Dear All,

March 2008...and I've been essentially off line for 8 long months.
It started with a decision to buy an apartment last May a few miles from my old cottage address. Then I waited some while to have a phone line connected and many phone calls on my mobile later I got one then I got disconnected. then I made more phone calls and got reconnected...and then disconnected again..God Bless BT.
Well at the moment I have a phone line and hopefully an internet connection in 5-7 days...I've made some good friends in India spent countless hours being promised things..which were then broken.
In the end I contacted OFCOM and complained and BT gave me a new account, money back ...but I am still getting bills I don't owe them...so I will keep you posted.

Other news
I'm still writing my newspaper/recipe column for the Sunday Mercury
and still get occasionally recognised in the supermarket...Aren’t you whatizname? from the Mercury is the usual challenge.

Toasted Foot
In the middle of all this whilst in Southwest France I got scalded rather badly on my right foot. Which kept me off work and even away from my column for 2.5 months. Anyway it’s now fine except for a scar; at least I did not lose any movement as was first thought. Through all this my family have been wonderful and very supportive.

I'm back now and hope to get the dust shook off this blog and add lots more content.

Tesco are about to butcher my high street
Currently I'm trying to help my favourite butchers (of which there are 4 quality shops in Stourport fight Tesco whom plan to build a large store on the outskirts of town. Even though it will add extra traffic congestion to the one way system....even though there are already 3 supermarkets in Stourport (one of which is a Tesco Metro store).

If the butchers go then perhaps the greengrocer and even the florist and the high street will end up boarded up or filled with Poundland stores. Not that I have anything against Poundland, I'd just like to keep the quality master butchers we have that offer a very wide range of quality home products. One of the butchers is licensed to sell game and another smokes his own bacon and makes award winning pork pies.

Since I joined the fight late the deal may have already been done, but in the meantime I have been contacting a few famous colleagues of mine hoping they can help my cause.

Richard answered his own phone
Amongst the people I phoned was the Earl of Bradford who is also a food and travel writer...and bless my socks he answered his own phone!
So stay posted and thanks for reading this.