River Cottage Part 1

Before I got the chickens I went over to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage for a course called "All About Chickens". I was pretty excited needless to say about the whole thing.

Anyway we headed off to Dorset the day before and spent some time at Lyme Regis which was deadly. It is a real old fashioned seaside resort which has plenty of cool cafes and arty farty shops. We ate sourdough pizza at a fantastic local bakery for lunch.

The following day we got a taxi to the River Cottage HQ car park and then made the final leg of the journey down an old lane on the back of a tractor! All very rustic.

We had some elderflower cordial and homemade biscuits on arrival and then straight into the course. The morning session was hosted by Richard Hicks and Pammy Riggs from the TV series. They went through all the basics for someone wanting to keep some laying hens and showed us around River cottage's"chickenopolis". We also got the see all the other bits and pieces including the pigs and their various vegetable gardens.

It was a very hands on kind of day and both Richard and Pammy really knew their stuff and answered any questions we had. It was also obvious that both of them were mad about chickens and their enthusiasm rubbed off on many of the people at the event.

Hugh was due to join us then at noon to cook for us and take the afternoon session. I will let you know how that went in the next post.