🇬🇧 River Cottage to the sea

STOGUMBER – SOMERSET

We awake to jaw dropping views out our barn cottage windows.

We arrived last night after driving through the narrow country lanes of Somerset. Our country barn is gorgeous.

Very beautifully decorated with a top quality chef’s kitchen which we tried out cooking a roast chicken last night and oat and banana pancakes for breakfast. Our accommodation comes with freshly cooked oat sour dough bread, farm fresh butter and freshly baked cookies. You can tell we are in the country.

With rain falling we take a 10 minute walk into Stogumber to view another magnificent ancient 700 hundred year old church. Even more spectacular in the rain.

Afterwards we drive along the scenic country roads which were extremely wet. It has been a very wet Christmas here. Flooding lands are all around. Brown rich soil flows onto the roads. Cars drive slow with caution as water spills from the Earth along the sides of the roads. The Earth is unable to hold the water in. Streams and rivers overflow and flow rapidly unable to control their fast raging currents.

Another church takes our eye. As we chat to a dear old English man he asks us if we happen to have any Australian stamps on us. Shame we don’t, as we would have loved to have made his day.

We admire our first thatched roof cottage which seem a world away from which we live. We are in the world of cottage quaint village life and plush farming land. It reminds us of the movie ‘The Holiday’ with Cameran Diaz and Kate Winslet.

RIVER COTTAGE CANTEEN – AXMINSTER

We head into Axminster for lunch at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Canteen for lunch. Another one of our favourite British country cooking TV shows. We have viewed most of Hugh’s series on growing veggies to raising and honouring the whole organic chicken. River Cottage itself was closed to visitors maybe a mushroom forage with Hugh next time. For now we enjoy elderflower cider, honey brewed beer, freshly cooked sour dough, squash and cauliflower and walnut soup. We leave full of great home cooked soups and with a River Cottage market bag.

 

EXMOUTH – DEVON

With the sun shining we head into Devon. Green country hills meet the seaside in Exmouth. Even on a winter afternoon many people coat up to stroll along the beach. Happy dogs run and carry logs of driftwood in their mouths. Seagull cover the skies. In the long summer days this beach and adjoining fun parks would be overflowing with families. Now the winter days are short as the sun sets around 4-30pm we head back to the countryside. Everyone wears gumboots along these shores no bikinis or surfboards are in sight.

We are loving British country life!!!! More of this please!!!!