When you have been married for one year or five years and you want to celebrate in a green and interesting way then why not sign up for a day with Fergus Drennan, known as Fergus the Forager . I will report more on this in a few weeks time as my wife and I will be spending a day in the middle of June.
His web site is www.wildmanwildfood.co.uk
He says , 'The course begins at 9am and includes a full 10-12 hour day, 2 foraged three course meals, something tasty to take home, information sheets and transportation back to your hotel at the end of the day if required.
We will be foraging in different habitats, for example woodland, field, river and seashore. The aim is to provide general introduction to seasonally available wild plants, how to harvest them sustainably and how to utilize them as food.Lunch is served inside with a range of deliciously cooked seasonal wild food that you will have collected. Dinner is cooked on an open fire. I like to encourage people to get involved with the cooking-then if its not delicious I can blame you! Not really....
You will need to bring a waterproof jacket and trousers - even if it is not raining or no rain is forecast as well as good walking boots and a spare pair of wellingtons. Also do let me know in advance if you have any food allergies or intolerances or if you are a vegetarian/vegan and whether or not you eat fish!
We will probably be meeting in Canterbury-to be confirmed.'
Sounds great to me and I eat everything so bring on the fried stoat.
Well, I am very sorry but I can't report to you about our day with Fergus because it did not happen. After several calls and emails we did establish that the venue was to be Canterbury so we booked a hotel for two nights and we were going to have our foraging day on Sunday 15th June. Again it took several attempts to contact Fergus to find out exactly where we had to meet him and at what time. Eventually I did manage to speak with him and the arrangements were made but he did alert me to the fact that he had a bad back and might not be able to honour the booking. Well about a week before the due date we just got an email from his secretary saying it was cancelled due to his back and that she would be refunding the money to our daughter who had very kindly booked this as our Christmas present. His secretary did mention that we could rebook for later in the year but we did not.The cost of the booking was very promptly refunded to my daughter.