We had planned this visit to Wales at the unusual time of winter to go and hang out with Ben on his farm and help out in the cold times and perhaps do a couple of markets for him. Some of you reading this will know that on our return from Greece, my last blog, I have been ill. After 8 weeks I finally got diagnosed with Giant Cell Artiritis (It is a bit scarey so maybe don’t click… I’m OK and getting good treatment). At the same time I also got diagnosed as type 2 diabetes, just for good measure. I went on steroids ( and a host of other stuff) just in time for this holiday. I must say I am feeling great now , steroids are amazing even if they cause their own complications. I am even enjoying exploring the new diet I need to help manage the diabetes, by reading, The New Diet. It is basically no carbs and processed food diet but lots of full fat meat, dairy, eggs, veggies and pulses. Any way that is more than enough of that!!
We woke to a fabulous dawn. The first frost of the year, we could look out from our modern barn accomodation to this view. We had arrived the previous afternoon, with Sam and Harriet. Ben and his friend Emma joined us at about 7 for the evening. Homemade pasties provided by Susan for dinner !
After breakfast, Sam Mr Ropeflow could not resist a quick workout in the frosty meadow. I had to slow him down a bit on this video as he is very quick. Sorry about the very cheesy music.
At about 10:30 my sister, Suzie, arrived followed shortly by my niece Katy and nephew Harry who live just over the bridge in Bristol. We hung out for a bit then set off on the 10 minute drive to Ben’s mushroom farm. Meanwhile a couple of dawn pictures.
When we got to the farm, we had a quick tour around the mushroom barn to see all the facilities there. The Fungi Folks mushroom farm has been being developed over the last year and is very impressive to see now. Two labs, various growing rooms, kitchen for prepping tinctures and drying out the mushrooms. The main crop is cordyceps a fascinating fungus that normally grows on insects, but luckily will grow in a rice substrate. Other products are available and international shipping can be arranged by special request.
This was followed by a walk around the stunning valley and hill around the farm. Just a fabulous place to work. Not that Ben has much time as building a new business such as this is very labour intensive.
Sunlight streaming through the trees, if you look closely at the middle tree you can see the mushroom spores streaaming past it
Puffball Mushrooms
We then returned to the barn expecting to have a fabulous venison stew (roadkill) but we found we had got a bit confused with the oven settings and it hadn’t cooked at all. So there was a quick rethink and we had a snacky lunch of pork pies, cheese, hummus and other stuff that we planned for the evening. The venison then went into the oven for a slow cook and it was utterly fabulous I have to say, and very cheap (As Ben found it fresh as roadkill and butchered it).
The rest of the afternoon was then made up of quaffing sparkling wine and chat and a little game of Catan. Harry had to leave us as he had a Christmas poker game that was organised months ago and so he missed out on the venison stew.
Below are the youngsters!
We had a very chilled relaxing evening, played a game called codenames and all turned in for the night.
