Sunday 6th June

Day 48

I feel as if I’ve been rolled in Devon today like a chocolate truffle with many coatings. Patchwork hillsides, twisting high hedged lanes, river views, black cows and speeding white clouds stuck to me as we drove deep into a hidden green valley. Where we met up with some of our beloved family in a gravel car park. Following a path lined with young alder trees we came to the Riverford Field Kitchen. An arched wooden building, long tables laid inside and all the glass doors open onto a terrace ringed with herb beds. Surrounded by fields of organic rhubarb and birdsong.

At the end of the meal I felt as round and happy as the soft pastry parcel I’d just eaten - stuffed with roasted squash, green garlic, swiss chard and pecan nuts.The sort of pie that you know you can’t leave the premises without memorising every detail of the recipe. Which the chef generously gave me. I wanted all the other recipes for the spinach and the cabbage and the asparagus and the potatoes but I thought that might be greedy. And I could have eaten the sticky toffee pudding as well as my own lemon tart - if there had been any left - and there wasn’t a moratorium on seconds.

We thought that if you could enjoy something so much all the calories might magically dissolve in a field of happiness. Especially on birthdays.