Diary & Journal

I was meeting with a new colleague - Peter, a sanguine character who has over many years purchased grains and kernels for East Anglia’s oldest seed merchants As they supply gardeners and farmers all over the world, it is incalculable how many future vegetables and...

My gap year in a Norfolk garden continues to usurp my fragile sensibilities. No sooner has a superlative plan been devised than it stumbles at the next available fence. Scanning back through my life, I wonder why I am still so surprised. Nevertheless, no sooner had I...

Surprisingly, from the first unqualified planning of my future crops until the steady intake of our daily vegetable provision, barely five months have elapsed. During this time I have made more U-turns than Simon our local plumber and re-started more seedlings than...

A few years ago, whilst attending the annual Wine Trade Fair in London, the Tannoy system crackled into life to broadcast a topical and historic wine auction. This was to be a two-day transmission of frantic bidding from the nearby auction house: Sotherbys. The lots,...

With a pastoral life providing joy, nourishment and occasional debate, the odd visit to my local pub inevitably offers a modifying opinion to my philosophy. There the altered state I encounter has now shifted from incredulity to polite boredom. The early chorus of...

As a wine merchant the term 5-a-day has always conjured up alternative connotations to those of my more self-conscious friends. Previously five had been a number conveniently split into red, white, rosé, sparkling and fortified, with the accompanying corkscrew and...