Photo post Archives - Miss Foodwise

We went to stay with friends in the Cotswolds for a few days.
Leaving the busy and stressful life behind and being embraced by the silence and tranquility a country village offers.
We arrived late in the evening, as we turned into the single track road leading to our friends house it started to snow. For a few moments the cottages we drove passed started to look like someone had dusted icing sugar on them. It was cold, terribly cold but the warming fire roaring in our friends cottage warmed our frozen fingers and toes.

The next morning we went on a walk trough the fields wearing wellies and big warm coats.
We visited the church where my friends got married and went home to a cup of warming tea.

I adore this little Cotswold village and the way the yellow stones of the cottages catch the morning sun.

The last day of our stay I got up just after dawn and watched the sky turn from a greyish pink to bright blue from the cottage window. I jumped out of bed and dressed warm to go explore leaving everyone still asleep behind.

As I walked around the village, the sun giving her warmth and melting the dew and the ice on the flower buds I watched the community waking up. Dogs were walked, curious neighbours asked me where I came from and cats ran out of the houses to go exploring.

But there is a down side to this comforting story, in lots of these Cotswolds houses people didn’t start their days. Shutters were closed and padlocks guarded the gates. It’s the same story in all rural villages in the UK, people from the city buying houses in small villages to escape to when they can. And who can blame them, I too feel the soothing feeling of the slower pace of life a country villages seems to give.

But communities are broken and youngsters are forced to leave their home, because life in these sweet little villages has gotten too expensive for them to stay. Moving down the road from mum and dad is no option because even the smallest of cottages are sold as a luxury retreat in the country.

Pubs are forced to call last orders for good every day, because there are no people to pour pints for during the week. Village shops are disappearing, rural schools closing.

Rural Britain is beautiful, but it is changing.

Cornwall, land of moors and mining, of dramatic cliffs and sandy beaches.
A place where the weather can not be predicted and where nature does it’s own thing.
Described as an area of outstanding natural beauty it is also the poorest county in the UK.
Tourism is the county’s biggest industry but towns struggle in the low season…
For me Cornwall is a foodie destination, a place where you can eat a crab sandwich in a small village cafe that is ten hundred times better then in a highstreet establishment in ‘The big smoke’.
But Cornwall is also an environmental friendly place being nearly entirely self sufficient with the most beautiful produce you can think of. They have red, white, rose, sparkling and fruit wines. Real Cider, Cider Brandy and ale. Cheeses big and tiny, blue and yellow. Fish straight out of the Cornish waters, giving the word Fresh fish a whole other dimension.
So I can’t call Cornwall the poorest county in the UK, they are in financial therms, sadly, but culture- and foodwise they are rich.
That’s why I can’t get enough of Cornwall, and by going there on holiday you help them with the ‘being poor’ side of the story but you can enjoy the wealth trough food and heritage.
Cornwall, land of turquoise waters, tiny pittoresque villages and great produce.
I can not praise it enough, I just adore every rock and pebble of it.

On the last day of our time in Cornwall last summer, my sweetheart Bruno proposed to me on a dramatic cliff at Lands End. The engagement ring was a simple silver band, forged on the rocks of the Cornish cliffs by a pirate and his pirate cat, meters from where he had just asked me.
The pirate also forged our wedding rings, bashing them on the rocks leaving them with an imprint of a very special place to cherish.
This had to be our honeymoon destination without hesitation.
After our little wedding in a Sussex town steeped in history, we drove off to Kernow.
We visited the pirate and his cat and had a truly wonderful time.