From Britain with Love

Inspired by the fabulous Great Escape feature that Jeska Hearne wrote for this site, we headed off to Hastings this weekend to try out some of her recommendations. Hastings Old Town is delightful with its wonderful vintage shops, independent food stores and restaurants serving locally caught fish and seafood. After browsing the shops, we enjoyed a late lunch of traditional fish, chips and mushy peas at White’s on George Street, followed by a walk on the pebbly beach as the sun went down.

We had a vague idea that we might head further along the coast on Sunday, so we decided to stay over and happened upon The Lodge at Winchelsea, where we were soon ensconsed for the night. The next morning we headed into Winchelsea town, where we stopped off at Suttons Fish & Game Merchants and bought some locally produced Wild Boar Sausages to take home with us, before heading for the deserted and quite beautiful Winchelsea Beach.

Then it was on to the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway where we treated our son Sam to a trip on a tiny but perfectly formed steam train. As the train made its way through Romney Marsh to Dungeness, clever daddy whipped out a cosy travel rug, a bottle of locally produced Chapel Down wine and two plastic glasses – very civilised!

I’ve always loved the wild windswept beach at Dungeness. It feels like the end of the earth, with its tiny wooden fishermen’s cottages overshadowed the by the enormous power station, and the odd juxtasposition of ancient and new industry. I always stop to admire the late film-maker Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage with its garden of driftwood sculpture and found objects.

Before leaving, we paid a visit to Dungeness Fish, finalists in the Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards, where we bought a dressed crab and some samphire to take home for dinner (along with instructions on how to cook the samphire!). With our local food finds, we’ll be able to enjoy some delicious Sussex inspired meals this week, and the combined price of our wild boar sausages, crab and samphire was less than ten pounds.

All this fresh air had made us peckish, so we enjoyed a bite to eat at The Place on The Beach at Camber Sands, before setting off for home. As we headed back to London, it suddenly started to snow - which somehow seemed like a fitting end to our Christmas break.

Well the chickens on my mum’s farm in Cornwall certainly didn’t seem to have any inkling. Because despite being in the deep midwinter, when they’re supposed to be off lay, cockerel Benbole and his harem of feisty ladies treated us to freshly laid, free range eggs all through the Christmas break. So our Boxing Day breakfast of thickly sliced grilled ham was accompanied by delicious golden yolked fried eggs, and my other local food find of the festive season, Roskilly’s Onion Relish, to which I’ve now become seriously addicted.

It was good news for our three year old son Sam who loves to feed the chickens and check for fresh eggs in the hen house. As soon as we arrive at the farm, it’s wellies on and off he goes to the barn to scoop up chicken feed and refresh their water container, a job he’s been doing since he was a tiny toddler. Here he is on Christmas Day in a very muddy and water sodden chicken enclosure…

Normally our Boxing Day breakfast is followed by a demon game of croquet on the lawn, which my mum’s partner Alan takes very seriously indeed (this involves getting kitted out in an ancient pair of tweed plus fours and red woollen knee socks) while the rest of us charge around with mallets and no comprehension of the rules of the game. But alas this year the ground was just too wet, so we took our morning constitutional along the cliffs at Daymer Bay instead, wrapped up warm and watching the hardier souls than us out on their surfboards.

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break – only a couple more days until we have an excuse to start celebrating all over again!