Away Day.....

Yesterday was an away day, away from the farm, but before our holiday, and what a lovely day it was. We won tickets to a wonderful talk by Jekka McVicar all about herbs, from Lucy over at The Smallest Smallholding.

The weather wasn't brilliant, little flashes of sunshine and warmth between downpours of heavy and then mist like rain.  But we all made the most of being inside for the morning.  Jekka's talk was inspiring, there are so many things we can do with herbs rather than just adding them as a garnish to the edge of the plate.  Although I use lots of herbs in my cooking I came away with many tips for their usage and the recipes for many herb teas for ailments.  I also treated myself to her latest cook book using herbs, specially signed by the lady herself.

The lunch was brilliant, a gorgeous two course meal of the freshest homegrown foods.  Both the carnivourous and vegetarian options were wonderful and sooooo tasty.  The highlight of the day for me (apart from the lovely Jekka of course)... 

... was meeting fellow Blogger Sarah of The Compost Bin fame.  Of course pictures had to be taken, much to Lovely Hubby's amusement......

..  'oh no' he said, 'I'm surrounded by camera wielding bloggers!!'

The lovely Sarah won a bottle of champagne in the raffle, a brilliant end to a wonderful meal.

 After the meal it was time for a tour of the gardens which we had done only a couple of months ago,  when we came for this, so regretfully we had to take our leave then to get home to let our little pack of mangy mutts out into the fresh air.  According to Sarah though the tour was wonderful and I believe she fell in love with their composting area......well it is rather well organised!!

A lovely day, with lovely company, what a brilliant start to our holiday.


Off to finally do some packing.....first the ironing though....now you know why I hate packing!!

Sue xx