It must be Christmas!

I can't believe how long it has been since my last post but there are no good excuses - just being lazy!Well, the Christmas spirit seems to have arrived in South Devon.  Last night Diane, Sue and I went to Salcombe for the outdoor carol service on Whitestrand.  To be more accurate, Diane and Sue went to the carol service - I went to the Victoria Arms and had a couple of pints of Tribute Extra. Very nice it was, too!   It has been very cold down here but we have not had any serious snow, as yet.  We are getting ready for Christmas and we are looking forward to having CJ, Claire and Helen with us.  Happy Christmas!

Ooh arh, ooh arh, apple pressing

We had a really interesting day out, yesterday, with a visit to one of our fellow Devon Association of Smallholders members. We went to Judy's farm near Dartington and helped her collect her apples. Most of them were on the ground but some were still on the tree so we had to pick those. Judy had rented all the kit to process the apples so, after they were washed, they were chopped and pressed. I lost count of the number of 2 gallon buckets of juice we pressed but it was probably close to ten. Some of the juice was then wasted by being put into glass bottles and pasturised or into plastic bottles for freezing. I am pleased to say that the rest of it went into kegs for cider making, one of which had my name on it!. Sorley Mist 2009, here we come!

Judy provided a nice lunch with home made soup for everyone around her real farmhouse table (by the Aga, of course) and we had tea and apple cake when the job was done.

We are very pleased to have Sue Potter staying with us for a while, whilst she settles into her new job in Totnes. Sue came along, too, and took the pic - otherwise her townie friends will never believe what she has been getting up to down in the country!

Halloween at Sorley

Last weekend, we had a little Halloween gathering for the Sorley contingent in our barn. As you can see, it was for the children, really (despite them being heavily outnumbered by adults in some highly dubious attire). I have never really liked Fosters but I had no idea it had that effect on me!

Tree huggers and a dog named Dig

Last week, we had a week in a cottage up in Northumberland with Claire and Darren. We had not been up there before so we were not too sure what to expect but we thought it was absolutely superb. We could not get over the scale of the landscapes - you really can see for miles and miles! There are also lots of things to see and do. We managed to squeeze in trips to Hadrian's wall, Bamburgh Castle, Lindisfarne, Alnwick, Craster, Cragside and Kielder Water (all highly recommended). We did some good walks with Mr Digs, and Claire and Darren did a couple of bike rides. There are more castles up there than you can shake a stick at (it's those marauding Jocks, you know) and some really nice little market towns like Corbridge. The whole thing was topped off by some really nice autumnal weather (it only rained once). I am sure we will be going back but with fishing rods and bikes, next time.

The first pic is sycamore gap on Hadrian's wall and there really are tree huggers although you can only see two of them. The next one is not far from there but it shows a bit more of the extensive landscape.

Autumn Tints

It was our wedding anniversary on Friday, so we had a day off from normal activities to celebrate it. We decided we were due for a trip up to Dartmoor, so we did the walk up to Avon dam for the first time. Although much of the route is on tarmac, it is very pleasant and there are lots of picnic opportunities along the way (must remember that, next time). The Rowan trees were really laden with berries (sign of a hard winter ahead?) and the colour of them against the bright blue sky was fantastic. A light lunch at Turtley Cornmill on the way back rounded off a very nice little trip.

Summer at last!

September has been a fantastic month down in Devon and quite a lot has been happening. Pauline and Jerry visited us early in the month and did the "grand tour" of the estate. We are hoping they will be near neighbours in the not-too-distant future. On 11th, we went to the River Cottage autumn fair. It was a really warm day and, altogether, a very pleasant day out. We had a chat with Pam (the jam lady), had a generally good mootch around and Diane got a book signed by Hugh. The following week CJ and Richard were here attending the "Sorley Sailing School". We went out on several days sailing both Puffin and Tiny Dancer and had a good time. For their payment, they did some hard physical labour back on the ranch. There were even a few blisters to show for it (although their hands are pretty soft)!

This week, I have actually been doing some woodwork (on the long-awaited built-in wardrobe). I also managed to get in a half-days fishing just before the end of the trout season. I went up to the R. Teign at Fingle Bridge with Paul Kenyon. There were plenty of decent fish around but I only managed to frighten them and to catch a few tiddlers.

The Curious Incident of Shiny Norman and the Dog in the Night

This week, Diane, Digger and I had our long-awaited trip in a VW camper van called Shiny Norman. The weather was absolutely awful but we had quite an adventure exploring the Cornwall coast near Fowey. You probably have not thought too deeply about the sleeping arrangements in a "five berth" VW camper. Let me explain - there is one double bed that is made up by filling in all the gaps around the seats in the back of the van (this leaves about 2 sq ft of floor space visible), two hammock-style berths in the roof that are not usable by any normal human being and one child sized berth across the top of the cab. So, where was the Doodle going to sleep? Well, on the first night we managed to grab him and throw him up onto the child bunk (he hates being picked up at the best of times). He kept peering down with a "why am I here ?" look on his face but it was clear that there was no way we were going to con him into going up there ever again. So, the next night, after a long walk, Mr. D was so tired that we managed to build the double bed over him while he snoozed on the floor. This worked fairly well until about 4am when we got up for a pee. First, there was the bang, bang, bang of a waggy tail on the floor of the van and then a black nose appeared from under the bed, closely followed by the rest of the beast. We couldn't get him back under the bed so there was nothing for it but for him to spend the rest of the night on it! I think this reminded him of his puppy-hood - pushing and kicking his way throught the night with his siblings! I must admit that having your genitals nuzzled by a dog through a sleeping bag is not an altogether unpleasant experience, but it does not exactly lend itself to a good night's sleep.

The following night, when we started putting the double bed together, Digger didn't even bother to pretend he was going to sleep on the floor - he was straight up onto the bed at the earliest opportunity, where he stayed all night. Next time, we will have a plan (or a bigger van)!

Return to happier times

We had a rather serious start to last week with my Mother's funeral taking place on Monday. We were delighted to see so many friends and family at the service at Fleet Methodist Church and we felt a very strong sense of community there: it is easy to see why it was such an important part of Mum's life in Fleet. Overall, we felt it went well and that we had done all we could to give Mum the send-off she deserved.

It was good to get back to happier times at the weekend, though. We went back up to the Fleet area on Friday and had a brief but very pleasant stay with Claire and Darren (good curry, shame about the cards!). On Saturday, we were back at the Brown household in Fleet to help celebrate Irene's 90th birthday with a family barbeque. We spent Saturday night with Jo and Steve before going up to Abingdon for a lunchtime party in Andrew and Emma Coker's beautiful garden. It was great to see everyone again in happy circumstances - the weather was kind to us throughout and Digger had lots of friends to play with (it took him 2 days to recover!). All-in-all, a good time was had by all.

A sad week at Sorley

It has been a rather sad week here at Sorley. I am sorry to have to tell you that my Mother, May, died peacefully in the early hours of Monday 3rd August. Mum had been in Derriford hospital, in Plymouth, for just over a week having treatment for pneunomia. While she was there, they discovered she also had a tumour in her abdomen. Despite this, as far as the hospital was concerned Mum was medically fit for discharge and we were actively looking for a care home that she could move into in order to get the care she needed going forwards. It was not to be. Mum was 97 years old when she died and whilst we miss her enormously, we cannot help but feel that the outcome was probably a good one for her, in the circumstances.


Mum's funeral will take place at Fleet Methodist Church on Monday 17th August. This is bound to be a serious occasion but, as far as we can, we genuinely want to make it a celebration of a good life. We are therefore asking people to wear bright colours rather than black and although there may be a few tears, we hope there will be a few smiles as well. The funeral service will be followed by a cremation and we hope that Mum's final resting place will be close to my Dad's in Westoning Churchyard.

A week at CAT

I have just got back from a week at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in very wet Wales where I was attending a course on renewable energy. I learned a lot about solar hot water, photo voltaics, wind and hydro turbines. I was trying to find out what might work here at Sorley and we are going to think very seriously about both solar hot water and PV panels. The government has just announced a new set of feed in tariffs (probably about 36p/unit) for decentralised generating that will come in from next April so the economics of the whole thing suddenly make a lot more sense. A 2kW PV array would give about 50% of what the average home uses.

Watch this space!

CAT is a rather strange place - veggie food and more eco-warriors that you can shake a stick at! Some of them need a good kick up the @rse, but they actually do some really goood stuff.

I'll Bee blowed!

There were some strange goings on in Kingsbridge last night. A group of ladies of "a certain age" decided they would dress up as bumble bees and parade through the streets. You might just recognise one of them!

Actually, it was the WI campaiging to save our bees, in the Kingsbridge carnival. They got a second in their class, too!

Darren Clarke eat ya heart out!

I have never grown cucumbers before, but I thought that, if Dazza could do it, it couldn't really be that difficult! I must admit I cheated a bit by buying some plants rather than growing them from seed but they have shot up and they have started producing already. We had the first one in a salad at lunchtime and it was really rather tasty. If all the little ones mature, we are going to have a glut so we have been looking up all the cucumber recipies we can find. Over the next few weeks, it looks as though we are going to have to get used to cucumber and radish salad, spicy cucumber, cucumber chutney and even cucumber in our G&Ts!

Digger makes a delivery

Sorley Tempted fresh produce has really come on-stream in the last few weeks. We have had lots of really nice peas, broad beans, lettuces, new potatoes and strawberries. This is Digger helping with a recent consignment of lettuces.

We have also had our foraging hats on and we have made a batch of Elderflower "champagne". This should be interesting provided the bottles don't explode before we get the chance to sample it!

On the boating front, we have been out in the estuary once in Puffin (with Digger, Jo and Steve) and Tiny Dancer is now back in the water in Frogmore creek and is pretty much ready to go. All I need now is a willing crew!

Great news!

We found out this week that Helen had got a first in her Biology degree course at Reading University!

Well done, Helen!

Bank Holiday Weekend

We just (!) managed to get the Wheelhouse finished on Friday before our first paying guests of the season arrived (fortunately, they were planning to arrive in the late evening). I must admit that Diane and I were very pleased with it and we would have quite liked to stay there, ourselves.

Jo and Steve also arrived at Sorley late on Friday. The weather has been absolutely superb over the weekend. We had a mooching about kind of day on Saturday with a barbeque with our new neighbours in the evening. We put our visitors to work on the construction of a new raised bed, yesterday, and then we did the walk from Bolbery to Hope Cove and back. As you can see, the Thrift is in full flower at the moment. This was the longest walk that Digger has ever done and he was totally knackered at the end of it!

Busy, busy, busy

So where have I been while David has been fishing and blogging? Well - obviously looking after "the boys & girls" of Sorley, but also enjoying my birthday.

One of the chucks "eggcelled" (thank you, Darren) herself the other day by laying a huge egg - over 100g in weight and 6.5cm circumference! Makes my eyes water to think of it! Unfortunately I do not know which one of the chucks laid it so you can all claim it was yours!


I have had a super birthday - it started with a lovely walk, dinner and bubbly at friends in Bovey Tracey, - a jaunt out to "Diggers Rest" to meet Lynne and Les, and then a "girly" weekend with Claire involving a pamper day at Bovey Castle (present from my beloved), shopping in Salcombe, and river/estaury walks. Just perfect - David only joined us for one of these activities - I wonder which one that could have been! For anyone wanting to come down I can now recommend a girls day out at Bovey Castle while the boys play with tractors and the like!


Have also being doing some paid work - a conference on Geneva and more next week in London. I had to fly from Heathrow and had forgotten what driving near London was like - but after 3 cars pushing in I soon got back into the swing of it. I am now re-programmed for laid-back country lane driving and the hedgerows are just so pretty just now .


On the way back I went with Jo and Lynne to order "the dress". Absolutely gorgeous and very exciting although the wedding is not until next April (....just thought must have another pamper day before the wedding - anyone want to come?)


Must sign off as yet more painting to do before we have our first summer visitors to the Wheelhouse - now with ensuite toilet upstairs

It's a monster!

I went fly fishing on the River Yealm with Paul Kenyon on Thursday. The weather forecast for the day had been awful all week but it turned out just fine. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I managed to catch my first wild brown trout and, as you can see (if you look very closely), it was a real monster! This is actually pretty much the size you expect from these rivers, so we are not going to get fat on them. I had four, altogether.

This is a lovely stretch of river and it is only a couple of miles from the A38 at Lee Mill. Higher up, there is a fantastic bluebell wood that I just had to take Diane back to see.

Digger visits one of our favourite places

Claire has been staying with us for a few days. We took advantage of a lovely sunny day to go down to the Erme estuary. It was low tide so there was plently of room for Digger to chase around on the sand and he made lots of new four-legged friends. He came back from this a lot cleaner than he did from our walk along the River Avon last night. There, he ended up in an area of knee deep smelly black mud. Diane and I managed to grab two legs each to get him back into the car without us both getting covered in it and he got the hosepipe treatment when we got home!

Doesn't time fly?

It is difficult to believe that a couple of weeks have passed since we last posted. We have been busy, as usual. One of our main priorities, lately, has been to get the Wheelhouse sorted out. The builders finished work on the new upstairs en suite bathroom a couple of weeks ago (and a very good job they did, too) and we have been busy since then decorating it. There is just a bit of grouting and a final coat of paint to go now. All the signs are that this is going to be great success. We also hope to finish the redecoration of the living room, get a new TV and re-paint and change some of the bedroom furniture before our first guests arrive at the next bank holiday weekend.

I have also been doing some work to get Tiny Dancer ready for the season. I hope she will go back in the water at the next set of spring tides in a couple of weeks time.

Back at Sorley, the fruit trees in the orchard are in full flower, most of the vegetable crops are sown (even if the mice have already pinched most of the onion sets I sowed!). Now I just need to make a couple more raised beds so I can plant out my brassicas and beans when they are ready.

We have moved the hen house into the menage area where it will be easier to move it on fresh "grass", periodically. We have also been letting the chooks out to free range in this area. They obviously love scratching around here but they also managed to make a dust bath amongst my onions (all in all, it has not been a great week for onions).

I am just about to settle down with a beer or three to watch the Bath game on the TV. If they win today, we hope to go up to Twickenham for the final. Come on you Baaa.....ath!

Trout for lunch!

One of my goals on moving to Devon has been to learn to fly fish on the local rivers. Although I have done some fly fishing before on lakes and chalk streams, I really had no idea about how to go about this. The rivers here are all very "natural" and wading is almost essential. I was fortunate to find a chap locally (Paul Kenyon) who teaches fly fishing and does guiding on the local rivers. I had a session with him on Wednesday last week on one of the local still water fisheries to practice some of the casting techniques prior to moving onto the rivers. I used the new fly rod (# 5, for the technically minded) that I had bought two years ago and never had out of the bag. This did the job very well and I picked up lots of new techniques. When Paul had got me doing things more his way than my old way, the piece of wool on the end of the line was replaced by a fly and we started fishing. The fish in the lake were pretty stupid (some had gone for the wool, earlier!) and I soon had a trio of nice Brown trout on he bank. The two smaller ones were filleted and these went into the hot smoker that Diane had bought me for Christmas last year. I think the smoking technique still needs to be refined a bit, yet, but the result was pretty good and it made us a nice lunch. The largest fish went in to the freezer for another day. I am hoping to have a go on one of the local rivers with Paul during May, once I have got myself kitted up with some new waders.

Lost dog drama

I was working on the new herb bed by the decking today and Diane was going out to the garden centre with Sara. She decided to leave Digger in the hall so I could "keep an eye on him". After a while, I thought I heard a funny noise, so I went to investigate. Digger was not in the hall so I did a quick flit around the house but there was no sign of a dog anywhere. Had Diane taken him with her after all? I checked all the upstairs rooms again and there was not a hound to be found in any of them. I desperation, I went in the "downstairs" loo and there he was. Somehow, he had pushed the door open, gone in and closed it behind him. Unfortunately, he had also done a large wee on the floor (it is amusing to wonder if that was on his mind when he went in there, but I doubt it - more likely it was stress-related!). I was so pleased to find him so I just got the kitchen roll out and cleared it up. Naturally, I chucked all the paper straight down the toilet and that promptly got firmly blocked up, so there was nothing for it but I to get my hand down there to clear it. Thanks a lot, Digs!

All the Chucks are Christened!

"All 6 chickens how have a name and a sponsor - and I can identify them all which is even more of an achievement.

The first to be named was "Houdini"(see earlier post), who has yet to develop a comb and lay any eggs. She is the first out of the hen house every morning but gets picked on by some of the others.

"Jenny Henny Brown was the next to be named - as she is black with a brown ruff - and seems to be one of the top chicks!

Guin and Ness were christened by Claire and Darren (I think Darren had a lot to do with it!) while they were here. Guin seems to be a bit intimidated by the others so I have to make sure she gets her share.

This leaves "JoJo" a pretty pure blonde bird and "Henrietta Poobrador" a pure black anti-thesis of a golden labradoodle.

Another busy week

We had Claire and Darren here with us for a few days at the end of last week. They thought they had come for a holiday but we soon put them to work shifting the hen house and moving a shed down to the orchard. We all went up to Leicester on Saturday to watch the Bath v Leicester Heineken cup quarter final. It was a good exiting game but the wrong result for us (20 - 15)! We went back to Coventry after the game and spent Easter Sunday with Irene.


On Monday, we had a visit from Dave and Liz Lawrence. Dave is just about to retire from Syngenta and take up a main Board position (he is buying himself a Maserati as a retirement present - lucky Sod, all I got was a tractor!). They now have a holiday home in Torquay so they are occasional near neighbours of ours.


On Tuesday, we went over to the Wheelhouse to see the builders who are installing a loo and wash basin upstairs. It was all looking good (apart from a small flood in the bathroom) and we will soon be going back to do our bit with the tiling and decorating.

On Wednesday, Philip and Louise called in on their way back from Cornwall to collect their caravan that has been over-wintering in our barn.

Back on the ranch, the chooks have been producing well and we have been getting up to four eggs a day (and very tasty they are, too). We have finally managed to erect the new tool shed down in the orchard. Unfortunately, we had a major thunder storm just before we had finished that job so we had to let it dry out a bit before we put the felt on the roof. We have also been creating a new herb bed alongside the decking by the house. This involved sawing up old oak railway sleepers with a chain saw. This soon put paid to the old electric saw and it is now awaiting its final trip to the tip. I now have a nice new petrol one but it was touch and go whether I would get the job done without knackering that one, too! Meanwhile, I have also been busy sowing vegetable seeds in the greenhouse and the raised beds and Diane has been planting up pots and hanging baskets.

Doodle in the doghouse!

Yesterday, Diane and I were trying to do a little job on the hen house. At one point, I was inside the house and Diane was in the run with the chickens. Digger decided he would help by tearing around the outside and terrorising the hens. After much flapping and squawking (and, yes, the hens made a fuss, too) we decided to put him back in the house out of harms way and he got unceremoniously dumped back in the hall. Unfortunately, the internal door was open and when Diane went in he was licking his lips after polishing off six eggs (Sorley eggs at that!) and an iced bun that had been on the kitchen worktop. Needless to say, he was in big trouble but we are all friends again now.

It must be spring!

I came across this group of spring flowers the other day. They are on the bank of what used to be Sturtlebury Lane that ran around the edge of our top field. I took my mother up there in the car this afternoon to have a look at them.

We got another egg from the girls today - that is a grand total of four this week, so far!

Here are the new girls

This is a pic of the new girls at home in Peckingham Palace under very close scrutiny from a very curious hound.

We got our first egg this morning! One of the girls laid it in the run (she must have been taken short). Houdini has now been located with her original owners and is due to join the rest of the flock later this afternoon.

First Post 30.03.2009

We thought a blog would be a good way of keeping people informed about how we are getting on at Sorley Brewery.

Well.....this weekend was a big step for us - on Sunday we got our first real livestock in the form of our point of lay chickens. There were supposed to be six of them (four Black Rocks and two Light Sussex) but when we emptied the box they came in, there were only five! We will be trying to track down the missing one (that will probably be going by the name of Houdini) today.

The first five have been shut up in the coop since they arrived but they will be let out into the run later today. It will be interesting to see what Digger will think of them!

When I get the hang of this new blog thingy, I'll post some photos of the new additions.