campervanliving

I just got back from my 5 week tour of the UK in my camper van for BBC2. I went to some great places and saw some brill stuff. I took the van to a few hellish roads, tasted the UK's finest ingredients and stayed in some amazing places. I met a lot of very good people too. I'd like to be able to tell you more but that would be giving it away. And what a final epsiode it ended up being! You'll have to watch it to find out what happened at the end of the 2500 mile tour. Let's just say that nothing, and I mean nothing, should keep a camper van man from his home made beef burger with camper van chutney. You know the rules. Anyway, the last 5 weeks or so have been spent living with one pair of shorts (for hot days), one pair of jeans (for cold days), one pair of flip flops (for hot days whilst not driving), one pair of walking boots (for hiking up big hills), sneakers (cold days and driving), a few tees (alternate days) and my trusty biker's Barbour jacket (are you liste...

Today I am taking a break at home after two weeks of filming for The Camper Van Cook, my BBC2 TV series. I've been all over the place: Devon, Hampshire, Norfolk, Yorshire and Northumberland. It's been pretty good. I've eaten some wonderful food including lobster, crab and samphire, Britain's best cheese, wild mushrooms, chickweed and an exotic bird. And I've seen some beautiful places. The Dales, with its 'rustic' campsite rates among the best I have ever stayed at. Not because of the facilitites but because of the view. Simply amazing. I have met some wonderful people too. The forager taught me more in a day of foraging than I could ever have learned on my own in a year. Andy the fisherman showed me the best way to cook a crab. He was right too. I met the folks at Wiveton Hall. Crazy English through and through. I ate Yorshire Chorizo. Really? Damn right. And I met Richard and Sean, the lobster fishermen, who let me 'help' them as they hauled in a p...

Sometimes you just want to boil a kettle and have done with it, don't you? It's something that the Pot Noodle generation will understand. But it doesn't have to be that way. Couscous, lime and a bit of very fresh fish will do it for me. And some freshly picked salad greens. With a few herbs. Nice. No hassle, no fuss, no cooking. Just tasty stuff.

My friend Paul told me about 'holiday stew' recently. I'd never heard of it and Paul couldn't quite believe it. He thought everyone had holiday stew on holiday. Apparently not. To be honest I felt a little left out because the sound of it suggested something wonderful. It has the ring of fabulousness about it, doesn't it? One imagines something so special you'd only ever have it once a year. So what of this seventies delicacy I've never heard of? Well, the clue is in the name. Holidays are all about taking time off. So whilst Dad and the kids got to spend a little time away from work and school, Mum (remember it was the seventies) got to take a little time out too. Why should she make tea in a tiny caravan kitchen when everyone else was larking around in the rain? Quite. So what Mum did was to take a tin of peas, a tin of potatoes, a tin of carrots and a tin of meat and mix them up with the secret ingredient, an OXO cube. And that was holiday stew. Crikey. B...

Feet in the sand, chugging chips on Crooklets Beach and watching the sun go down. Mrs Campervan living asked me to take her somewhere special for our 9th wedding anniversary. So I did. Of course next year we'll go somewhere even better. Like Summerleaze. I might even buy her some onion rings. If she's lucky. Oh yes, we know how to live alright.

Today, of all days, is very special indeed. Today is the day when my dreams come true. My book, The Camper van Cookbook, hits the shelves of bookshops all around the UK. In many ways I still can't belive that the book I had inside me could be made into a real book. But there it is, with pages and pictures and a cover and an index. And look, there's a box of them in the corner! It's been an amazing year. Last May I began talking about bringing this book to life with my publisher. But I still refused to belive it could happen. Then I raced around the UK in my van taking pictures, coming up with ideas, making it happen. And it has. We camped in Mart's garden. We sheltered behind Dave and Sam's house in a storm. We chugged Bolly at Solfest. We talked campers at Dubs on The beach. We blagged a good spot at Dart Valley Park. We kipped in a holding site in Blackpool. We ate corn chowder in a storm on the seafront in Maryport. We cooked a chilli for a contest in Bude. We at...

The produce in our fish crate garden is really starting to come on now that the weather's changed. We've got rocket and lettuce already, are on the verge of gathering our first spuds, and not far off frying up the pak choi. It's very satisfying. Not only because we love our garden greens but also because fish crates make such good beds. All ours have been picked up from the beach near to where we live. They come from all over the place. We even have one from Dunmore East, the place where Jo and I tied the knot. It's in southern Ireland. Others are from Scotland, Cornwall, Norway. All over. It was Dave and Sam who first turned us on to the idea of collecting these lost receptacles for planting. Not only does it take them out of the marine environment but it also stops them from going to landfill. So instead of going to a hole in the ground or decaying into hundreds of bits of toxic plastic that will continue to float around the planet, they find another use. And if that...