower. A lane runs past the churchyard and then peters out by the top of the creek, but here a footpath ascends the hill and leads across the field Trevean and down towards the head-land which divides the Fal and Cowlands Creek. Suddenly you are at the creek side near the hamlet of Coombe. Not many roads in Britain are tidal - the lane here is and if the water’s in you must take the footpath around the back of the cottages. I walked here many years ago and discovered that an amazing industry used to be based around the creek. the area was famed for a particular variety of plum. In the season 100s of people would visit to help gather the harvests of Kea Plums and at one point they’d be taken off to Truro up-river where they’d be made into jam on a commercial scale. Nowadays you can still buy the jam - if you’re lucky - at a cottage with an honesty box on the side of the creek. Now the creek-side road turns into a waterside path. Old boats in various states of decay dot the shore and the occupier of a dreamy demesne has built a number of intriguing corrugated iron huts, all of which are bounded by a jungle of fabulous gardens. "Who lives there?" we asked the old lady who we found sweeping seaweed from a slipway many years ago. "I don't know" replied Mrs Grace Williams, "But I hear he's got it very nice over there." The Tregothnan Estate has some holiday cottages at Coombe and I’ve been lucky enough to stay in one of them. The estate manager told me it had been a ruin before his team did the place up - and I look forward to making a return visit soon —- https://tregothnan.co.uk/holidays/

The Lizard is a broad-backed craggy monster known for its windswept ways, but like all dragons and other mythical beasts it has a soft and gentle underbelly.  In the case of the Cornish Lizard - that rocky peninsula renowned for its bleak but somehow lovely downs - this means a place called Trelowarren: a demesne so dreamy that you can forget this century altogether as you walk amid its wide, sylvan, secret and altogether fascinating acres.   If the gentry of old hadn’t had their regal way, blandness would undoubtedly rule huge corners of the West Country - and nowhere is this more true than the northern limits of the Lizard or, to put it another way, the southern shores of the River Helford. Not a single house, let alone an ugly estate of bungalows or villas - pollutes this amazing zone, and we have 600 years of Vyvyan family ownership to thank for that.  Britain’s old estates have for the most part gone, or they are saved by the National Trust for us all to enjoy, but every now and again one comes across a bit of countryside still in the ownership of an old family. These places tend to hold a particular fascination. They are the last of the secret zones where you can see the region as it used to be. Closed off from the rest of the world, with overgrown gardens, lost lanes and hidden coombes – the sort of locations that, one way or another, hark back to altogether more colourful times. Few places in Britain have quite as much of this ‘lost-demesne’ feel as Trelowarren. The Vyvyan family moved there in 1427 – and the place is still run by a Vyvyan today. Fortunately, Sir Ferrers Vyvyan is a forward thinking man who is in the process of making financial sense out of his beautiful inheritance. This means opening the place up to the public. And this, in turn, means we can walk in his wonderful woods. Which is exactly what I was up to a couple of years ago when the affable Sir Vyvyan took me for a walk around the estate which is now open to the public most of the year. This is what he told me as we walked… “Trelowarren has a voluntary access scheme from February to September 30th, which means people are welcome to come and explore our own internal network of paths and the very deep long valley which separates the Lizard peninsula from the mainland. It’s called the Meneage Crush Zone and it’s the dividing boundary between Cornwall and the Lizard.  “The Lizard has its own flora and fauna and identity. This is like being abroad within Cornwall.”  Sir Ferrers is a passionate enthusiast when it comes to the landscape of his amazing Lizard hinterland, and has produced an explanatory walks leaflet which visitors can pick up at the estate office… “You need it, really, to enjoy the landscape,” he said. “Because it does take a bit of picking apart. So pick up the leaflet and that will unlock the 18th and 19th century-designed landscape, which consists of a series of paths with features on it.  “Today we will walk to the Mount first of all, which is a pile of spoil on the site of an ancient barrow - but designed to give a viewpoint into Mounts Bay and the Channel.” This part of the walk took us west, away from Sir Ferrers’ big manorial home - but not before we’d past a coach-house with a splendid clock mounted high on its roof. Sir Ferrers told us a remarkable story about how this clock was stolen several decades ago and given up for lost. Then, years later, one of his sisters was walking down a street in Belgium of all places when she saw it for sale in an antiques shop. To avoid a big legal fuss, the family simply purchased the clock and had it reinstated back at Trelowarren.  The Mount, by the way, is the estate’s answer to an Egyptian pyramid, albeit a conical one. A path ascends this man-made hill in a spiral, and at the top there are the promised views of half of Western Cornwall.  After making our descent we walked half a mile around the edges of fields via farm tracks (there’s no point in my describing directions as hopefully you will pick up a walks leaflet) to an even more remarkable feature of the estate.  Halliggye is a collection of cottages centred on what, thousands of years ago, was an Iron Age fort - but this ancient place had more than just defensive works… “Our extraordinary ‘fougou” is the largest and most intact of the Iron Age fougous in Cornwall,” said Sir Ferrers with pride, leading us down some steps into a black, man-made cavern.  “This place is generally unknown,” he added. “But it is a beautiful construction from over 2500 years ago.” Pronounced “foo-goo”, these archaeological features are underground structures built of dry-stone, found on Iron Age or Romano-British defended settlement sites in Cornwall. And we went deep, deep, deep into the one at Halliggye until we reached a place where Sir Ferrers turned his torch off so we could experience just how utterly black and silent this spooky place could be.  What were fougous for? No one really knows. They could have been simply for the cool storage of foodstuffs, but I reckon the ancients had more than that in mind when they erected these mysterious, sepulchral places.  From Halliggye we descended north over a field to cross the main drive and enter into a leafy track which took us past several picturesque cottages. “Now it’s down again - into the Long Valley, where we can take a series of paths,” said Sir Ferrers. “This is the place where, if you want, you can walk all the way along to Tremayne Quay out on the river.” As it turned out, we had to take a detour because of some logging operations, which Sir Ferrers promised would be cleared soon - but as we traversed some fields the baronet explained why it was that the River Helford has remained so utterly unspoiled.  “It is, simply, really difficult to get access. Along the south bank there are farmlands which don’t have a lot of rights of way. My father gave Tremayne Quay - which our ancestors built so that Queen Victoria could come to the house - to the National Trust, so now you can do the Tremayne Quay walk, which is incredibly well used by locals and visitors alike. You get to see some of the most beautiful parts of the Helford where ancient oak woodlands pour down over the bluff and down to the river’s edge.  “My great uncle controlled that south bank from Frenchman’s Creek up to Gweek and he was absolutely determined in the 1930s and 40s when he was having to sell a lot of land that he wasn’t going to allow any built development along the banks of the river. If you travel upriver today you will see the results - you won’t find a landscape like that in many places any longer.” The woodland walk now brought us back to the heart of the Trelowarren estate where - apart from the grand house - there is a very good restaurant in the old stable-yard.    Sitting there having a spot of lunch we spoke about Daphne du Maurier who knew Trelowarren well. Most famously, she based the manor house in Frenchman’s Creek on the dreamy demesne, but she also wrote that it was: “The most beautiful place imaginable – a shock of surprise and delight, lying indeed like a jewel in the hollow of the hand.” Having now stayed in one of Trelowarren’s luxury holiday cottages and walked around its sylvan acres, I can but agree. . Fact File Basic hike: Circular route through woods in Trelowarren Estate. Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 103 The Lizard – alternatively get the estate’s woodland walk leaflet – tel: 01326 221224 or by looking at the estate website: www.trelowarren.com Distance and going: Our route was just over three miles – muddy in places.

King Arthur is often in the news - which is amazing given that he lived and ruled many centuries ago - if he lived and ruled at all… Certainly Cornwall is a place that celebrates the legendary monarch - and some places associated with him such as Tintagel could never fit under the title “Secret”… But my favourite Arthurian location was out in the middle of nowhere. It’s an enigmatic place called King Arthur’s Hall which can be found on the flanks of King Arthur’s Down, high above the village of St Breward. There is only one way to see it apart from hiring a helicopter, and that is to walk. St Breward is a charming village, perched on the edge of Cornwall’s rooftop, but it is not the easiest of places to reach. Having negotiated the myriad lanes that riddle the western slopes of Bodmin Moor, I thought it would be worthwhile make a bit more of a hike out of my Arthurian sojourn – the area is as atmospheric in a cold, boulder-strewn, way as it is beautiful.  I parked up at Churchtown – a sort of suburb of St Breward just north of the main community – and found the footpath that heads east over Church Hay Down. It leads across several of the small stone-lined fields that are a feature of the western moors, before crossing a lane and making its way towards a place called Penwood House. Close by this residence the right of way veers north east, crosses a small tract of moorland and eventually passes though the farming hamlet of Lower Candra. Now we negotiate a small stream and climb across a couple of fields to King Arthur’s Down. At the top of the second field there’s a stile and the walker is introduced to the moorland proper. Turning right we make our way along the stone wall and head directly into the heart of Bodmin Moor. This becomes apparent as the shallow curve of the hill introduces the hiker to the vast central tableland of the western moors. Almost directly ahead Garrow Down offers the first hunchback eminence, but behind that and slightly to the north-east, there’s a side-profile of the dramatic razorback otherwise known as Brown Willy – Cornwall’s highest hill.  North again there’s Rough Tor – pronounced Rowtor – a jagged mountain if ever the West Country could boast such a thing. And, lying between all this empty vastness, there’s broad, empty, King Arthur’s Down. Well, not quite so empty. For if we continue walking east into the virgin moor we find a series of standing stones that seem to mark the right of way. And, after passing a couple of these, we are introduced to a strange rectangular area of hillocks which, at first glance, doesn’t seem worth either a detour or a mention. But this is King Arthur’s Hall, and if you take the trouble to walk over to the hillocks, you will see that the place is really a sunken rectangular corral lined with standing stones. It’s about 50 metres long by 25 metres wide, and there are some 47 stones lining the perimeter. No one really knows who built the place or what it was used for. One book says: “Various suggestions as to its origins have been made. These vary from it being a Bronze Age ceremonial monument relating to the nearby circles, to some form of Neolithic mortuary enclosure, to a prehistoric livestock corral.” It’s easy to imagine some local warlord meeting with the tribal elders up here during the times when the Anglo-Saxons were pushing the poor old Celts ever westward. At this point I decided to make a circular route of my meanderings, so headed due north from the Hall right across King Arthur’s Down. It’s a good mile and a half of nothing much at all, save for a few cairns and a small stone circle, which you come across just as you are about to reach the farm track that leads to the remote agricultural settlement under Rough Tor. Be warned that none of this passes anywhere near a public right of way, but most of it is across public access land.  At the farm track I turned left to walk over Candra Hill. After a while I reached the public road and, soon afterwards, turned south to head over yet more moorland so that I could “bag” Alex Tor. This is a low rise just north of Trewallock Downs – and between the two there’s a public footpath that leads west, down into the fields.  By taking this I regained the lane I’d been on earlier, and followed the metalled road as it snaked around Mellon Farm and Treswallgek. A few hundred yards past the latter, another footpath issues to the left and takes walkers down over half a dozen small fields to Churchtown, which is where we began. Bodmin Moor is nowhere near as well endowed with public rights of way as Exmoor or Dartmoor, and sometimes you have to look at the map to see which bits are free to access. But this is a classic route for anyone who loves the western moors. Not only is it exquisitely remote and full of views, you get realistic traces of the world’s favourite legendary king thrown in for good measure. Fact file Basic hike: from Churchtown, St Breward, west up onto the moors via various footpaths to reach King Arthur’s Hall – then north across King Arthur’s Down to follow track to Alex Tor and then back via yet more paths through the fields. Recommended map (essential for this hike): Ordnance Survey Explorer 109 Bodmin Moor. Distance and going: six miles, very easy going in summer – could be boggy in winter.

There aren’t too many train rides available to enjoy in the Caribbean, but here’s one of them… The St Kitts Scenic Railway - a wonderful round-the-island experience not to be missed if you are ever in that neck of the woods. The railway is an 18 mile long narrow gauge line that circumnavigates the island following the coastline. Every mile of the way you see evidence of the history of the place - and the reason the line was laid in the first place… It was all about sugar from the plantations - and basically the little trains used to take the raw materials down from the farms around the central mountain and deliver it to the big old sugar mill at Basseterre. The sugar mill was built in 1912, to reduce processing costs. Before that, each plantation had its own sugar mill - and you can see the remains of many of them along the route. The first section of the railway line, from the Factory Pier to the St. Kitts Basseterre Sugar Factory, with a West Line branch running 4 miles to Palmetto Point and a North Line branch running out to Mills's at Bourryeau Estate, was completed on 28 February 1912. And it was a really big deal at the time  - a special train carried various dignitaries. After that the railway was operated seasonally from February to June for the annual sugar harvest. In modern happier days the privately owned St. Kitts Scenic Railway carries tourists rather than sugar cane. The first of the new passenger carrying trains began services in January 2003. The whole ting is run as a partnership between the government and a private enterprise. And it is known as “The Last Railway in the West Indies” and part of its objective is to preserve a link to the past, when sugar ruled the island's economy.

We’ve all got marrows to stuff. At least, we gardeners have at present. I have never known so many friends and relations try to pass overgrown courgettes off on one another.  The thing about these long green sausages of the garden is that: a) they don’t last long, b) they don’t freeze well, and c) they don’t really taste of much. My early memories of marrow are of a light green mush that tasted of salted water, smothered in a thick white sauce that tasted of salted four. During the intervening years people developed several ways of making marrows taste of something – which basically meant stuffing their innards with highly flavoured ingredients.  The trouble is, nine out of ten stuffed marrows still end up with the mushy consistency and flavour of semi-solid salty water.  That’s the bad news. The good news is that, after years of trial and error, I have found a way of giving the flaccid marrow flesh some solidity and punch. And, free of charge, I am going to pass that knowledge on to readers without more ado. The first question, having struggled to your kitchen under the weight of the gigantic green torpedo, is whether to cut it in half lengthways and gouge out the seed core, or to slice it crossways into cutlets then push the soft centre out leaving a hole in the middle of each round. For the technique I am about to describe, the latter method is most practical – however, discs of stuffed marrow don’t offer the same centrepiece drama of the two long, boat-like, halves.  I say that because salt is the simple ingredient that helps you to achieve the magic of firmer better-flavoured marrow flesh. The more surfaces of flesh you can apply the salt to, the better. It’s no use salting the thick green skin, by the way, as it is impervious even to the attentions of voracious slugs.  So, rub handfuls of sea salt into the pale green flesh wherever you can. If this is restricted to the two surfaces you’ve cut lengthways, then place the two halves flesh side down on a grill above a receptacle which will catch the water. If you have marrow cutlets, it doesn’t matter which way up you place them, but you will still need something to catch the water because – left over several hours – a surprising amount will be drawn out by the salt.  It’s best to leave the marrows to bleed under the salt treatment for as long as you can (I leave mine overnight), then wash the surfaces under cold running water and pat dry.  Then comes step two in the bid to give your marrow some muscle. Place the dried pieces skin side up in a fan oven and leave under a low heat (say 100c) for 15 minutes. Yet more water will exude from the flesh, making it as firm and as flavoursome as any marrow can be. Now we are ready for the stuffing. The traditional favourite is based on mince beef and this week, in the interests of experimentation, I made two different versions from some top-notch mince I bought at n organic farm.   One was a classic bolognaise-style sauce of the moist variety, the other was a drier mix that turned the marrow half into a sort of gigantic beef burger holder. Both were fantastic and would happily sit as centrepieces at any supper-party with friends – but I do have to emphasise that you must either buy the very best quality mince, or make your own from chunks of good, grass-fed, beef. Also, I think it’s important to introduce a variety of texture by adding things like chopped celery or peppers.  For the basic sauce: 500 grams of mince beef 1 chopped onion as much chopped/crushed garlic as you like 3 chopped sticks of celery four rashers of dry cured streaky bacon chopped half a dozen fresh skinned tomatoes, or one can of ready chopped 2 tblsp tomato puree 2 dried smoked chilli peppers or large teaspoon of Spanish smoked paprika generous glass of red wine handful of any garden herbs a pinch of salt a heavy grating of black pepper half a dozen slices of Cornish Garland wild garlic cheese Fry the beef making sure it’s all browned, drain off the fat and put to one side. Using the same pan, gently fry the onion until just a touch golden then add the bacon, chopped celery and lastly the garlic. Put the beef and vegetables into a large pan and throw in the wine, tomatoes, the puree, and chillies or paprika.  After ten to 15 minutes over a medium flame the mix will have settled into a nice gloopy consistency. Now it’s simply a matter of seasoning and spooning it into the marrow that has been dealt with in the way I’ve described above. Put the lot into a medium oven (175c), reserving a little of the sauce mix to add halfway through the 40 minute cooking time, as the stuffing tends to shrink. After 35 minutes place the cheese slices on top of your beefy marrow boat, and allow to melt. Serve with steamed runner beans from the garden and/or new potatoes.  For the dry version, use all the same ingredients with some additional chopped bell peppers and a large tablespoon of French mustard –  substituting the paprika element for a couple of fresh chopped chillies - and leaving out the tomatoes, puree and red wine.  Simply mix the lot together by hand in a bowl until the chopped vegetables are evenly spread through the mix. Season, adding loads of fresh grated black pepper. Stuff the marrow and, this time, wrap the whole lot up tightly in cooking foil. You can remove this 30 minutes into the 40-minute cooking time and allow the top of the stuffing to brown slightly, adding cheese if you like.  The great thing about the dry version is that it can be sliced quite thinly and used for picnics. I have also been pickling the young courgettes this summer and the results are fantastic. I won’t give a recipe here because you basically make a pickling medium in the usual way and then add whatever herbs and spices you have in your garden.