The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Sunday 1 November 2009

Step Away From The Pudding…

(This is a missing post. Typed on Friday evening, it should have preceded the last two, to explain where we were and why. It’s failure to materialise in the right order was entirely operator error (pressing ‘send’ always helps…))

"I'm going to take you away for the weekend" announced Mick a couple of weeks ago and it didn't take me too long to work out that the occasion prompting this was our wedding anniversary.

"Where?" was my natural response, but Mick maintained that it was a surprise. He wasn't even drawn in by my probing questions.

It was the apparently innocent statement of "We'll travel down on Friday" that led me to guess the location - much to Mick's consternation. It was the word "down" that did it.

"Down?" I repeated "Not up?". Mick tried to back-track. "Warren's Farm?" I asked. Mick looked sheepish. I grinned.

We discovered Warren's Farm in Yeoford (thank's to Vic's assistance at short notice) during our Big Walk last year and it maintained its 'best B&B' ranking throughout the entire trip. We not only vowed to return, but as a result of some comments in the Visitors' Book last year we quite fancied sampling one of Winnie's (the host’s) famed three course meals.

We arrived at the farm on Friday afternoon

IMG00173 and with the friendly welcome came the apparently bottomless pot of tea and warm scones. Mick's eyes lit up at the sight of the large helping of clotted cream which he knew he would enjoy all to himself.

We had a different room this time, but once again it was large, comfortable and full of character (and it had a bath in the en-suite, making me rue not having that room last year when the bath would have been even more welcome).IMG00172

The evening meal was superb, even if there was enough food to feed a family of six hungry people.IMG00155 After cream of mushroom soup with sunflower-bread, it was pheasant cooked in a delicious sauce, served with roasted parsnips and swede, broccoli, cabbage and leek and carrot, a whole head of cauli baked in cheese sauce, and potato croquettes.

We were absolutely stuffed after the main course (and yet struggling to stop eating whilst it remained in front of us, so tasty was it), and then came the dessert. With Winnie being Belgian it had seemed wrong to request anything other than the Belgian Chocolate Mousse, and it came served in two very large bowls.

I took a couple of mouthfuls and found it to be very rich indeed and declared that no-one could possibly finish a whole serving. Mick, however, was making a brave attempt, and possibly would have made it except that in the end I suggested (for his own good) that he stepped away from the pudding.

Later we reclined in bed complaining that we had eaten far too much. I wouldn’t hesitate, next time we visit Warren’s Farm (for I’m sure that there will be a next time), to have a meal here again (albeit next time I will take a bottle of wine to make use of the redundant wine glasses that were curiously part of the place setting).

A fantastic B&B, with a fantastic host and plentiful tasty food. Bliss!

(subsequent note: After Winnie’s excellent breakfast on Saturday morning I was so absolutely full that I skipped lunch and tea and didn’t suffer from any hunger until Sunday morning – almost unheard of for me!)

4 comments:

  1. *drools*

    *wants to go there*

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  2. Your experiences keep coinciding with mine and I had a little smile again reading about Warren Farm. Here is the relevant extract from my LEJOG journal.

    Day 11
    Saturday 26th April
    Brightlycott Farm to
    Westermill Camping Site (SS 82317 39837)
    20 miles

    The guide destination was Warren Farm at 21 miles but I had phoned to find it booked up. They said there was a camp site about a mile further on so I decided to go for this which would be a long day.

    I had breakfast in Bratton Fleming: orange juice, cheese and onion pasty, and a chocolate brownie. Good ridge walking to Warren Farm followed and then I descended to Westermill Camping Site on the River Exe. This is a site occupying about five fields in a row alongside the river in an idyllic situation. Campers seemed to be allowed to light fires and use the river and there was lots of room for all. My route brought me in by the back door of this site and I walked right through.
    ----------------
    Looks like I missed a treat.

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  3. Conrad - that's spooky - same day, different Warren's Farm.

    At that stage we were coming through the middle of Devon and you were making your way inland from the coast - only for our routes to coincide a few days later when we met you in a field somewhere outside of Cheddar.

    Our plan for yesterday had been to return to Cheddar to do the touristy bit (and no doubt lots more pointing and saying "we walked along there", which featured greatly in the weekend). Alas, the weather was so awful for the early part of the day that we turned into fair-weather tourists!

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  4. I was out walking and ruminating locally after making the post and began to realise that something didn't stack up about the geography of Warrens Farm and your recent outing - so perhaps I didn't miss a treat after all?

    ReplyDelete