In 2022 we planted a small vineyard and this year has seen our first harvest! We have PiWi grapes of Cabaret Noir (red) variety and Souvignier Gris (white). It has been a busy couple of years and because vines involve a lot of care and attention to maximise the fruit production, sadly I have had to close Wobbly Cottage Bakery in order to help with the vineyard. This occurred at the end of March 2024. However the vineyard (1000vines.co.uk) is an exciting venture. I still make bread and if anyone wishes to contact me through thebaker@wobblycottage for a loaf, you will be happy to discuss your request. Gill the Baker

It has been a busy few weeks with baking for www.flamesandfeasts.co.uk Over the next couple of weeks I shall be experimenting with different flavours of sourdough and other real breads. Now it is February and the days are getting longer, and even though currently it is very cold in the garden, I have started work on pruning some of the fruit trees, which I didn’t manage to complete last year. It didn’t prevent them from producing abundant fruit though! Wobbly Cottage Orchard is small with 1 Morello cherry tree, 2 pear trees, 4 apple trees 2 plum and 2 damsom trees. It keeps me busy most of the late summer and autumn.

After returning to the UK in November 2019, I managed to re-establish my little bakery in Winterborne Stickland. At first it was just getting everything ready for the Christmas and New Year festivities which was fun. Hoping for a lot of travelling in 2020 rapidly came to a halt as the pandemic tore all our diaries up and played havoc with our lives. Baking and cooking became one of the greatest pleasures of the lockdown as well as having lots of time working in the garden. At first there was a sense of urgency in getting the fruit trees pruned and vegetables and salad leaves planted. No-one knew whether we would be able to get fresh foodstuffs as the world was affected. Gradually the panic calmed and we got used to staying at home. Wobbly Cottage garden was a picture in the summer, the vegetables, herbs and salad greens were prolific. The tomatoes were fantastic and I managed to dry, roast, freeze, bottle and eat large quantities which should last until next summer! The blackcurrants, apples and pears were equally abundant, so most of the summer was spent processing all this wonderful produce. We made apple juice and have a barrel of cider to makes mulled cider over the Christmas period.