Lovely weather for ducks

We always have a stream of photos, and stories from our events so we thought, as a team, we would keep you updated, as live as possible with all the event action. For photos, recipes, tips and quotes, keep an eye on the Events Team Blog.

Lovely weather for ducks!

That was the forecast for Sunday and I was due to take my good friends Dave and Maddie and all our children down to Park farm for The River Cottage Duck Fair. I was excited as we parked at the top of the hill, Dave and Maddie had never been to Park Farm before and the festivals and fairs are always good fun and I was keen to show them round where I am lucky enough to work. The children always love the ride down the hill on the tractor and it’s great to hear the expression of guests as they come round the corner and first see the view of Park Farm, I feel it has a “wow” factor that never fully crosses over to the TV screen. The gathering of marquees and tents in the field behind the kitchen garden betraying that something exciting and out of the ordinary is going on today.

The first tent we come across is the Beetroot Bazaar, beautifully decorated and a bevy of delicious beetroot dishes, which all seemed to be so popular with everyone it didn’t take long before it would all be gone! Next we came to the food tent. It was good to the see kitchen team, including Emma my wife, working hard preparing duck wraps. There were two sorts on offer, wild duck and Aylesbury ducks, with a fantastic haw ketchup sauce (page 205 in the ‘Preserves’ handbook). With Emma in the kitchen I was able to pinch a small taster of each and I was surprised at how different they both tasted! The Park Farm Kitchen shared a tent with the Bristol ‘Bramble Farm’ crew, it was hard to pass by without digging into a sausage in a roll which was just what was needed before we tackled the “Duck Shy” and “Hook – a – duck” arena. Once the children had mastered these essential skills it was off round the corner to watch ducks being herded by a beautiful sheepdog and his skilled handler, Victor. (http://www.sheepdogdisplays.co.uk) I could have sat and watched all day but there was still so much to see and do, we had to press on.

We tore ourselves away from the duck wrangling and managed to sneak the children past the face painting (for a little while anyway) we went to visit the pigs and other animals and that’s when Maddie spotted the poly tunnel, I’m sure before long she will have persuaded Dave to erect one in their garden, sorry Dave! When we got back to the courtyard there was River Cottage ice cream all round and a quick run through the yurt to see Hugh busily signing books.

Earlier I mentioned we managed to sneak past the face painting so now we relented and whilst the children were beautifully transformed in to batman, princesses and various other super heroes Maddie got to listen to John Wright give one of his interesting mushroom talks in the barn whilst Dave and I waited in the Producers’ Tent. A couple more goes on the duck shy and it was time to go, there was so much to do we didn’t get a chance to get round it all, we missed the Bring and Barter Tent, most of the presentations in the barn and much, much more. My children and I are regular visitors and had an excellent day but I was even more pleased that Dave and Maddie’s first visit to Park Farm had given them not only great pleasure but plenty of inspiration too. The rain HAD held off and not only had it been lovely weather for ducks it had been a lovely day for us all!