A Fowl weekend

After a super healthy stroll through the stunning forest that is Bedgebury National Pinetum. A perfect spot for super healthy families; you know the type: with long-haired dogs, bikes, helmets and matching rain jackets for all the family. Though we, sort of, try our best to be 2.4, the truth is I am not a good or even a bike-rider at all, and only learnt whilst heavily up la duff with twins in the fifth month of my first pregnancy age thirty. (When I did finally get on again about a year later I fell off and cut my ankle and have been a total wuss ever since.) We do not own good raincoats or even coats that match, more a medley of wool and second-hand adidas macs - that look good - but do not keep the rain out.

Anyway - we needed that healthy walk and the need to feel a part of the ordinary human race, becuase we'd got horribly plastered the night before. We peaked too early for our weekend together with delicious and divine buddies. Consuming buckets of vin rouge, beer, and my new favourite tipple Disaronno - an amaretti liquor which is beautiful with a rich chocolate mousse - gently flavoured with Disaronno and served with crushed amaretti biscuits on top and an ice cold Disaronno on the side.

Anyway, the point is we needed to be good, we needed to air our brains, stretch our legs and feel nature around us. It worked we felt so fabulous and damn well for being so conformist that we immediatly set off for the pub.

To find a decent free-house in ole Blighty is almost impossible these days, but they do exist and they are of the roaring fire, hairy dog, friendly locals variety which are invariably the best for Autumn in Blighty. In the car-park outside the pub we met a hunter who was waiting for the game butcher to turn up so the two could exchange dead fowl for live cash whilst enjoying an al fresco pint of ale.

The image of the ducks and pheasants strung up in their deathly beauty struck me as unique and darkly beautiful.