Great British Pubs

They say you marry your father.  I laughed my head off at that when I met Adrian.  Don’t be daft, I thought, they couldn’t be more different.  I could cite many reasons but the main one?  We barely ever went to a pub. 

My father, on the other hand, lived for the boozer and I sincerely don’t remember the first time I visited one (probably in a pram). He was never happier than sitting in the back bar at the Greyhound, Bella the pathetic dachshund at his feet, with a pint of Youngs in his hand.  His dream was to run a pub, a small rural pub in Kent. It never happened - he died of lung cancer at 52. 

Pubs to me, on another hand (how many have I got?) meant immense tedium, the stale smell of fags and beer, people talking nonsense as they got more drunk.  Pubs meant walking to the other side of the road to avoid being lunged at or thrown up over by blokes staggering out.  Yeah, I went to them as a teenager (didn’t everyone?) but, to be honest, once I’d left home, I didn’t really frequent them that much.  I sort of went straight to clubs, parties and music venues. J

Then the sordid truth came out. Adrian was a beer drinker. And a pub aficionado.  Okay, so aficionado is probably too tame a word.  Let’s just say he has an obsession, akin to a religion, a holy calling.  ‘A good pub is a comfort, a cross-roads of social mobility,’ he says, rhapsodically. ‘Pub. Boozer. Tavern. Local. Rub-a-Dub (whaat?? Does anyone really say that?), Public bar. Village inn. Gin palace. Home from home.’ He fondles the words like poetry.  ‘The pub is where we meet and greet friends, neighbours, strangers (friends in the making) and (on occasion) future lovers.’  Well, we met at a Paul McKenna press show, but hey…

Adrian in his rock star days... 

'A good pub is a comfort,’ he continues, getting into his stride. ‘A crossroads of social mobility, a centre of communications and a place where the reward of a great beer sustains during the long working day.’ Well, not for me but hey, who am I to argue? Plenty of people agree with him.  J

And now, with fellow lush (I mean beer writer) Pete Brown. 

Many years ago, Adrian announced that he wanted to be a beer writer.  He wanted to make a living tasting beer and writing about it. But not just about the beer itself, but about the places which served it.  Serve eh?  See, the pub is a temple and those who drink there are its priests and priestesses, its acolytes, its servants.  I smiled and said, ‘Sure, why not?’  But I didn’t really think he’d do it. I thought it would go the way of writing the great Welsh novel.  Oh so wrong.  He’s now a major expert in the field of beer.  

He’s written a swathe of books on the subject and travels round the world tasting beer. My father would have listened open-mouthed as Adrian gets the gleam of the preacher in his eye. ‘Beer,’ he says, waving a pint glass, sniffing, swirling it round the glass, holding it to the light, taking a small mouthful and swilling it round his mouth, cheeks puckering before, eventually, slowly swallowing. ‘Beer is the currency with which we spend our time in these pubs. John Barleycorn, who must die every harvest before being reborn the following spring – the golden promise of resurrection.’  See, told you it was a religion.

Anyhow. His new book is just out.  Great British Pubs by Adrian Tierney-Jones, published by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale). 

 Unmissable pubs * Perfect pints * Favourite destinations.

Or, as one wag put it: ‘It’s pub porn, innit?’ He has a point.  Anyone who shares my husband's predilection for pubs will salivate over this book.  Over 200 British pubs, all photographed and plonked into handy 'best of' categories – brewpubs, country pubs, community pubs, family pubs, pub gardens,  seaside pubs, cider pubs, railway pubs, entertainment pubs etc etc.  Jeez, the word ‘pub’ is starting to do strange things to my eyes.   There are features, indices and all sorts.   Yup, pub porn alright.  And, let me just float this idea past you – an ideal Christmas present maybe? 

Woods - look bottom right. :-)

Me? Nah. Though I’ve sort of come round to pubs.  Let’s face it, my life would be tricky if I didn’t. Wherever we go you can bet there will be a pub involved at some point along the way. And I do like some of them, I do.  I’m deeply fond of our locals, Woods and The Bridge Inn – both superb in their own ways.  The Culm Valley Inn in neighbouring Devon is superb for top-notch food (while still remaining a great community local) and The Turf in Exminster keeps it simple but has a rather pleasing insouciance (they shut up shop during the winter to go travelling to warmer climes – oh how sensible).  Kilverts in Hay-on-Wye is one pub I felt totally comfortable in on my own (crazy but it can still be a bit weird as a woman on your own in a pub – in some places it is still very much a man’s domain).  Pen-y-Gwryd in Nant Gwynant in Snowdonia is a climber’s pit-stop in deep Snowdonia, surrounded by mountains, just begging for ghost stories to be told round the fire. 

Buy the book. See if you agree with his choices.  However, if you want to rhapsodize about pubs, or disagree vehemently, or argue the case for your local or favourite holiday find, might I direct you to Adrian’s blog – Maltworms. Do please engage with him in conversation there about your mutual obsession.  He will be delighted. My eyes will glaze over. 

btw, he also conducts tutored tastings and beer talks for corporate dos and other functions.  They’re allegedly great fun and a bit different from the standard wine malarkey.  He can tailor them to your requirements.  So, if you or your company like the sound of it, drop him a line.  

What should you teach your child?

And my third (or is it fourth?) night without sleep. It’s getting insane, it really is. But I realised I couldn’t do anything about it so I meditated (which some say is equivalent to sleep) and worked on fixing my back. When 6am came round, I wouldn’t say I bounced out of bed but the stabbing pains in my back had vanished and I felt a curious clarity.

There’s a different dynamic in the house when Adrian’s away. James came into my room and said he had a suggestion for the problem of the Arctic Cryochamber Breakfast Room.

‘Wear your dressing gown,’ he opined. ‘Over your clothes.’

I had to laugh. He was standing, in school uniform with a long dressing gown knotted round his waist; trousers tucked into thick socks and a pair of ankle-high furry slippers.
So I followed suit and we had breakfast looking like a rum old pair of Noel Cowards.
James switched the radio from Adrian’s beloved Radio 4 to Radio One and we danced with the dogs to the Black Eyed Peas and shook with laughter and lost track of time and nearly missed the bus.

Once again, the SP and I went over the bridge and up the hill. Shrouded in mist; fine soft kisses of moisture on the air. But the path was slick and I felt my feet slide under me. So I followed the SP up the steep rocky path, through the trees, up, up, up, feeling lighter with every step. No wulfas; no beasts at all; just bird song, rustle and footfall. To the hill fort, the fastness, surrounded by ancient ghosts and then down the steep passage known as the Chimney.

Careful walking. Walking as thoughtfulness. Thinking, thinking. Mainly about my son, my lovely son – and the man he will become. It made me ponder the principles I hope I have offered him.

I don’t believe we should inflict our ideas, our beliefs on our children. But I do think we can offer up suggestions, thoughts, possibilities. When I thought about what I would like James to take through life with him, I came down to these...

1. To your own self be true. The stormy search for the self starts young and it can be a hard path. I like to think James has enough self-esteem and self-belief that he does not need to follow the herd. That he can make his own decisions; be his own person; be happy in his skin.

2. Be independent. It’s not just practical, this one (although James is learning to cook, to clean, to wash clothes and iron them; to have responsibility for animals and his own stuff – why, oh why, do people not teach their boys this stuff?). It’s about being self-sufficient; about taking responsibility for oneself.

3. Be honest but also kind. This is about discrimination and it’s a fine line for children to learn. If your self-esteem is strong enough, there is no need to put other people down. Yes, some people are hugely irritating; bombastic; stupid; plain revolting. But hey...who are we to tell them? And that leads on to...

4. Stand up to bullies and stick up for the underdog. People who bully do so from fear, from lack of self-esteem. This chimed with James and now he stands his ground. He also stands between the bully and the bullied, even when it means going against the crowd – and for that, I am so proud of my young knight.

5. Communicate. Honestly, this is so fundamental – not just to children but to everyone. Nearly every question I answer (in my dubious role of agony aunt) comes down to this. Talk. Say what you mean. Don’t expect another person to intuit your meaning. I go over this time and again with James. He – like so many of us - imagines slights that probably aren’t there; is over-sensitive; gets the wrong end of the stick.

6. Confront your fears. Fear is the biggie; the one thing that so often stops us from achieving our potential; from being who we want to be. But, once you confront a fear, stare it straight in the eye, it often backs right down. James learned his lesson on this a few years back when he was picked for a county cricket training. Nobody he knew was there and he baulked. He’s regretted it ever since. It’s not just the physical fear either (though I must say jumping off a mountain blows away a bit of that) but psychic fear too. I have taught James how to confront his nightmares; to stand up to the monsters and ask them what they have to show him (monster comes from the Latin verb, monstrare – to show, reveal).

7. Question your thoughts. Thought can deceive. Thought can lie. Thought jumps to conclusions; turns simple dilemmas into catastrophe. ‘I got a C for English. I’m rubbish.’ ‘He looked at me funny; he hates me.’ Negative thoughts are your ego acting out of fear. Okay, so you don't need to go into that with your child but, well, you get my drift...

8. Open your heart. Ah, this is a tough one to teach a child on the verge of teenagedom as you know it will bring heartache as well as joy. But, truly, hearts are made to love. I have no doubt James’s will be broken, probably many times. But, the heart is a muscle, a spiritual as well as a physical muscle – and without breaking, it does not grow. There is huge healing and transformation in unconditional love - yes, even to those you consider enemies.  I would point out that James isn’t totally convinced on this one yet

9. Have a sense of humour. Truly, the world hates a sourpuss.

10. Know when to shut up. :-)


Sorry. Longer post than intended.
What have I missed?
What do you hope to impart to your children?
How much should we impose our thoughts and beliefs on our children?



btw, there's still time to enter the Kinect competition. Just leave a comment here

Leave Dulverton alone, Liz Jones

‘We’ve had the most wonderful holiday ever,’ said the woman sitting next to me in the pub with the broadest of grins. I’d got talking to her and her husband a fortnight earlier when they’d just arrived and we’ve bumped into them here, there and everywhere in the interim. ‘We tried out all the places you recommended and we found a few more too,’ she said, making my mouth water as she detailed every fabulous supper, every cool glass of pinot. ‘You are so lucky to have such great places to eat and drink round here. And it’s so beautiful. And the people are so friendly.’
She’s right on all counts. We are. It is. They are.

Dulverton is a small town but it’s packed with good things. We are blessed with great small shops – both of the everyday useful variety (greengrocers, hardware, newsagent, chemist etc) and the totally non-essential but deeply delightful variety. You can buy everything from a saddle to a pair of f***-me heels, an antiquarian book to a fishing rod, a set of Sophie Conran cookware to a sack of dog biscuits.

Woods (as many of you know) is a fabulous bar/restaurant which serves seriously smart food (alongside a robust bar menu). The landlord, Paddy, is a connoisseur of wine and beer – and you can drink any of his vast selection of wines by the glass. It’s been feted in every paper and guide going and is always packed. The Bridge offers superior pub grub – home-made pizzas and pies, steaks and salads – and has to have one of the most gorgeous locations – right next to the river. We have a Thai restaurant which is excellent and slightly further afield are other excellent eateries (the Quarryman’s Rest in nearby Bampton is a favourite and my new best friends seriously rated the Tarr Farm restaurant, just up over the moor). OK, it's not London - you can't get a choice of organic vegan cafes or decide you fancy dim sum on a Sunday morning - but it truly isn't a culinary desert.

It’s a lively community too, a right old mix of ages and interests. And yes, people are friendly, very friendly. We all know that tourists are vital for our town’s wellbeing and they are made hugely welcome – not just for their credit cards but for the buzz they give the town. People work hard, darn hard to make Dulverton work and to keep it as a living breathing town. So I do get cross when I hear people running it down. This has been brewing for a long time and I have been sitting on my hands for months, nay two years, but it’s time to say to Liz Jones, enough already.

Liz Jones, for those who don’t read the Mail on Sunday, writes a weekly column in YOU magazine about her life. In the past this has revolved around her disastrous relationship but, ever since she moved near to Dulverton, her favourite gripe seems to be Exmoor itself.

Nothing is right. It seems we’re all uncouth yokels with hairy legs and armpits, downing our flagons of cider and doddering around, crashing into one another as we’re all so ancient and decrepit. Except, of course, when we toss aside our Zimmer frames on Sundays to hurtle out to blast pheasants from the sky. For pity’s sake, someone tell her nobody shoots pheasants on Sundays – they’re taking a pot at bits of clay. Apparently there’s nowhere decent to eat – all you can get in the ‘wine bars’ and ‘bistros’ are chicken in a basket and rum-babas. I wouldn’t mind if it were true but it isn’t. I wouldn’t even be so cross if it were funny or witty. But it’s all just so clichéd. So stereotypical. So lazy.

If Liz had come to Exmoor with an open mind and open heart, she would have been made hugely welcome. Exmoor loves mavericks and eccentrics and would have smiled, indulged and probably feted her (and she would have found a mass of material for her column). But all she has done is moan and gripe and poke fun at her neighbours and the surrounding area. Why, people wonder, did she come in the first place? A lot of the locals reckon she’s only here to get a good book out of the place. I am prepared to be more charitable. She clearly loves her animals (even if she does think that feeding rats on organic muesli is a good idea) and she probably fell for that age-old idea that things will be better in the country than in the big city. Well, they can be. But you have to make an effort. You have to meet people halfway, if not more. You have to introduce yourself to your neighbours (not turn them away because you’re ‘in the middle of a photo shoot’). You have to pitch up to things. You have to try things you would never normally do in the city. You have to recognise that country living is entirely different. In the city you tend to mix with your own narrow band of people – when I lived in London, it was all media, fashion, arty types. In the country you meet a much broader cross-section and that is its delight.
Above all, you have to adapt. You can’t expect the countryside to change itself for you. It’s not too late (not quite) and Liz, if I can offer just a few bits of advice…..

1. Ditch the BMW and get yourself a good old Suzuki or Subaru.
2. Stop feeding the rats – truly, people are laughing.
3. Try smiling as you come into the pub. Get chatting at the bar.
4. Accept that you won’t stop people shooting or fishing or hunting or farming out here. It just ain’t gonna happen. Live and let live.
5. Please stop calling hooves ‘paws’. Ditto to 2.
6. Learn how to reverse.
7. Stop going on about Prada, Laboutins and so on – not only is it vulgar but it’s pretty offensive to the hoards of people out here who are on minimum wage.
8. Stop winging about your dilapidated farmhouse. It’s gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. Or it was.
9. Stop with the impression that you live right on the moor (now that really IS another country). Ditto the bits about seeing the sea (physically impossible).
10. Start doing your bit for Exmoor – you’re a journalist with a lot of power. Use it kindly and wisely.

The last is really important. The woman in the pub paused over her glass of wine. ‘You know the funny thing?’ she said. ‘We nearly didn’t come at all.’
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘Well, I read Liz Jones in YOU magazine and she keeps going on about how ghastly the food is, and how barbaric Exmoor is, and it very nearly put me off. It was my husband who insisted we should give it a go, that surely it couldn’t be that bad.’

So, Liz, if you should ever happen to read this – please stop with the running down. It’s one thing to play fast and loose with your own relationships and friendships in print – but when you run the risk of taking away a small country town’s much-needed income for the sake of column inches, it simply isn’t fair or just.

A new beginning

What a difference a week makes. This time last week all hell had broken loose. Adrian was sitting in the estate agents while the removal men were sitting in the pub. Anguished calls were whizzing between agents and solicitors. All our worldly goods and chattels were in two removal trucks blocking the main road into town. Our buyer had, true to form and my darkest suspicions, b*******d up again. Somehow, between him and his inept solicitor, they hadn’t got his mortgage sorted properly and the money hadn’t come in on time. Adrian was, to put it mildly, stressed.

I, meanwhile, was sitting in a marquee several miles away, blissfully unaware of the ensuing drama. It was James’ speech day and I realised, for the first time, just where all our money was going. Forget any idea of smarter schools, better equipment, better teaching. Nope, send your child to an independent school and by heck you’re paying for posh tents, veritable gardens of flower arrangements and Terry Waite as the speaker.
‘How much d’you reckon they’re paying him?’ whispered my friend R (the mad but lovely Irishwoman who is not known for her tact).
‘Enough.’ I muttered.

I have to say though, however much it was, it was worth it for he was fabulous. The children of course had no real idea of who he was but the parents were riveted by his speech. I hadn’t heard the tale of how, after several years in prison, he had finally met a friendly guard who agreed to smuggle in an English book. Unfortunately neither he nor his accomplice spoke any English. Terry was overcome with excitement when the book was placed in his hands and could barely wait to rip off his blindfold (he had to put one on whenever anyone came into his cell). The door closed, he pulled it off and turned over the book: ‘A Manual of Breastfeeding.’ Can you imagine the disappointment?

The next one was Dr Spock’s Baby and Childcare and he realised, with horror, that the kindly soul getting the books was firmly stuck on the childcare shelf. Eventually he hit on a way to get over what he wanted. He drew a picture of a penguin. Now, he could have been REALLY unlucky and got the sex life of penguins but no – his ruse worked and the next book was Laurie Lee’s When I Walked out one Midsummer Morning (published, of course, by Penguin Books). The irony of the title wasn’t lost on him.

Most of the prizes were for older children and I was beginning to fidget a bit, desperate to get outside to switch on my mobile and find out if I had a home or not. But then, to my total delight, James’ name was read out – he had won the governor’s award for effort. Up he went, face like a poker, not a trace of emotion as he shook Terry Waite’s hand and took his prize. Then, as he walked back from the stage, he caught my eye and broke out into a huge beam and gave a double thumbs-up!

Outside, a superior cream tea was being served but I swerved off and called Adrian.
‘Er, it’s a bit sticky,’ he said, his voice sounding thin and taut. ‘The money hasn’t gone through on time. We’re waiting to hear if we can get in tonight. Oh, and our buyer is still fifteen hundred quid astray of the price.’
What???
I barely heard what people were saying to me. I ate an entire cream tea without even tasting it. No wonder I can't lose weight - and what a total waste to boot. Then the phone rang again and Adrian sounded like a different person.
‘It’s OK. We’re in! Come on home!’

It was mayhem of course. The removal men were clearly desperate to get out (well, it was a Friday evening) and we were desperate to get them out and so stuff was pretty much dumped wherever a space could be found for it. James discovered the fish pond and promptly named the fish Cheetah and Tiger. Jack bounded enthusiastically (he had bonded fast with the removal men who bizarrely didn’t seem to mind a small terrier hurtling round their ankles).

Then, suddenly, they were gone. We walked round our house in a daze. It felt wonderful. Never mind that you could barely see any of it for boxes. Never mind that the smell of damp rose up like a miasmic bog and that the downstairs loo was a botanist’s dream. Never mind that the floors listed wildly and that you could see daylight through the window frames. It might be a restoration nightmare but it was our restoration nightmare and we all loved it to bits. Funny thing but it felt ours immediately. It felt as if it simply shrugged off the old owners almost in an instant and opened its arms to us. It has the loveliest warmest feeling; a nurturing generous house. Not a single backwards glance, not one (Milla, you were so right – but then you usually are!).

We got the beds made up and decided that – as it was nearly 8pm – it was time to go to Woods in search of supper. We had a right royal welcome – the locals cheered when we went in and one of the old lushes nearly broke into tears he was so chuffed. ‘Well done, well done, well done,’ he kept repeating (I think he’ll go on saying it every time he sees us for the next few years actually). We tucked into steak rolls with onion marmalade and a huge bowl of home-made chips. I sank a few glasses of Beaujolais; Adrian a fair few pints of HSD and James overdosed on Fentiman's ginger beer. When we went to pay the bill, we were waved away…. ‘Oh, away with you!'

That night, as I tucked James up in bed, in his new room, I suddenly thought back to speech day (which already seemed months in the past) and said: ‘So, what was Terry Waite like?’
James thought about it a bit. ‘He was quite nice,’ he said, then wrinkled his nose a bit and waved his hand in front of it... ‘but he was a bit whiffy.’
I must have looked startled because he shook his head firmly.
‘But, Mum, it wasn’t his fault. He’s been in jail for five years, you know, and they didn’t have any baths. He couldn't help it.’

The Last Weekend (and mad shoes)

It was our last weekend here and by heck it was a good one. James had his first ever sleepover (at school) on Friday night. So, while the child is away, the mice will play….. My dear friend Jane came down from London and met us at Woods (where else?). Gins were drunk. Wine followed. Food was fabulous. I was being careful though so what happened next was all Jane’s fault. She decided that she wanted an extra glass of wine for the road. Paddy, the owner of Woods, is a bit of a wine buff and prides himself on his cellar (the wonder of Woods is that you can pick any wine and just have a glass if you want)… So he bustled over to ascertain what kind of wine she fancied, vanished for a bit and then came back brandishing a bottle of Crozes Hermitage, insisting it was on the house. Jane had a glass. I said ‘No thank you’. Paddy poured Adrian one but he was drinking beer of course. Now, what do you do, faced with a full glass of something very nice. How rude would it have been to have ignored it? So I drank it and very lovely it was. At which point, someone (possibly me, I confess) asked what Paddy was drinking. ‘Champagne and pastis,’ he said with a bit of a wink. ‘Now that’s what you want if you’re having a party. Drink a few of those and you don’t know who you are.’ And off he went, chuckling, only to come back with three champagne flutes and a couple of bottles.
‘Nooooo,’ we said. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. Evil Paddy.

Jane drank hers. Adrian took a sip and put his down. I drank mine even though I don’t like aniseed-flavoured things one little bit. I think that was the point at which I brought up about the night when Jane, eighteen, got off with the chemistry master from the boys’ school (not sure why I said that, but Paddy thought it was funny and Jane didn’t – particularly because she was also having a hot flush at that precise moment).
Then our cab came. I got up and noticed Adrian’s untouched glass and said (why, oh why?) ‘Can’t waste it. I’ll take it with me.’
Paddy laughed merrily.

So there I was, in a mini-cab, thinking I was wildly sober, sipping something totally disgusting. It was only when I got into bed and tried to read my book (Glass Books of the Dream Eaters) with one eye shut and the other squinting, desperately trying to focus, that I realised that I had overdone it. By a long way.

The next day was hell. Truly madly deeply hungover and without the option of lying in bed groaning. Had to whiz around Devon and Somerset to pick up James, go to osteopath, go shopping, pick up cars etc etc etc. Jane and I kept trying the food cure: bacon sarnies didn’t do it so we tried toasted tea-cakes (Jane swore by them – wrong, so wrong) and when they didn’t work we went back to town and had mad Welsh rarebit (which as children we always called rabbit). Opposite the tea-rooms is a very upmarket shoe shop. When it opened last year there was much muttering about ‘London prices for Londoners’ and truly I don’t see how you could get around here wearing a pair of purple satin pointy-heeled knee-high boots, lovely though they were.
Jane and I were a little hysterical by this point though and so had fun trying on mad shoes. She decided to buy a pair of very tasty and tasteful black slingbacks. Then she decided that I ought to try on the maddest shoes in the entire shop.
‘Slapper shoes,’ said I, perching in them and howling with laughter.
The owner looked a little affronted. ‘They were in Vogue, you know.’
So? Anyhow, Jane decided that they were so outrageous (and half-price because no-one on Exmoor was mad enough to buy them) that she would get them for me as a housewarming present.
And she did.
I’m not sure I have the guts to wear them to Speech Day on Friday. I’m not really sure I will ever have the guts to wear them anywhere (unless I’m invited to any brothels in the near future). But I think I might just get me one of those Perspex boxes and put them on display as an ormanent.

Sunday we lazed around for the morning, reading papers and then had a pre-prandial drink at the usual place before coming back for a vast roast beef and Yorkshire (yes, I know in June – but hey, not exactly barbecue weather, is it?) The rain held off for a bit and we played (attempted) cricket and then cranked the music up waaay high (for the last time) and danced our little hearts out on our hill. Ah but it was fabulous.
Then, as we were sitting down polishing off a nice Gigondas, the deer came. Four stags, their heads magnificent, came virtually up to the house and stood watching us.
‘They’re saying goodbye,’ said Adrian. It felt just like that, like a benediction somehow. They stayed like that for ages, just watching. Then slowly, so slowly, bowed their heads and walked down the hill.

Of oak trees, violets, dormice and children

It’s a whole different dynamic when Adrian’s away. Some people hate being alone but I love it (maybe because it doesn’t happen that often). I can do what I like when I like, without having to consider anyone’s feelings but my own. So today I had ‘lunch’ at 11.20am and then found myself at ‘lunchtime’ with no hunger yet a vague feeling I should mark the hour somehow. Now, I’m a great one for telling people to slow down, live in the moment, wake up and smell the roses and so on. But do I follow my own advice? Do I heck. I am horribly driven (presumably it’s the Capricorn in me) with an over-developed puritan work ethic – I feel guilty as sin if I sit down and do nothing for more than ten seconds.

But today I made myself sit outside and drink my tea. No good – I could see weeds – a whole chorus-line of them throwing up their skirts on the ‘raised patio’ (OK, the bit where the greenhouse used to be that was supposed to be an ‘outdoor eating area’ but never really happened). So I weeded until my tea got cold.

Then I thought, this is ridiculous. It’s a gorgeous day and I’ll go for a wander to say hello to the oak trees. The year after we moved here, when James was a small baby, we rescued three young oak saplings (from someone who was thinning out their woodland). It felt symbolic somehow – a tree each. Of course, as luck would have it, that year was supremely dry and we wore ourselves out carting up water from the river to keep them alive. But there they stand, getting on in size now, protecting our hill. For a fair few years I felt we had the placing of them all wrong. Although they are within sight of each other, two are definitely closer with one slightly on the outside. For a long time it bothered me and I would reason that the two close were James and I (mother and baby) with father standing watch (the other tree is slightly higher). But as I looked at them today I thought otherwise. James is the tree outside – for while Adrian and I are (presumably) stuck together for life, James will inevitably break free at some point and go his own sweet way. It is right and proper that it should be like that. We borrow children – they are not ours. Our job as parents is – I believe – to nurture them, support them, be totally there for them but (and such an important but) also to know when to let them go. There is nothing worse than a child who feels he or she cannot leave its parents.

It was warm, sunny yet with a brisk breeze and Jack and I followed an old sheep track. We have been leaving the upper part of the large field unmowed for the last few years to see what happened, and what has happened is a ton of wild flowers. I don’t know the names of half of them and must look them up. But today I kept noticing violets above all. Violets are fascinating in folklore terms. It is considered perfectly fine to pick bunches of violets and have a posy in your home, but you should never pick just one single one. It’s even worse luck to pick a violet with dew on its petals – it was said to augur the death of a loved one. Pick violets when the weather is fine and intense rain is supposed to follow (now there’s an idea). Yet on the plus side violets are supposed to be an antidote to evil and dark witchcraft – they were grown in medieval monastery gardens as a protection against Satan. All violets were supposedly white until Mary turned from watching Christ on the Cross at which point they became violet to echo her mourning (hence purple as an original colour of mourning). This however may hark back to earlier times still – in mythology, Cupid was said to love white violets and Venus/Aphrodite changed them to purple in what amounts to sheer spite basically – jealous old bint.
Of more interest to a lot of Exmoor folk is the old belief that wearing violets while hunting was supposed to ensure that you didn’t fall off your horse.
Talking of horses, I also noticed a tiny horse chestnut sapling – only about six inches tall. It’s a long way from our other horse chestnuts and I had to wonder if it had come from a conker dropped from one of James’s pockets. I’m not sure if it will survive as it’s in a slightly exposed spot and liable to be tramped on or nibbled – but it must take its chances. Though as I reached in my pocket I found an old conker and tossed it into a small hole on the bank – it’s probably too old and dried but you never know.

Jack and I sat down on the bank that marked the old hedge-line, by a tangled stand of beech and silver birch. Thoughts were still whirring round my head so I shut my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. It’s amazing how something so simple slows you right down. Immediately I could notice the cool air on my nostrils, redolent with the faintest tang of gorse’s coconut and the pure distilled scent of ‘green’. The birdsong became a concerto of woodpigeon, woodpecker, rook, thrush, blackbird and pheasant. Inevitably of course the JTR from my nearest neighbours decided it deserved a solo – but a hand on Jack’s shoulder stopped him from making it a duet (he is still being remarkably nice after yesterday’s shocks).

A quick tour down by the river and I picked up a few hazel-nuts. I expect you know that you can always tell if you have dormice by the way nuts are eaten. Whereas a squirrel will splice the nut in half, a dormouse will delicately nibble a little round hole. We seem to still have a healthy population of these teeny tiny mice. Often they nest right by the backdoor and drive Jack potty by flitting across the patio while he is stuck inside watching.
The house martens don’t seem fazed by the unseasonably warm weather and lack of mud: their nests are looking very ship-shape.
I came back from my wander refreshed and recharged – and ready to tackle my dreary feature on allergies again (if anyone has been cured of an allergy do let me know and you can feature as a case study!).

By the way, thank-you so much to everyone who has read and commented on the prologue of my novel Walker between Worlds (see link on left hand side). I’ve posted Chapter One now and will put up the other chapters as and when I can (I’m trying to do some editing before putting them up). I’d really love you to continue reading and giving me your (honest) impressions and suggestions. And yes, would really welcome feedback from any of the target audience (12+). I’m relying on Frances to correct any howlers I make about US vocabulary and syntax!

Reading this back it's a bit 'worthy'. So the picture is of the infamous Woods - James insists that, regardless of Adrian not being here, we must fulfil our Friday early evening ritual of a ginger beer (or spritzer) and bags of Burts crips. So this is where we'll be come 6.30pm.... anyone fancy joining us?