In my time I have lifted many a glass of the black stuff for Saint Patrick, had a wee dram for Saint Andrew and had a many a debauched evening in Cardiff celebrating Saint David. However, when it comes to celebrating my own countries patron saint, the 23rd April every year has been little marked. This year, despite it falling on a Tuesday, we have vowed to raise a glass to the much neglected Saint George. What will be our tipple of choice? English Wine!

English wine now competes with among the best in the world and our great nation is in fact the spiritual birthplace of sparkling wine. During the first 3 months of our project we have got a real taste for the stuff and, if you have not tried it we urge you to give it a go. The average price for a bottle is between £8-£10, which is not a cheap plonk, but once you try we are sure that you will be an English wine convert.

So, for Saint George’s day we invite you to all to join us in celebrating the English nation and raising a crisp glass of English wine. Let us know what your favourite tipple is.

We also hope that our Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish brothers and sisters will join us this year in celebrating what the English do well. 

– James

While we have found some great clothing manufactures in the UK it is becoming obvious that the skills that I have with a sewing machine are going to be useful this year. As a teacher the work that I do involves a lot more than sitting at a desk all day and my clothes work hard. It means I go through quite a lot of clothes in a year and I am in constant need of stuff to wear for work!

When we were in Dorset we found a great sewing shop who were incredibly helpful when it came to working out which fabrics were printed or made in the UK, and they came up trumps with a lovely Liberty print fabric. With this in hand I started yesterday to create a pattern and make a 3/4 circle skirt for work.

After some research online about how to make the skirt to fit me I came up with a plan. Just to help I found this super guide http://pattythesnugbug.com/2011/circle-skirt-calculator-for-the-drafting-of-full-half-and-34-skirts-with-bonus-grading-worksheet/ where the whole process is far better explained than I could manage. If you use the calculator on the website and then use this to create a pattern this is what you will roughly come up with.

As I say the description on the website is far better than any I could give, but make sure that as you sew the seams that you press them flat as it makes the whole construction a lot easier. The difference I made was to add a thick waistband by cutting a rectangle of fabric the length of my waist plus 2″ for seam allowance and then folded it in half before adding it to the top of the skirt.

Here is my finished article. Its not perfect but it will certainly be good enough for work.

While on our tour of the South West we had the pleasure of visiting Shakspeare glass in Taunton. Will, the owner and glass blower extraordinaire, set me the challenge blow by own glass object. This is something that I have always wanted to have a go at but until now never had the opportunity.

Today the results of my effort arrived in the post. I will let you decide if it was successful. 

Emily also took a brief video of my first attempt at working with hot glass. You can see the anxiety on my face throughout!

In support of our quest to buy British, Red Tractor hosted a dinner on the 14th March 2013,  packed full of quality seasonal ingredients all sourced from Red Tractor farms in the UK.

The intimate dinner of less than 30 guests included press such as the Mail on Sunday, food blogger Anne Shooter who wrote up an exclusive recipe featuring the delicious garlic custard served on the night, as well as Red Tractor stakeholders and professionals from the college itself.

The menu had been designed by the award-winning School of Hospitality at Westminster Kingsway College and was prepared by the next generation of quality chefs.

I suppose it is always the same when you come back off holiday, you always have more than what you went with. This is very much true for us upon our return home from our Easter tour of Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall. Just look at all the stuff we bought!!!

Starting left to right:

New Balance Trainers:

While at Kilver C ourt we found these trainers at £25 down from £90. A pair of these bad-boys have been on the shopping list for us since we started our project, but seeing them at such a barging price meant that we took the plunge.

Orchard Toys Shopping Game:

Endlessly stuck for ways to entertain Lucan we bought this from a little shop in Somerton. Orchard are about the only British toy manufacture that is widely stocked but don’t get me started in that!.

Shakespeare Glass Vase:

We could have spent a fortune in Shakespeare glass but opted for this rather colourful little vase. It already has pride of place in the display cabinet in our hallway.

Union Jack Scarf:

We bought this from a gift shop on Poole Harbour and Emily did not take it off throughout the rest of the holiday. It was made by a local crafts person but  we have lost the tag so cannot tell you more (sorry).

Sharpham Park Spelt Products:

Actually we did not buy these. They were kindly given to us by Roger Saul during our visit to his estate in Sharpham (I don’t think that anyone would begrudge us accepting some perks). We have used much of the Sharpham Park range of spelt products before but we have been introduced to a few more though our visit.

From Dorset With Love – Chutneys and Jam:

We bought these from the River Cottage Spring Fair where they had a stall. We are looking forward to trying them out!

Lyburn Cheeses:

Again, this is what is left of what was generously given to us when we visited Lyburn Cheese on our first day. Let’s just say that there is not much that made it home.

Alex Pole Iron Work fire poker & hook:

This fire poker and hook are both hand forged by Alex. We met him and saw him practising his art at River Cottage.

Celtic Clothing Beenie Hat:

Emily lost her Liv Beenie hat during our trip when Lucan borrowed it to keep him warm and then decided he was warm enough and dropped it out the buggy. She was very sad about this but she soon cheered up when she was able to buy this new one from Kilver Court.

Fosseway Cider:

This was given to us as Sheepland as part of the fantastic display of Somerset produce that they put on for us.

E.Howe Somerset Honey:

Again, this honey was part of the display of local produce on display at Sheepland.

James Chocolates Sheep Lolly:

More stuff from the display from Sheepland.

Cakes by Samantha:

These little sheep cupcakes formed a ring around the Union Jack cake that was made by Samantha for our visit to Sheepland.

Liberty Print Fabrics:

Emily bought these fabrics from a little shop in Totnes. They are printed in the UK. She plans to make a skirt this week.

Sheepland Slippers:

Well, we would have been silly to have gone all that way an not bought a pair!! My feet are in heaven as I type this blog.

Lush Cosmetics:

We came out like bandits from our visit to Lush. They were supremely generous in giving us loads of fantastic smellys. They actually saved us from cheap hotel soap and shampoo all holiday.

Cornish Sea Salt:

We bought a big tub of the stuff from River Cottage. While we can get it from Waitrose, the large tub worked out very good value compared to buying in store. I am told that this purchase was an effort to save us money long term.

Naughty Step from Lovingly Made:

This was the last purchase of our trip and caught our eye as soon as we entered Lovingly Made’s centre. While Lucan is generally a very good boy he does have his moments. More than that, it is a beautifully made bit of furniture made out of up-cycled wood.

We are now skint, so back to work on Monday to pay for it all!

It seems that people are constantly surprised that our effort to campaign in support of British manufacturing, farming and production is not a full time occupation for both Emily and I. We can confirm that we are not linked to any book, TV or anything else. We have normal jobs and go to work Monday to Friday. However, it is still amusing to us that people cannot believe that we manage to keep it up along with our regular jobs.

Yes, we both work full-time. I am a marketing manager for a firm of patent & trade mark attorneys in London and Emily is a teacher in a local school. We are keen to keep this project fun for our family, and we can confirm that it is. That, and your continued support,  is enough reward for us to keep plugging away.

So, the reason for this post is to re-confirm that we are still a normal (rather mundane) British family trying to do something out of the ordinary. What is more, if we can do it anyone can!

– James

Our final day dawned very cold, another night in the yurt, but as bright and crisp as ever. We were up early to pack our things back into the car and head out. After a quick look on the internet we had decided the night before that it might be wise to try to wear Lucan out and give him some fun time in the morning. This was so that that he could be on best behaviour in the afternoon, when we were off to visit Sheepland. We duly headed off to the town of Somerton and had an excellent breakfast at a traditional English tea house that served a fantastic home-made blackcurrant squash!

We moved on for another rather chilly morning in the Somerton Industrial estate and visited Safari Fun. This is an indoor play centre and was the perfect size to allow James and I to sit back and relax for an hour as Lucan bombed around playing, climbing and wobbling through the maze of plastic covered foam. After another pit stop back in Somerton for some lunch we headed out for the very short drive to Sheepland.

Sheepland are a manufacturer of various sheep skin products but are well know among their faithful customers for their fabulously warm slippers.

When we arrived we were met by Laura Gibson, self proclaimed “Assistant Manager” and full time daughter to owner David. She had a big pot of tea in hand which I was delighted to see and invited us in to see the workshop. Ever since we first had contact with Sheepland Laura and her Dad have been worried that they are a very small company (working out of a one room workshop in their garden) and that there wouldn’t be much for us to see. In all honesty it was this set-up that really interested us, so we were really excited to see them.

We were by no means disappointed as we entered. Laura had called around to some other local businesses and had set up an amazing spread of the local Somerset produce to go with their superb display of Sheepland products.  These included bottles of Fosseway Cider, E.Howe Somerset Honey & James Chocolates. But what really stole the show was a fantastic cake and display by Cakes by Samantha, who had gone to the trouble of making a white choccy cake decorated with a Union Jack and flowers similar to our adopted logo.

However, this was not all. Laura had called in two local photographers/journalists  to document our visit in the local papers. She was clearly very pleased that this had gone well, as she admitted that it was not something the company had ever done before but it was something that she really enjoyed doing. We had been warned that we were in for a proper Somerset welcome but for someone to go to this much care and trouble for us was incredibly humbling. We thank Laura from the bottom of our hearts.

Once the pictures and chatting were done we had the chance to meet Katrina, the long-suffering seamstress for Sheepland, and find out more about the actual production. Katrina is an obvious asset to the business. While we were there, sat perched at her sewing machine, she ploughed through a pile of sheepskins which, while we were there, began to take to form the of their signature slippers. It’s skills, like those contained in the deft fingers of seamstresses like Katrina, that are severely lacking in the UK. I feel a soap box moment coming on so in an effort to avoid that I will move on with the account of our day…

In all we spent about 2 hours at Sheepland, chatting and looking at some of the fantastic products beyond the slippers but we were never going to leave there without a matching pair of Sheepland slippers of our very own. However, we came away with more then the slippers, we also came away with a very warm feeling and the idea that these guys are truly British cottage industry.

Tonight we are staying in a budget hotel, close to the historic Stonehenge, before we make our final leg back to Kent. On the way we are stopping off at a steam Railway as a special treat for mega-train-fan Lucan.

It has been a fantastic holiday and we thank everyone we have met so far for being so hospitable. We are now looking forward to our Summer holiday even more when we are going to visit the great manufacturers that exist in the Midlands. Bring on the Summer!!!

Sorry but this is a really long post. A lot happened today…

After an earlier than planned start thanks to a rather frosty morning in the yurt and a rather confused out of sync 2 year old, we headed off to find Sharpham Park and the infamous Roger Saul. While actually only being a mile away from where we were staying the offices were quite tricky to find. Thankfully a very kind employee called Kat came to our rescue. She lead us through a maze of tiny unnamed roads until we hit civilisation. We never would have found it by ourselves!

For those who have not heard of Roger he is the enigmatic founder of Mullberry, the fantastic handbags and so much more. He started the business at just 19 years old and while he no longer owns the company, his business acumen from such a young age has created a clearly driven and successful gent.

We were met enthusiastically by Roger as soon as we entered the door. We were somewhat taken aback by how forthcoming he was, being such a well known and influential business man and all. He directed us to the spelt show room. Roger’s current passion is spelt, an ancient grain grown on his estate in ancient times and something he has chosen to bring back to the area. He now produces a range of spelt products including spelt flour, spelt risotto, spelt breakfast cereals and much more.

As an aside for those not sure about what spelt is, it is a grain that when grown could be mistaken for very very tall wheat. This is however, where the similarities really end. Spelt is thought to be at least 5000 years old. Where wheat has a very thin outer husk and the grain is separated out easily, spelt grains are very hard to get at through the tough outer husks. This does however make them perfect for organic farming as they are brilliantly disease resistant. Spelt fell from favour in the agricultural revolution as farmers wanted and needed to get as much from their land as possible and needed a grain that required less processing and could be grown every year with the help of fertilisers. History lesson over!

We chatted to Roger about our project and what our plans are for the next few months. He was enthusiastic about what we were doing but was also very keen to tell us about his experiences in trying to get his spelt and related products into the supermarkets. Despite having a wealth of press and contacts at his fingertips he has found that the route to getting products onto our supermarket shelves is neither easy nor quick. He admitted that anyone else trying to do what he had done in farming would have found it nearly impossible and that he rinsed his Mulberry contacts mercilessly on order to get his venture off the ground.

Roger has developed a farming system very similar to those who grew spelt before the 19th century rotating the spelt with beans and clover to look after the land and get the best spelt harvest possible. That said with only growing spelt every third year and the 40% waste in the husks, spelt is neither quick nor cheap to grow and this is naturally reflected in it’s price. However in our time of super-foods I think spelt has a right to be added to the list. It is extremely satisfying and is a great slow energy release food. It is also packed with fibre, a must if you are wanting to not just keep regular but fight bowel cancer too. Shapham Park’s latest campaign is linked to Bowel Cancer UK and together they are trying to spread the word that a high fibre diet is a great way to keep your bowels healthy.

After lots of chatting and far too many conversations to put into one blog, we went for a tour of the mill and the farm. We donned smart brown coats and hair nets and off we went into the mill. The processing of the grains is a very noisy process and not one that Lucan liked much but still at its heart the processes have not changed from those of our ancestors slowly polishing and grinding the grains into pearled spelt and finally flour. We then moved on into the farm and met some of the newest members of the farmyard in the form of week old lambs and the 9 month old calves. All were quite shy but incredibly cute!

After all the walking and talking we had worked up quite an appetite and were ready to move on to Roger’s other and slightly older venture, Kilver Court in Shepton Mallet.

Kilver Court was started as a factory outlet for designer gear (Roger’s original passion) and is based in the site of an old textiles factory. It has now expanded to include 9 shops and 2 restaurants and gardens. His aim is to expand this to up to 40 shops.

When we arrived we were shown around the site by Roger who explained room by room what had been there previously and how the history of the building had really shaped the flow around the different areas. The various areas each have their own character and are filled with some really unique things like American crossing signs, film set props and accumulated objet d’art, all available to buy and lots of it actually quite reasonably priced.

We were then shown the outlet part of Kilver Court. Mrs B, with her eyes like saucers, required dragging very quickly through the rows and rows of fantastic clothes. On the way out I spotted some British made NewBalance trainers and later went back to buy a pair. Emily, never wanting to miss out also bought a pair too. We now have his & hers matching trainers… we are hoping it is going to start a trend.

We then went for lunch in the Pantry. I ordered the spelt risotto, Emily had roasted veg & cheese flan in a spelt case and Lucan had spelt flat bread pizza. All of the food was fantastic!! I also had my first Fentimans Cola. It is the first cola I have had since beginning our project and I must admit to preferring it to “The Real Thing”.

We then set off to see the gardens and let Lucan have a well deserved run. The gardens are absolutely stunning. Set to the back drop of an old raised railway line, they really are picturesque. However, we had to get a move on as we had a 3pm date with Cat Dresser from The Great British Bake Off. She showed us how to make really quick spelt hot cross scones and biscuits made from… you guessed it… spelt!

I had to take Lucan outside half was through as he was beginning to show the signs of a very busy day. Emily spent a little bit of time chatting to Cat but all too soon it was obvious from Lucan’s deteriorating mood that we had to go.

In the end, we had spent a very long but very memorable day with Roger and they guys at Sharpham Park and Kilver Court. We are truly thankful to Roger personally who spent more or less the whole day with us and made us feel so welcome.

However, we did leave with some homework. Today they launched their new website www.greatbritishspeltrecipes.com, which features spelt recipes from some of the UK’s best known chefs. We have been asked to submit our own recipe to be features alongside these cooking maestros. We are going to to have to get thinking but if anyone has any great ideas please let us know.

– James

This is a little challenge that we thought that it would be interesting to try: Would it be possible to buy anything from a Poundland that is made in the UK?

The short answer is no.

Actually the issue is that most of their goods are own branded, or generic products re-packaged by Poundland themselves, and have no county of origin on the labels. In fact, we did not find a single item in the store (that was not a food item) that had the country of origin listed. However, looking at the goods themselves one could take a reasonable guess that they are made in the Far-East. This is not to say that the goods that Poundland sell are no good. Actually, on the whole they seem decent-ish quality, obviously not a patch on the premium goods and you can see that the finish on some things is poor… but what do you want for a quid???

It does beg the question how it is possible to design, tool, manufacture and ship this stuff half way around the world and still allow for a profit? It also had us asking whether, as a country, we should even try to compete in this market? Again our answer is probably no.

In our view Britain, needs to rebuild it’s reputation for providing high quality manufacture. This is not so say inherently expensive, as we have found some great quality items made in the UK that are very reasonably priced, but just well made.

When I think about Poundland and how they make their goods so cheap I cannot help but be reminded of something my Grandma used to say “if it is too good to be true, it probably is”

– James

Once we were finished in the fantastic town of Totnes we all clambered back in the car and journeyed on towards Taunton and the riverside (almost) workshop of Shakespeare Glass.

We met Will and Kate and were instantly mesmerised by the amazing glassware in the shop/showroom. The colours were vivid and very beautiful and the addition of a lovely sunny day gave everything a real sparkle. Will is the main glass blower and the owner of the business. He made the production of item after item look completely effortless, something I suspect is what comes from nearly 30 years of  blowing and forming glass.

Both he and Kate were keen to know how we’ve been getting on and were supportive of what we are doing this year, asking us almost as many questions as we did of them! It really is very flattering to think that people care about what we are doing and why we are doing it. To have such skilled craftsmen interested is indeed an honour.

Whilst we were there the call came through from the Pat Marsh show on BBC Radio Kent and I was interviewed outside the shop about the up coming Munchies in the Meadow fair, which we will be opening and speaking at (more about this later). It really is turning into a weird but truly exciting year!

Just before we left James was offered the chance to have a try at blowing some glass, something he has wanted to do since I met him. It was nowhere near as graceful and easy looking as Will’s but he was assured that it was actually pretty good for a first go. The video evidence will be edited and posted when we get better internet signal. We are now glamping in a yurt for the next two nights in the middle of nowhere.

Lots to do tomorrow when we Meet Roger Saul on his Sharpham Park Estate to talk about high fashion and growing spelt.

– Emily