Sally Vincent’s Diary of Food and Life on a Devon Farm.
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A Strange Spring
The driving rain of winter finally stopped as mild March crept into April. Water drained from the top fields, grass began to grow and that thick red Devon mud gradually became a crisp brown crust. Lambs arrived thick and fast bouncing out of the stock box on to a fresh green sward. They raced around…
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March Mud and Fat Ladies
Dusk is creeping in a little later each afternoon now, stretching out the farming day minute by minute. It’s still just light till nearly six. Fat ladies race through the mud to the farmyard for tea as the light begins to fade. Poor girls, I cannot remember such a muddy March! Surface water runs down…
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January Days
Christmas floated into the New Year on a white cloud. Crisp sparkling hills rose eerily above an ethereal mist that hung over the river filling the valley. Shadows grew long in a winter sun, so low in the sky, it seemed to struggle to see over the brow. By mid-day a golden orb was sinking…
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Back to Bryher
The old Scillonian pitched and rolled her way along the Cornish coast, past Land’s End and beyond Wolf Rock lighthouse. Onward she ploughed into the vastness which is the Atlantic Ocean. White horses became rolling waves, whipped into magnificence by the roaring wind. As quickly as giant raindrops pelted the deck, brilliant sunlight steamed them…
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Wooodpeckers and Chutney!
Suddenly our shadows lengthen as Millie and I climb the hill to check the sheep. The sun sinks lower day by day. Cobwebs glisten in the morning light by the back door. Geese fly by in huge noisy squadrons, house martins line up on the wires and leave. There’s a chill in the morning air.…
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A Breather in Brittany
As July dawned we climbed into our car and fled to France. We left a hectic June behind us: our wonderful Open Garden weekend, the tragic loss of two good friends, the referendum and a country in political chaos. Wearily we boarded the great “Amorique” in Plymouth bound for Roscoff. We set off for a…
