Penhaven at play!

We enjoyed our house sit for a week in Battersea- only a 20 minute walk from Jade and Sam's flat. We only had an indoor kitten to care for - who escaped outside once, which raised my blood pressure but luckily I retrieved her from behind a wee shed!! During our stay we visited James and Maggie who had stayed with us as guests at Penhaven Farm Stay. They live south of London in Winchester. We trained to them and enjoyed a day seeing sights of Winchester. The cathedral and it's stunning mosaic stain glass window, which was broken fragments of the original stain glass window destroyed at the end of the English civil war (1642-1651) and locals secretly collected stored and repaired the window. Also saw Arthur's Round Table. Plus a look at the 2 acre community fruit and vegetable farm that Maggie is a member of 100 members who all give 10 hours gardening a  week to provide fruit and vegetable for their families all year round - 250 people. Organically grown and has been going fo...

  8 - 16 August  CORNWALL  Jade had organised a rental car from Exeter for our week. So we trained to Exeter to collect our car. Lesson learnt at car rental place - need an actual credit card for deposit, credit card on phone not enough! Debit Card not accepted but luckily Sam had his credit card with him, plus an extra £15 a day for additional drivers!🥴 We drove to my cousin's farm, Talskiddy, near St Columb Major, for afternoon tea of scones and clotted cream. Then out to watch a bit of the harvesting and back in for Cornish Pasties - I was 'home' - my dad was Cornish. My cousin, Alan, is my second cousin - his Grandmother and mine were sisters. We had a great time looking through old photos and family trees to work out all the connections - Paul was fantastic at interpreting the complex family tree! He could get my connections back to my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather who died in 1710!! We were staying a half hour drive from the family farm at Pa...

 I've only had two cheeses than I've liked! A Camembert (called Brie, actually made in Denmark!). Castello Brie, probably also available in NZ!? I liked it probably because it was similar to the Dairy Farm Road camembert that I used to make, with extra added cream and it was sold as a 200g block. Shaun, we need to keep working on the increased size. I think it is the way to go. I only have a photo of the packaging as I demolished it quite quickly after opening it! The second cheese that I liked was a Cornish Kern, purchased from where it was made at Lynher Daires Cheese Co in Cornwall! Matured for two years at 9°C, it had a nice sweet mature flavour, similar to our Dairy Farm Road Flavoursome Gouda. Interestingly, it was coated in a wax rind that was painted on in two or three coats! Here's a photo of what is left of it and some of their promotional material. Lynher Daires also have a cheese called Cornish Yarg, which is sold at one month of age and is wrapped in nettle lea...

Our second house sit was on the outskirts of Aylesbury, a country town with a population of 58,000) of Buckinghamshire, South East England (45miles from London). House-sitting two rescue dogs, Dobbey and Marley. While the house owner, Sandra, and her two daughters,  Beth and Stacey had a summer beach holiday.  We enjoyed a relaxing week of dog walks, Blackberry picking for jam and morning coffee with our friendly neighbour Lynne. Jade popped out for a days visit. One day we visited the gardens of Waddesdon Manor - a French Renaissance Chateau built by a Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the 19th century. They have tried to keep the gardens as they looked back then with carpet bedding, colourful Victorian inspired planting and 3D bird. But nothing really inspired us for home!      We walked into the small market square in Aylesbury centre and to see the David Bowie sculpture that plays a Bowie song on the hour every hour 9am-9pm. The sculpture is there as he debut...

At the end of our Three Welsh Peaks we returned Frank the Campervan in Bristol, Jade bussed back to London and we got picked up by Jack and Alice, friends we made when we met while we were motorhoming around the Coromandel Peninsula back in March. They live in Bristol. Friday night we enjoyed cider tasting and the nightlife of Bristol- hens and stag do's galore, and people mate hunting🤣  Saturday we enjoyed a days outing to Bath, a quaint town with interesting architecture and yes, hot baths discovered in Roman times. On the the way back to Bristol we stopped in a gorgeous country pub, full of flowers and character. We also visited a Cheese Farm (Paul will share about that later) and attended a Welsh friend of Alice's Paddock Fest for his birthday.