It's all gone a bit Blair Witch ....

We decided to go for a luvverly Family Walk in the woods yesterday, or the "Deep, dark woods" as Xanthe the Gruffalo fan insisted on calling them. Our favourite spot is Tyrrel's Wood just off the A140 near Long Stratton. It makes a great day out when combined with a visit to the tea room at Goodies Farm Shop and sometimes, if you're really lucky, you can observe a lesser spotted Rick Wakeman enjoying a tea cake in there. Good luck though, in navigating the arcane rules on what constitutes 'hot' and 'cold' food and the serving times of the afore mentioned food groups. (cold sandwiches are 'hot' and hot sausage rolls are 'cold'. It makes my head ache)

I find navigating Tyrrel's Wood quite hard, it's a smallish wood but disorientating, though that's probably a characteristic of most woodlands with their restricted visibility and plethora of small creatures content to occupy themselves with flitting through your peripheral vision before scuttling and scratching in the undergrowth in an alarming fashion. Superstitious? Moi?

We somehow or other managed to get on the wrong path, we were anticipating a walk of about half an hour but ended up trudging in a depressed and slightly panicky sort of way for three times as long. All sense of direction vanished and we actively repressed memories of the Blair Witch project, especially after stumbling across a number of hastily assembled little shelters made of fallen branches and haven't we passed that log before???

It really didn't help matters when we stumbled across this grisly artefact, a neatly severed hare's (or possibly rabbit's) head, wedged into a tree at a height of about 6'. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has the vaguest clue as to how or why it may have come to be here. There was no trace of the rest of the body and it was a very neat job which made me wonder if it had been done by human hand. I've previously seen dead animals festooned on forest gates, rats and the like, nailed neatly into rows so maybe this is something similar though I've no idea why anyone would nail rats to a gate either (that's not a phrase you use every day).

Fortunately the children were fascinated rather than alarmed though they were moaning like crazy about wanting to get back to the car. Obviously we made it home in the end, thanks largely to the fact that we were in a small wood in otherwise open countryside so we stuck to the outside edge and slowly made our way round in a huge circle. I think Xanthe picked up on our panic as she tearfully told Adam "I'm only coming back here when there are no trees any more!"

Norfolk Road Trip

As this is a Road Trip, strictly speaking, it should be sunny, I should be in a convertable, I should be sporting Aviators and Roadhouse Blues should be blaring at top volume. But this is Norfolk in January so it's drizzling, I'm in my dilapidated Nissan, the heaters are blasting at top whack and Woman's Hour is cosying me along the A143. We spend a lot of time trundling up and down the A143 visiting the in laws but as we're generally travelling either very early or very late the various enticing looking foody stop offs usually aren't open so today, as I have a rare day to myself, I decided to embark on my Norfolk Food Road Trip.

First on the list is a smallholding which always catches my eye on the trip east. For as long as I can remember I've had a pang of envy whenever I catch a fleeting glimpse of their small pig pens, their chicken flock, the rows of veg. Last year I was delighted when a sign went up announcing their produce for sale although today is the first time I've actually got round to visiting. I now know it's called Waveney Farm and they sell rare breed pork, free range chicken and eggs and Shetland lamb. I came away with a ham hock and a pork shoulder joint, obviously not had time to sample them yet but I'm optomistic they'll be good.

Next stop was the Grain brewery shop. They're in a beautiful spot, in the pretty village of Alburgh, down a lane which twists between picture book farm buildings. Stock was fairly light but I came away with some India Pale Ale and Harvest Moon. Under the January rules sampling is forbidden til Friday night so expect a post full of spelling mistakes around that time.

Third was Waveney Farm Shop (incidentally, nothing to do with Waveney Farm) which was OK but not great in my humble opinion. It felt like an identikit copy of others in the area like Goodies or Stuston it stocks many of the same lines but doesn't have the benefit of it's own usp (like Goodies pork, or Stuston's 25kg sack of potatoes for £3.99!) The products it stocks are good quality and locally sourced, in any other part of the world I'd be in foody heaven, my lacklustre response just goes to underline how lucky we are in this area to have such easy access to this kind of good food. Oh, and one more thing, it was cold in there! I could see my breath, certainly didn't make me want to linger in the cafe. Brrrr.

Anyhoo, last stop was the aforementioned Stuston Farm Shop, my local and purveyor of fine, fine breakfasts. Once loaded up with bargain spuds it was back home for a quick swim before resuming Mothering duties once more.