A Dartmouth Circular Walk + Lunch at Alf Resco

On a recent crisply freezing but bright blue day, we avoided the difficulties in finding parking spaces in Dartmouth by heading to the National Trust owned car park at Little Dartmouth.  You don't really need to consult a map as it's pretty straightforward, but if you did, this is quite useful.

Head straight down to the coastal path and meet that glorious blue sea edged with cliffs and lush pasture.  It's a great walk to do as a family.  There is coastal path, a wooden bridge, a steep hill to run helter-skelter down, optional beaches, a castle and then just as your legs are getting weary and your mouth in need of refreshment, you hit Dartmouth.

 Dartmouth is an upmarket harbour town with lots of shops selling 'gorgeous things, dahling', but it is undeniably picturesque and has some good eateries.We were muddy and in walking boots so not feeling in the mood for anything too snazzy, so we popped into Cafe Alf Resco which fitted the bill nicely.  Inside is very dark and very busy, full of families having late breakfasts / brunches, plenty of sauce bottles on tables and most people indulging in bacon of some variety.  My son and I opted for bacon sarnies which were excellent, large, good fresh bread and plenty of filling.

My daughter had the smoked salmon scrambled eggs which she  thought were fine, but not amazing.

A good re-fuelling stop, but they had committed the cardinal sin.....an oar facing me with the immortal words 'Live Laugh Love'.  This cliched phrase is like a fingernail going down a blackboard.  It makes me squirm with embarrassment.  If you are also someone who finds this phrase intensely irritating, read this McSweeney's open letter that will make you  'Live, Laugh, Love'  giggle.

We had a quick mooch around the shops (Damn, I could only find about 129 items that had the 'L, L, L' phrase printed on them, but not the perfect one for my bedroom mantelpiece) and then headed back towards the car.

The route is shorter on the way back, but has a bit of an epic hill to climb: be warned if you have whingey kids, you might need a pocket full of sweets for that bit.  The entire circular walk is about 5.5 miles but the half way stop off in Dartmouth makes it seem far shorter.  You could spend a whole day doing this and incorporate a visit to the historic Dartmouth Castle, or pause for a river boat trip.  We managed the whole thing with lunch and shopping in about 4.5 hours.

Surfing at Bantham - We're Here for the Beach

Long may this 'Indian Summer' continue.  I'm back in bare feet and sandals.

This was the view of Burgh Island from Bantham beach two weekends ago.  We went along with our two kids, two nephews and bumped into quite a few other familiar faces.  The summer crowds are long gone, and the waves were perfect for surfers and body boarders alike - the locals were making the most of it. 

Bantham is pretty basic - a large car park full of VW Campers and surfboards on roof racks, a toilet or two, no cafes or ice cream stalls - and that's what makes it special.  People's attitude is: we're here for the beach.

This is a great time of year to be in Devon.

Foraging for Free Food - The Joys of the Hedgerow

Whilst walking on part of the South West Coastal Path last week we came along a stretch near Dawlish that had a mass of hedgerow berries.  After the walk I consulted the fantastic River Cottage 'Preserves' book and decided to take the family foraging for some free food one warm Sunday afternoon.

For hedgerow jelly, you need a combination of blackberries, crab apples (or cooking apples), haws (from hawthorn), elderberries, rosehips (from wild roses),

sloes (look like hard blueberries with a bit of a bloom on them) and bullaces (a kind of wild plum.) It was a very social occasion as every passer by wanted to know what we were collecting and what we were going to use them for.  Several people turned out to be a mine of information about making sloe gin - seems to interest folks more than the hedgerow jelly....

On a quarter mile stretch of path, we found all that we needed (no bullaces - shame) and filled our pots. The children were fine about the blackberries and apples, but were seriously worried about the potentially poisonous rosehips, haws and sloes.  

I have to say that my natural inclination is that they are possibly inedible unless cooked to a high temperature - but people have been making rosehip cordial, sloe gin and other autumnal treats for years - I think it's part of that worrying tendency that we have in modern days to assume that plasticised shrink-wrapped supermarket food is 'good' for us, whereas there might be something wrong with the real thing that's growing on trees and bushes right under our noses.

Back at home I put 225g sloe berries in the freezer - to be turned into sloe gin or vodka at a later stage - apparently the berries work much more effectively after the first frost - or to improvise, you can just bung them in the freezer for as long as you want before use.

So onto the serious job of Hedgerow Jelly.  I used:
180g sloe,
75g elderberries,
160g rosehips,
90g haw berries
500g blackberries
1kg cooking apples.

I put them in a pan with a 1.2 litres of water and simmered them until tender.

We then rigged up a rather dodgy looking muslin cloth on upturned stool to allow the cooked fruit to drip through.  The following day, I measured the deep purple liquid and added 450g granulated sugar per 600ml liquid and boil it up together until it reaches setting point.....

So far so good...only the blinking jelly didn't set.  So, I emptied it all back in to the pan, washed the jam jars again, sterilised them again  and boiled it all again in a big pan until my thermometer read a definite 105 degrees - allegedly the 'setting point' for jams and jellies.  Doing this whole procedure once is enjoyable - the second time I was cursing.

The jelly still hasn't set; however the thick gloopy liquid is delicious, similar to blackberry and apple but with a more intense berry-ish flavour.  It spreads wonderfully on toast and is really good on vanilla ice cream.

I would love to know if anyone knows about the toxic qualities of haws, sloes and hips and also any advice on how to get jellies to set....

This blog post has been entered in the Simple and in Season Blogging Event: http://www.renbehan.com/2011/09/simple-and-in-season-september-blogging-event.html

Great North Devon Campsite

We have just spent four nights camping at the fantastic Little Meadow campsite on the north coast of Devon between Ilfracombe and Coombe Martin.  The 50 tent pitches ALL overlook the cliffs, a vast expanse of sea and dramatically sloping green Devonshire hills.  It is absolutely beautiful in the sunshine and the view looks partly like this:

The site is quiet, uncommercial, friendly and eco!  Small children's play area, shop selling organic produce and table tennis table are the only recreational facilities, but that's all you need with these views - you can just sit outside your tent and gaze......

It's in the Cool Camping book and also featured in the Torygraph Top 25 UK Campsites, but I'm certainly not a Torygraph reader, so I won't link to that one.

You can access the South West Coastal Path from the campsite and you can also walk down to the tiny Watermouth harbour where my daughter took a great photo of this fishing boat (wow = colours):