Eating well in the festive season

– the first in a new series by nutritionist Daisy Ilchovska DAISY Ilchovska is an MSc level educated and registered nutritional therapist and founder of Optimal Health Nutrition (www.optimalhealthnutrition.co.uk) She re-trained as a nutritional therapist after her own health quickly deteriorated in her mid-20s when she was diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune condition. Nutrition and…

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Barn owls have a new roof over their heads

A TEAM of carpenters, tilers and scaffolders have rescued Bere Marsh Farm’s barn owls from winter homelessness in the nick of time. Just a few months after the Countryside Restoration Trust purchased the farm near Shillingstone, an appeal was launched to raise funds to repair the building which has been the barn owls’ home for…

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The Secret Garden

AUDIENCES at Iford Opera in 2018 arrived to find parts of the Manor gardens cordoned off and obvious signs of film crews in the narrow lanes, but curiosity was met with stony, and contractual, silence. Iford Manor owners, staff and all those involved with the festival were sworn to secrecy, and it was only later…

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Windrose launches new website

RURAL media charity Windrose Trust has a new website – windroseruralmedia.org – where you can view old film, listen to audio and order DVDs. All Windrose’s projects were cancelled or postponed because of the pandemic, but a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has enabled the charity, which was set up in 1984 under…

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Betrayal, Bath Theatre Royal

SEVEN months ago, en route to Bath Theatre Royal to review Band of Gold and New Old Friends, we were telephoned with the news that the theatre had closed until further notice following government instructions. What an exciting relief to be back, albeit masked and distanced, in the beautiful theatre for the first of three…

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Drams from Dartmoor

TEN years of planning and maturing in the barrels have come to fruition with the release of Dartmoor Whisky, the ideal Christmas gift for any fan of single malt. Distilled and aged in the West Country’s first whisky distillery, at the gateway to Dartmoor the former in Bovey Tracey Town Hall, this whisky is firmly…

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A festive British Farmstead Cheese Board

DEVON-based farmhouse cheesemaker Quicke’s has unveiled the line-up for its first ever British Farmstead Cheese Board, hand-picked to be at their best during the Christmas festivities. Partnering with other artisan cheesemakers across the region, who craft their cheeses from milk produced within metres of the dairy, Mary Quicke has curated a winter cheese selection that…

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Ham Hill scheme to save Shrill Carder Bee

SOUTH Somerset District Council is working with organisations including the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust to save the rare Shrill Carder bee. The council’s team at Ham Hill Country Park has started habitat management to encourage the bees to recolonise from an existing population nearby. The work is centred around the hay meadows in the flat…

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Lottery cash for Cleveland Pools project

THE Cleveland Pools Trust, which looks after Bath’s 200 year-old open-air lido, has been granted £56,300 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to assist with the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the development of the development project. The pandemic and lockdown forced the trust team to adapt to home working. Various community plans…

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Romeo and Juliet, The Handlebards at Bradford on Avon and touring

WHAT more apt venue for cycling theatricals The Handlebards than the home of Moulton Cycles in Bradford-on-Avon? And what lovelier setting to watch a hilarious three-wheeled version of Romeo and Juliet on the night before the imposition of Boris’s latest three-word slogan, the Rule of Six? The company usually tours in two groups, boys and…

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