Black Alchemist Country

If the ingredients of a great weekend can be summed up as ‘good people, good food and good conversation’, then I have had a blinder of a weekend. On top of a feast of grand company and talk, I also enjoyed walking, sleeping in the biggest bed of my life, Chestnut gathering at Petworth House, seeing three Blakes, several Turners and Hogarth up close and personal, drinking more wine than is good for me and watching Belleville Rendez-vous and Le Chagrin et La Pitié with a live continental commentary.

I was also able to watch a Spaniard who had lived in France for many years cook marvellous Italian food and see how a killer tortilla is made. Watching a master at work does not make you adept, but I do feel empowered to try my hand at duplicating the perfect pizza dough and the quintessential tapas dish. Unfortunately, my only cooking during the weekend was disastrous. Whilst everyone else laboured in the garden, my aching ribs meant I was left in the kitchen to make a mess with mochigome.

After so long in London, it was pure joy to breath salt-flavoured air and drink in the autumnal smells of the country for a few days. The trees were turning, the ground covered in the chestnuts and the every berry-laden plant exploding with colour. Even the mists and early nightfall seemed reassuring, another measure of the pulse of the seasons building to its natural crescendo. Black Alchemist country rediscovered as the location for the perfect escape.