An excuse for an afternoon out

Our weekend turned out to be a little different than planned. We had expected a changeover on Sunday but unfortunately our guests had to cancel their booking at short notice, so we ended up having a free day! So instead we decided to walk up to Brightside Diner which is just outside Yarcombe village on the A303. One of our previous guests had very kindly given us a voucher in return for John arranging to take them to the neighbouring farm so it was a perfect excuse to try it out.

The trees have just started to change colour and we had fantastic autumnal views as we climbed up to the top of the valley, despite the hazy sunshine. You could even just about see the sea at the bottom of the Axe Valley at Seaton. We managed to get some good photos of our house nestled amongst the fields – our New Barn makes it much easier to identify next to the cow sheds behind the farmhouse. It’s one of my favourite routes from our house. The woods at the top of the hill always have something interesting to see – whether it’s bluebells in the spring, crisp brown leaves in late autumn, or – as we saw this time – lots of different fungi. To get to Brightside you have to cross a few large fields which Evie loved running through. It’ll certainly be a walk and dog-friendly food venue/takeaway we recommend to our guests once John has time to map it.

We spent the morning at the pumpkin farm towards the edge of the Blackdown Hills in Cullompton. Our own pumpkin and squash harvest has been pretty disappointing so we’ve had to top up! It’s a fabulous place with so many different varieties of pumpkin – it’s so easy to come back with a boot full!! I like to keep a few of the seeds and plant them the following spring – last year we ended up buying one of every variety but this time I was far more restrained and chose a couple of new varieties and some favourites. Maybe next year we’ll have a better crop – although it’s always nice to have an excuse for a trip out!

The rest of the week and weekend has been spent doing various jobs. The grass seed John put down at the back of the farmhouse has started germinating nicely – Sunday’s rain will really help it along too. He also cleaned the brick path from the Farmhouse to the games room, removing the weeds and moss, and getting rid of the elderberries that had stained it at one end. It’s easy to forget that the path has only been there a couple of years – although the photos of the original gravel path came up on my Timehop app recently and reminded me just how awful it had looked previously! I really hope we get time over the winter to make more progress bricking the kitchen garden and removing more of the gravel.

We tidied up our hedgehog home in the corner of the shed and made two new piles of leaves in the orchard and down in the wood next to our wildlife corner. We’d love to attract more hedgehogs to our garden – the dog food and bird seed we’ve been putting out at night has been gradually eaten by someone which is a good sign!

Knowing Sunday was going to be pretty miserable, we harvested our remaining potatoes on Saturday while the soil was dry and picked some of the quinces ready for an ‘indoor day’. Although we have a huge list of indoor jobs already! Our quince harvest has been phenomenal this year – we usually lose a large proportion of our crop because they split on the tree and spoil, but after looking into it we mulched the tree in spring and cut back all the small shoots growing around the trunk to help it retain moisture and focus its energy on the fruit. We made a load of membrillo last week and have just started a batch of quince jelly too. We need to find a way of jarring the membrillo so we can sell it alongside our other produce – maybe in smaller jars. It’s the perfect complement to hard cheese and is a nice alternative to chutney for anyone who’s not a fan of the tangier flavours.