Introductions and invitations

Welcome to ‘Happy on the Hill’.

Happy on the Hill is a place offering nurture, peace, solitude and fun. Please come and enjoy it!

Welcome also to this blog where we  wish to promote all that makes us happy and can potentially improve all our lives, albeit through the art of making and crafting; slow living opportunities; beautifully made local products; the pleasures of the natural world and how to encourage its sustainability; the delights of food and drink. As well as staying with us at Happy on the Hill, please keep in touch through our blog and add your thoughts, ideas and experiences. We look forward to hearing from you!

Musings on 'Gabriel' - the Wagon by Rich - friend and regular to Happy on the Hill

Ode to Gabriel's Wagon by Sharon Littman who stayed from 12th-17th June 2016

No blog since February, but lots of visitors to Happy on the Hill! These have been recorded by the most generous writings and drawings in Gabriel's Wagon guest book - do read under the 'Reviews' tab on our website and below a wonderful  poem left by Sharon Littman who came to stay from the 12th to the 17th June:

Lying in roll top bath

Sipping a glass of wine

Drinking in greenery through doors flung wide

Is totally divine!

Let nature soak up all your stress.

Immerse yourself in peacefulness.

Hear birdsong, cockerel, bees and breeze

Soft rainfall dancing through the trees

And troubles drain away with ease.

 Log burner warming up inside

Tempts you away from the still night air

Where, sitting on the bench

With only candle to light and see

A barn owl glides by silently.

Eyes heavy, you turn to bed

Pillows now caress your head

With bamboo linen and mattress just right,

You sleep soundly throughout the night.

 On waking refreshed, nearby you find

Breakfast goodies of every kind

To nourish you at the start of the day

Your hosts provide this for you stay.

 However long or short your time

At Happy on the Hill

Whether you have rain or shine

You can be sure, my friend

Gabriel’s Wagon will delight you

Until the very end!

Bring some sunshine into February and make marmalade!

February - a difficult month to get through and we tend to turn inwards to brace ourselves for the grim grey 28 days ahead. Here we are making Seville orange marmalade for our visitors and filling our kitchen with the warm citrus scent of oranges. I am basking in the sunshine of Spain thanks to this wonderful aroma. My mum used to counter her February blues with marmalade making and now I do the same. Join in! There are still plenty of Seville oranges about and below is a delicious easy recipe, thanks to Sarah Raven:

The best marmalade is quite chunkily cut and not too sweet, like the old-fashioned Oxford type. This recipe makes a delicious, deep-amber coloured marmalade.

For about 3.5kg:

▪   1.4kg Seville oranges

▪   1 tsp salt

▪   Juice of 2 lemons

▪   2.7kg granulated sugar

Scrub the oranges and put them whole into a large preserving pan, along with 2.4 litres of water and the salt. Cover with a lid and simmer the fruit gently until soft. This takes about 1 hour.

Strain off and reserve the liquid. Halve the fruit, scoop out the pith and pips with a spoon, and put this into a small saucepan. Add another 300ml of water to the pan of pith and pips and then simmer for 10 minutes.

Coarsely slice the orange peel and add to the reserved liquid in the preserving pan. Strain the liquid from the pith and pips, and add this liquid to the large pan. Add the lemon juice and sugar, and heat slowly to dissolve the sugar completely, stirring all the time. Increase the heat and bring to a rapid boil until the setting point is reached.

To test for the setting point, put a saucer in the fridge to cool. When you think the marmalade might be ready, put a spoonful of the boiling jam on to the saucer. Return the saucer to the fridge. Once it is cold, the jam should wrinkle when you push it with your finger.

After taking the marmalade off the heat, remove the scum from the surface with a spoon.

Allow it to rest for at least 20 minutes – or the fruit peel will all float to the top. Stir once and pour into warm sterilised dry jars. Put a greaseproof disc on the top of each jar and cover immediately.

This recipe appears on page p33 of Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook.

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No. Its the International Space Station!

At exactly 7.30 on the 15th of January, I was heard to blether - WHATS THAT??  Is it a star.. no its coming this way. It's too far away for a plane - No! Its the International Space Station! It seems that Happy on the Hill was exactly on the ISS flight path and when passing the next time, if  clear, we will have the delight of seeing it again. 

Last night, the full round moon travelled through clear sky above Gabriel's wagon, lighting up the hillside all around us.

And here we can see the arrangement of the constellations above us as they look at the moment, thanks to Sky Walk App. If you enjoy star gazing, this is a perfect place to witness the night sky. You will be following on from people who have been visiting this hill since at least the third century AD to wonder at the heavens above. We know this from the remains of a Romano Celtic temple found on the top of Creech Hill, including bronze figurines of Mars, Mercury and Apollo. To find out more, visit https://lamyatt.org.uk/history/

Buzz Lightyear

Look who came today!  We welcome Buzz, named after Buzz Lightyear,  the much beloved Toy Story character.

We first met him on New Year’s Day and he arrives just as the days grow lighter.

.He is utterly adorable and joins our beloved Raffy below.

Happy on the Hill is heaven for dogs: Walks and rivers beckon in all directions and in the wagon you will find maps and recommended dog friendly pubs.

This is what we offer our four legged visitors:

A Doggie bowl and a treat.

Local dog walks maps

Information about dog friendly pubs

A Pet washing station (outside hose).

Emergency dog towels, if things get out of hand

Vet information

Pet Poo bags

For visitors without dogs we deep clean after any doggy visitors to ensure the wagon is spotless for others. We have clear rules to ensure the wagon is well looked after by dog owners.

The Vegetarian Sunday Lunch

A Meaty Problem Radio 4 :  22/12/2015

Did you catch this programme on Sunday by Restaurateur Henry Dimbleby?

Henry wants to cut down on his meat consumption. Many scientists and policy makers think this imperative for global food sustainability, climate change and health. In an effort to understand why he is finding it so difficult, he unpicks the cultural history of the British and their relationship to eating meat.

With meat eating such a strong part of our cultural identity, he asks how we might go about re-programming ourselves so that we can reduce our intake because a radical change is needed to prevent a global food crisis.

Talking this programme over with fellow vegetarian friends, we grieved our loss of the ‘Sunday Lunch’ when once we became vegetarian because the pattern of coming together with friends and family on a Sunday is traditionally over the meaty roast!

Well we want to help change all that by launching The ‘Vegetarian’ Sunday lunch.

We are going to enjoy one Sunday lunch a month, inviting friends and family and asking they do likewise, with only one proviso – that the menu for that Sunday lunch  is vegetarian.

If you would like to join in on our campaign to establish the Vegetarian Sunday Lunch, please let us know. We intend to share recipes, photos, menus and evidence that demonstrates the need for us to change our eating patterns to ensure others have food enough to eat.

Winters’ sticks into sweetpea frames

Sadly the winter winds have brought down our willow tree. But soon it will shoot again and out of its old stems we can make sweetpea frames and supports for plants in the summer. If you would like to learn how to make frames like those below, please contact us, as we plan to run a day’s workshop in the late spring.

Walking the Drovers Lanes between Happy on the Hill and Bruton

Hidden and secret - linking villages and towns nearby are the ancient Drovers Lanes that used to be the common route centuries before. Here, the milk churns would have been picked up by horse and cart and taken into town. Now magical paths are overhung in the summer with hazel and interwoven with milky cow parsley, bluebells, anemones and later, laden with blackberries. On a hot day, they are cool with dappled sunshine and in the snows of winter, our quickest walk to Bruton through icy tunnels. Within thirty- forty minutes, without a rush, you can be sitting in the Chapel http://www.atthechapel.co.uk  enjoying a Latte.

Finding Happy on the Hill

Of course "Happy on the Hill" was happily here all along. But as custodians of this beautiful spot, we only became truly aware of the possibilities of sharing its pleasures with others as we prepared for Gabriel and Sophie’s wedding which we celebrated on August 1st 2015.

A whole summer before – in the glow of a golden sunset we trialled cooking their wedding mezze feast over an open fire, as was achieved a year later for 160 people!

Thanks to Carolyn Thompson and Bewick who have a wealth of experience for community cooking for large feasts over a fire we had: Caponata, Labneh, Patatas bravas with spicy tomato sauce,  Almendras Picantes                ( Spiced Almonds) grilled courgette and mozzarella salad, Ensalada de Naranjas Y Pasas (orange and sultana salad, Pisto ( Spanish sweet red pepper)  and lentil and feta salad!

Visitors to Happy on the Hill can choose to cook over an open fire, or a fire wok  beside Gabriel’s wagon and lots of recipes available!

We grew the flowers for the wedding day.                                                                                      

Happy on the Hill flowers will be available for you this summer.

You will be able to enjoy home made elderflower cordial made from Creech Hill elderflower blossom to quench a summer thirst as we did on that happy wedding day.

Garden salad for the wedding feast and for our visitors too.