Broome Park Farm, Farmhouse Bed & Breakfast Accommodation Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire

Here at Broome Park we are lucky enough to have some ancient hedgerows criss crossing the grass field in front of the house. They are made up of native trees - hawthorn, holly, beech, hazel and blackthorn. This time of the year all the fruits are at their best and this afternoon I have been collecting sloes. Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn - small and bitter they cannot be eaten on their own but soaked in gin and sugar make fabulous sloe gin. Sloes bottled now will just about be ready for Christmas although I am trying to cultivate a vintage collection, storing for a year or more - I have just discovered a demi john of bullace gin in the cellar from 2006! Bullace are wild damsons - a sort of cross between damson and sloe!

To be continued…….

Even a busy farmer gets time to relax with his friends! John and Jet are enjoying the late summer sunshine, sitting on the garden bench. It has been another busy weekend with Ludlow Food Festival a major draw and The Borders Bike Show on at Lacon Childe School.

I was able to visit the Food Festival on Friday - an excellent day out - it is wonderful to see how many different local food businesses there are, many of whom I use for the B&B. This afternoon I was helping out at the Bike Show, serving homemade cakes and refreshments to appreciative bikers of all ages!

I have also restocked the freezer with our own beef - enough to keep us fed for the next 12 months hopefully!

The latest enhancement for the benefit of guests is a small fridge located on the upstairs landing. This will allow me to leave fresh milk and chilled water for guests to help themselves. I often think guests are reluctant to bother me for milk in the evenings or befoer breakfast so now they will be able to make themselves a cup of milky tea at any time of the day or night!

Thanks go to Richard for making the custom built table on which the fridge sits. This is Mark 2 - the first was rejected (by him) as too unstable and the design of this one had to be modified after John demanded full access to the fusebox below!

When I went to feed the pigs last night I found a field mouse in the bag! It must have got in when I filled the sack from the bulk bag in the morning - I don’t know who was most surprised! After taking its photo it climbed up the side of the bag, leapt over Jet’s head (he didn’t even notice!) and disappeared down a hole in the floor. Richard thought I was mad to let it go but it was too cute to kill!