I get to work here. And itjust makes me like show up more. You feel happy being in this space. I can see that. And im actually quite. When i cook, im quite manic about cleaning up as i go along, unlike my husband, who leaves a sort of minor nuclear disaster. Thats me iam. How can you cook like that . A total disaster. And then ijust Throw Everything in the sink and its a big pile of dishes. And then wejust. We work our way through it. By the way, you have so many cookbooks. I have a few. Out of the corner of my eye. I collect cookbooks, but nothing like on the scale that you do. Im obsessive. Can we have a peek . Can we have a look . Come on. I love that. This is my collection of things that i use almost all the time. If im looking for. Like, what would a good french bavette, like a flank steak be . Ill just start looking in french cookbooks and just say, oh, thats interesting. Julia child would do this and Patricia Wells would do that, and just kind of collect information for myself a
ah, well, it s actually still, for me, very exciting to be here. but i m trying to understand what has happened to this land of yours, because when you arrived here, this was an intensively farmed land, wasn t it? it was. my husband, charlie, inherited it from his grandparents when he was in his early 20s, and this was back in the 1980s. and every inch of the land was ploughed, it was producing arable crops and dairy. and we fully expected to be farmers for the rest of our lives. mm. 17 years on, we were £1.5 million in debt, tearing our hair out, and realised that, you know, this is very marginal land. we re walking on 320 metres of clay, over a bedrock of limestone, and it s an absolute pig to farm. so you were literally close to going out of business? yeah, the farm was a failing business. and we did everything we could. we diversified, we tried different crops, we tried different cows. we sold ice cream. we did everything we could. but always it was this clay that was ag
i get to work here. and itjust makes me like show up more. you feel happy being in this space. i can see that. and i m actually quite. when i cook, i m quite manic about cleaning up as i go along, unlike my husband, who leaves a sort of minor nuclear disaster. that s me! iam. how can you cook like that? ..a total disaster. and then ijust throw everything in the sink and it s a big pile of dishes. and then wejust. we work our way through it. by the way, you have so many cookbooks. i have a few. out of the corner of my eye. i collect cookbooks, but nothing like on the scale that you do. i m obsessive. can we have a peek? can we have a look? come on. i love that. this is my collection of things that i use almost all the time. if i m looking for. like, what would a good french bavette, like a flank steak be? i ll just start looking in french cookbooks and just say, oh, that s interesting. julia child would do this and patricia wells would do that, and just kind of collect in