I’ve been to my favourite retail establishment this morning to stock up with supplies. I’d got my camera in my bag because the weather today has been glorious so I thought an opportunity for a pic might present itself. I was right, but not in the way I’d expected.

On the way into the shop, I’d been sidetracked by the beautiful colour of the forced rhubarb (rhubarb that’s ‘forced’ to shoot early by covering in a dark, frost-free pot, usually a big clay pot with straw inside) that was on the other side of the door, looking the colour of flamingos and generally glistening in the sun being beautiful. Christine and I had been admiring the length of the stems and their exquisite colour so I’d missed these beauties.

When I came out, the red cabbages had an air of luminosity that comes from being as fresh as a fresh thing and I loved the textural differences with the savoy cabbages in the same wooden crate. All-in-all, I thought it’d make a wonderful pic and I’m no less convinced of that now I’ve seen the results of my labours.

It occurred to me that our eating patterns have changed hugely since we’ve been down here. We really eat much more seasonally – in Sainsbury/Tesco/Waitrose, it’s hard to remember sometimes that the food going into the trolley has been flown half-way round the world so we can eat string beans in December and asparagus in January. I’d never fully appreciated how tired many of the vegetables looked until I found myself in our local farm shop and saw really fresh food.

Of course, there isn’t a traditional greengrocer within a twenty-mile radius of my old home in Berkshire – the supermarkets have driven the little shops out of the towns and villages in the south-east. Here in Cornwall, part of the charm is that there are ‘real shops’ – I’ve commented before on the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker and it’s true – that’s exactly what you see.

Now, we buy our milk from a shop two hundred yards from home from the farm whose land borders our field. It’s milked in a milking parlour less than a mile from our front door. We buy locally-grown seasonal produce from our friends in the farm shop and the owners are more than happy to stand and chat about the food they sell and how I cook it!!! It’s such a fantastic experience all round. Gary, his wife and the rest of their team are not only happy to talk about the food but they are keen to find new things to sell that I want to buy. It's a win-win situation as they say in marketing circles!

Now, our pizzas are topped with Blisland Buffalo Mozzarella – very, very local, I cook in hemp-seed oil that comes from Devon, and as many of our fresh vegetables as possible are local and that helps to make them delicious. I’m not aware of my style of cooking altering much, I still do things like quesadillas, chillis and my usual repertoire regularly, I just substitute local ingredients where I can.

I have to confess to still buying red peppers, avocados and chillis from overseas but I reckon compared to most that’s pretty good going. I’m even now able to stop buying foreign chillis because I’ve found a company in South Devon that grows and sells fresh chillis all year round.

There is no doubt we’re eating like kings and I’m thrilled it’s so easy to do so here.

One of these days, I’m going to pluck up the courage to ask Gary (farm shop owner) if he’d be interested in putting out leaflets of my recipes next to his produce and see how much interest there is in them…….

Last year, I was failing to keep the balls in the air....much like now really!!!