Bodnant - not gardens but food

The butcher, the baker and the candlestickmaker, rub a dub dub, are all on site at Bodnant Welsh Food. Furnace Farm, ‘home farm’ of the 5,000 acre estate, most famous for its gardens, has been repurposed into a showcase for Welsh produce. I didn’t see candlesticks being made but I did meet people at the new National Bee Keeping Centre, just across the farmyard from the shop. There is also a dairy, making amongst other things, fancy ice creams squeezed out of Italian machinery.

During the press event rain poured down on contractors racing to finish work ahead of the royal opening on 9^th July; the show must go on. £6.5 million has been invested, about half by the owners (Michael and Caroline McLaren) and half by Welsh or European government, creating sixty jobs. It is hoped that there will be 200,000 visitors a year and this is what it looked like on the day:

For me my highlight was a sausage-making lesson from Miles the master butcher. Not any old sausage but a breakfast chipolata made with rare breed Gloucester Old Spot pork and Miles’s secret seasoning. No artificial collagen casings but traditional sheep’s intestine stuffed with a state of the art hydraulic sausage filler.

As well as a top class restaurant, complete with executive chef Peter Jackson, president of the Welsh Culinary Association, there is a tea room in a cow shed and a beautifully equipped cookery school. Sandy Boyd is managing director, probably the only non-local to be employed, who brings to the table his experience at Chatsworth and in setting up the Ludlow Food Centre.

Good luck - it looks and tastes great.

Winter Talks

I provide illustrated talks in north and mid Wales to groups such as U3A, Rotary, WI, Garden Clubs, National Trust Associations, Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, Ramblers and so on. The fee for a talk depends upon the size of the audience and includes 2 or 3 annual subscriptions (worth £16 each) which the organiser usually raffles to the attendees plus some recent back editions of the magazine. There is no charge for travel costs. Current talks on offer are:

Snowdonia and Triglav

Shammy leather?

In the early 1990s I was living and working in former Yugoslavia as it broke apart into separate countries including Slovenia. I spent many happy times in the Triglav National Park, in the north of Slovenia near the Italian border. To move to Snowdonia many years later and discover that two of my favourite places had been ‘twinned’ since 1993 was a great coincidence. They have much in common; both countries are small with their own languages and mountainous landscape. The talk compares and contrasts these two national parks - we’ve got wild goats, they’ve got chamois and ibex.  We used to have an alpine farming tradition, they still have. We’ve got a few arctic alpines but they’ve got masses.

Not Just a Pretty Place

Not Just a Pretty Place – Survival in Snowdonia is a book of 32 stories linked by the theme of survival. Some things are thriving whilst others, like the Snowdon Lily, are just hanging on.  “The stories link landscape, people and wildlife into an optimistic view of the future with subjects as diverse as the rare and elusive pine marten, freshwater pearl mussels and local foods.  Underneath the humour and optimism, however, there are serious messages about the viability of our lifestyles.” Iolo Williams. In the talk I select 8 of the stories that I think will most appeal to the audience.

The House on the Black Hillside

We live in an ancient house where the modern extension was added in 1605. Built for a family of minor nobles, tracing their descent from Llywelyn the Great, it’s packed full of history and character. This talk explains the background to the house and the people who have lived in it including the charismatic Colonel Campbell. He brought the place back from dereliction in the 1960s and commuted to work in his private engine from Campbell’s Platform on the Ffestiniog Railway. Also included are the neighbours such as the ghost (the house was used as a location for filming an episode of Most Haunted), William Joyce or Lord Haw-Haw, who allegedly  was resident half a mile away at the outbreak of WWII and the wild mountain goats that roam the mountains and play havoc with some gardens. We have just had the house tree-ring dated as part of the project Dating Old Welsh Houses.

Plas y Dduallt

HuwTubeable in North Wales

This is a new formula based on film rather than photo. I love making short films and have published over 250 on YouTube under the names of HuwTubeable and NaturCymru. A typical talk would include 15 to 20 films of between 1 to 3 minutes which are grouped into themes and separately introduced. The choice of films depends upon what I think the target audience would appreciate; for example, Grass Snake in the Greenhouse might be good for a garden club. The first time I gave this talk it worked very well with a much higher degree of interactivity than  normal – each film provoked short comment and discussion whereas in a conventional slideshow there are usually just a couple of questions at the end.

If you would like to make a booking please contact me by email huw.naturcymru@btinternet.comor phone 01766 590272.

Huw