West Magazine, October 17 2015

17.10.15

Sea story WIN: + NATIONAL

TRUST DAYS OUT + 5 x ROMANTIC

BESTSELLERS

‘Why I set my book on a Cornish beach’ pg12

29

new season style solutions

INSIDE: + SAVE THE

TUG-OF-LOVE ORPHAN

PLUS + APPLE DAYS + AUTUMN FORAGING

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TASTE OF THE WEST Scrumptious recipe for you to try this week

‘After all, this is the man who went to tackle a nest of hornets in his roof wearing just a pair of gloves and a cement sack on his head’ Phil Goodwin tries to keep up with his father-in-law, with mixed results, p46

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KIT FOR THE KIDS Cute outfits for tiny people

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WELLBEING How to get superstar eyelashes

THE COOLEST COWS Your need-to-know top 10 lists

[contents[ Inside this week...

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THE WISHLIST This week’s pick of lovely things to buy

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KATE’S FAVOURITE FROCK Channel the Duchess in dove grey

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FIFTY SHADES IN POLZEATH Sh! We have the latest gossip!

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INSPIRED BY THE SEA The new novel set in the far west

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DON’T SEND ME BACK THERE An orphan’s fight to stay in Cornwall

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AUTUMNAL INTERIORS Adding a golden glow to your decor

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ANNE SWITHINBANK

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NUTS, WHOLE HAZELNUTS Tim Maddams goes foraging

Our garden guru is hedging her bets

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HALF-TERM FASHION Cute styles for the kids to wear

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YOUR WEEK AHEAD Cassandra Nye looks into the stars

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BOOST YOUR WELLBEING Great ways to feel your best this week

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NUTS, WHOLE HAZELNUTS Devon’s Tim Maddams goes gathering

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A TASTE OF THE WEST Pressed pork belly from Salcombe

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BEER AND... CHOCOLATE? It can work, says our beer expert

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INSPIRED BY THE SEA

The newest Cornish novel

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22

The White Post Chef Brett Sutton of Wood of pub, Dorset, with Briony Somerset Blackacre Farm Eggs,

COUNTRY

and celebrating all the close and the producers, in the field and fork here fruitful links between of Taste of the mood? A fabu- Griffen. the West runs an award eeling in a foodie West,” says John Sheaves Every year, Taste of very best things South has just been which seeks out the lous new cookbook the links be- programme The award-win- West. recipes from the book published, celebrating and drink from the region.

Here, we showcase some to come food produc- to eat then given to the Westcounfor more recipes in weeks tween award-winning ning products were of A reci- – and look out South West.

To order your copy the brief to devise new ers and top chefs in the here in West magazine. try’s best chefs, with – and, (£16.99), designed by then photographed West Country, this lovely of the West Country pes. The results were Called A Taste of the o.uk or look simply Taste of a year-long project you will agree, they Jeff Cooper, visit www.tasteofthewest.c book is the culmination the as we are sure cooperative, Taste of a very special new cookbook. delicious – to create by the food producers’ chefs call 01404 822012. chefs, the with region’s chats the with “The book also features West, working together David food photographer with pictures by top

F

IMAGES: DAVID GRIFFEN

Glorious food

best chefs and its between the region’s showcases the links A brand-new cookbook have been simply delicious... producers. The results award-winning food

brownies Double chocolate fudge Probus. Cornwall

By Zannah Reid of Time Made using Buttermilk

Café,

Confections fudge, from

Here we are again!

Bodmin

225g soft dark brown sugar 210g butter 150 plain chocolate Broken Chocolate fudge 150g Buttermilk Confections 3 eggs, beaten 50g self-raising flour 50g cocoa powder ½ tsp baking powder 1.

2.

square tin.

Grease and line a 20cm over some simmering Melt chocolate in a bowl

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

water. together.

Beat the sugar and butter in well.

Add the eggs slowly, beating and cocoa.

Fold in the sieved flour and mix.

Add the melted chocolate and pour into the preStir in chocolate fudge

8.

9.

A GOLDEN GLOW

Autumn interiors – inspiration for your home

[ welcome [

People

A TASTE OF THE WEST

[

[ pared tin. at 170C (fan oven)/Gas Cook in a preheated oven mark 3. then lift out carefully Leave to cool in the tin, and cut into squares.

17

es, last week was by no means a oneoff. You’ll be spotting us here in the Western Morning News every Saturday from now on. Thank you to everyone for their kind comments about last week’s magazine, and here’s to another bumper issue this week too.

First up, we have a terrific reader competition (see oppposite). You could win a family day out to the National Trust property of your choice, worth up to £32 each.

With so many fabulous locations to choose from down here, from Lanhydrock to Knightshayes, it certainly is a wonderful prize.

Y

16

Tweet

[

of the week @WeMakeMagazines Huge thanks to @WMNWest for its coverage of our new recipe book: A Taste of the West Country @TasteoftheWest

Elsewhere in the magazine, we have a lovely story from Sarah Pitt, who met up with novelist Emylia Hall to hear all about her latest book, inspired by west Cornwall. Guess what? We have five copies to be won, too, see page 12 for details.

On a more serious note, on page 16 we meet 14-year-old Ukrainian orphan Iryna from Bodmin, who is under threat of deportation despite being the much-loved foster child of local couple, Heather and Terence Voysey. Hear their deeply-moving story on page 16 today. Let us know what YOU think: westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk and @wmnwest. Happy reading!

[

Thank you for all your kind comments about last week’s magazine

TO ADVERTISE: Contact Lynne Potter: 01752 293027 or 07834 568283, lynne.potter@dc-media.co.uk

Becky Sheaves, Editor

COVER IMAGE: Victoria Walker

EDITORIAL: westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk Tel: 01392 442250 Twitter @wmnwest

MEET THE TEAM Becky Sheaves, Editor

Sarah Pitt

Kathryn Clarke-McLeod

Catherine Barnes

Lynne Potter

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If you do one thing this week...

Enjoy a taste of autumn at Killerton’s cider and apple festival today and tomorrow (October 17 and 18). The beautiful orchard at the National Trust property in east Devon will be decorated with bunting and filled with fun activities all weekend.

Live music will have you dancing around the apple trees, while youngsters can enjoy campfire cooking and apple foraging, a bumblebee parade and a magic show. Don’t forget, too, to bring along your own apples to press in Killerton’s 200-year-old apple press.

Tickets are £4 for adults, £2 for children. Visit www.nationaltrust. org.uk/killertonapples

Win

Enjoy a family day out for free, thanks to the National Trust! We have two family day visit tickets (for two adults and two children) to visit the National Trust property of your choice, worth up to £32 each.

To win one, send your contact details to: National Trust competition, westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk by October 30. Normal terms apply. West magazine will not share your details.

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Good boy Dachshund clock with wagging tail £44.95 www.annabeljames.co.uk

PINTA Tea towel £1 Primark

the

wishlist

Sparkle Diamante vintage-style hairclip £13 www.rockmyvintage.co.uk

West’s picks for spending your time and money this week

STREET STYLE STAR Carrie Keegan Carrie Keegan, 29, is a hairdresser in Plymouth West says: Carrie’s rocking the monochrome vibe with this cute 60s-inspired tunic dress, and it’s nice to see a trench coat that isn’t the usual camel shade. The tassled loafers are on trend and also supercomfy for a hairdresser who is on her feet all day. As you’d expect, she has great hair, too!

PARTY Limited Edition high heels £25 Marks & Spencer

Coat: Topshop Dress: Topshop Tights: Primark Shoes: Primark

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Wishlist fave!

CUTE Faux fur Peter Pan collar £38 Cuckooland

Lighten up Hanging rattan lamp

Natural

£149 Cuckooland

Wooden necklace £19.95 White Stuff

Lottie nail varnish in ‘Forever Young’ £6 BHS

Store we adore Julian Foye, Cornwall

Furnishing experts Julian Foye offer a top-to-toe interior design service in its four Cornish shops, stocking everything from furniture to fabrics. Staff are friendly and knowledgeable and there’s even an interior designer on hand.

Brands stocked include sleek design classics from Ercol – we love the Plank dining table - and top-quality Vi-Spring mattresses.

Branches in St Austell, Wadebridge, Hayle and Truro, see www.julianfoye. co.uk

London bus bag charm £8 Accessorize

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talking points Gillian Molesworth

Story of my life...

Gossip, initiation ceremonies and more t’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally found someone who actually went to a Piers Gaveston Society party at Oxford. Did you follow that story a couple of weeks ago?

About David Cameron and a pig’s head?

This was my friend’s description (this would have been in the 1990s) of the event: “It was pretty there are more connections dull. Lots of booze and some than you think. OK, not that I’m drugs in a field and lots of Bridesaccusing you of taking drugs or headians being not as cool as they doing anything unscrupulous thought they were, in drag and with a pig’s head. I’m just saying leather etc. A lot of hype and not that most kids aged 18-22 do much more.” So, not quite the hedumb stuff. They drink, they go donistic orgy that some publicato parties, they dress up, they tions would like us to believe. show off. It’s an age when you’re If he is looking down from the trying on personas. There are afterlife, Piers Gaveston himself plenty of fancy dress parties that may be surprised by his sudden are in poor taste, just a bit more fame these days. lowbrow.

I’m sure he’s Most of the been talked about people I knew in my more in the past year at Oxford had I’m just saying month than at to work very hard that most kids any time in the to get there, and aged 18-22 do past 800 years. He continued to work was, by the way, hard to graduate. dumb stuff. the first Earl of So why shouldn’t They drink, they Cornwall, and a they let off some go to parties, favourite of King steam? At least Edward II (probsomeone is throwthey dress up, ably in more ing colourful parthey show off ways than one). ties, hopefully in a The drinking safe environment. society in his Life’s boring enough name was founded in the 1970s, when you have to get a job and which certainly was a period of pay a mortgage. experimentation and hedonism: Another element, of course, is they must have been quite a gang the historical animosity stirred when they started up. up by members of Britain’s priviI’m always amused when these leged class behaving like prats. stories come up: shock accounts I’ve met a few of those. But I have of super-elite societies and clubs, to say, they haven’t cornered the especially ones with erudite market. A prat is a prat, and they historic names. So exciting when exist across class and income it happens to the Prime Minister, divides. isn’t it? “Man who says he’s one I say lay off Cameron for his of us really, really isn’t!” university high jinks. Live and let Readers, I put it to you that live. And next time, invite me.

I

Gillian Molesworth is a journalist and mum-of-two who grew up in the USA and moved to north Cornwall when she met her husband

Eaton grey dress £365 The Fold

GORGEOUS

greys

It’s not often that an all-grey ensemble looks this radiant – but the Duchess of Cambridge shone in the autumn sunshine in this dove grey dress with matching suede pumps and clutch on a recent Royal visit. Unsurprisingly, her tweed Eaton dress, £365, by British label The Fold, has now sold out in Catherine’s colour but they promise more will be back in stock soon. There are four other shades to choose from if you really can’t wait (www.thefoldlondon.com) – or you could take inspiration for a little dovegrey fashion of your own choice.

steal her

style

OR MAKE IT YOUR OWN

OPTION B Fitted Panel dress £16 George at Asda

OPTION A Sleek Alexa dress £139 Monsoon

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17.10.15

Just

between us

WEDDING

Gossip, news, trend setters and more – you

BELLS Will it be a Westcountry or Wild West wedding for diving sensation Tom Daley, 21 and his new fiancé, 41-year old Californian film-maker Dustin Lance Black? Tom’s mum Debbie, who still lives in Plymouth, has revealed that the happy couple plan to wait until after the Rio Olympics before deciding on a

date and venue, explaining: “Training has always come first. Once Rio is out of the way, they will properly plan the wedding.”

Fingers crossed 2016 will be a gold rush year for Tom; bringing Olympic medals AND wedding rings. Congratulations, both, from all of us at West.

heard all the latest juicy stuff here first!

!

SWEET TREAT

POETRY IN MOTION His footballing skills have been described as poetry in motion, but Manchester United skipper Wayne Rooney has a literary side, it seems. The £300,000-a-week footballer has revealed he wooed wife Coleen with self-penned odes, explaining: “I used to love writing poems, even before I was with Coleen. I used to like write little stories, too.

So when I first got with Coleen, I used to write her lots of poems.” Coleen confirms: “I’ve got a collection somewhere.” Don’t keep them to yourself, Coleen – we want a look!

[[ Wayne: ‘I wooed Coleen with lots of poems’

Bake Off presenter Sue Perkins says that undergoing regression helped stem her sugar cravings, but uncovered an eerie connection.

“I went back to my earliest memory of sugar and it was my mum pulling out a brown book and opening the page to Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle cake! Forty years later, I’m working with the good lady herself.” Sue’s been looking back on her past in her newly published memoir, Spectacles and we think it’s a treat.

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In costume: Phoebe Tarr and Molly Knill try on wigs at Plymouth Theatre Royal’s open day

Scoff: The Delicious Drake Trail, a running and food event around Tavistock, was a scrumptious success

in pictures

Special guest: Micky the horse was brought along as a surprise for his owner Christine James at her wedding at Plymouth register office

In the mail: Sally Crabtree was Poetry Postie for Newlyn festival delivering singing telegrams

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talking points Moo!

Cleaning Agents

ONE OF US Famous faces with links to the Westcountry

This week:

10 cows from around the world:

10 foods with natural powers:

1 Abigar (Sudan) 2 Nagori (India)

1 Lemon 2 Vinegar 3 Salt 4 Potatoes 5 Banana skins 6 Walnuts 7 Ketchup 8 Gin 9 White bread 10 Uncooked rice

3 Randall Lineback (USA) 4 Garfagnina (Italy) 5 Guangfeng (China) 6 Watusi (Rwanda) 7 Ferrandaise (France) 8 Chikhanwoo (Korea) 9 Murbodner (Austria) 10 Baggerbont (Netherlands)

One is fun

The happy list

10 things to make you smile this week 10 famous only children:

1 Daniel Radcliffe 2 Sarah Michelle Gellar 3 Jack Nicholson 4 Drew Barrymore 5 Elizabeth Taylor 6 Chelsea Clinton 7 Maria Sharapova 8 Idris Elba 9 Lauren Bacall 10 Lea Michele

1 Sunshine such a bonus 2 Warm seas go surfing, it’s still lovely (with wetsuit)

3 Yoga book now for Watergate Bay’s January retreat

4 Coast Path Challenge which stretch will you walk?

5 6 7 8

Half term for family time Rosehips in the hedges Strictly loving Peter’s hips Suranne Jones our actress of the year

9 Pears with goat’s cheese 10 Tosca at Hall for Cornwall in November

EL James Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James is building a luxury holiday home in Polzeath, north Cornwall

Pen name: EL James’ real name is Erika Leonard. She lives in west London with her screenwriter husband Niall and two teenage sons.

Cornwall: She has applied for planning permission to demolish and rebuild a clifftop house overlooking the north Cornwall coast in Polzeath.

Bestseller: Erika became a Plans: Erika wants to build a publishing sensation in 2011, thanks five-bedroom retreat at Polzeath, to her erotic novel Fifty Shades of complete with sauna and storage for Grey. It is now officially surfboards. She bought the bestselling book the property for a of all time, selling reported £1.25 million.

125 million copies DID YOU KNOW? worldwide.

Children: Asked in a Erika’s very early interview Early years: Erika if her sons had read personalised was born in London her first book, she car number in 1963 to a Chilean said: “Good God no. plate reads: mother and a Scottish I’d be mortified, and father, who was a BBC they’d be mortified...

SXY cameraman. Erika It would be far too herself had a career in embarrassing.’’

TV production.

Interview: Husband Inspiration: Writing under the pen Niall told The Guardian: “Erika name Snowqueen’s Icedragon, Fifty wrote Fifty Shades to entertain Shades was initially inspired by the herself and a few online friends. She Twilight bestselling teen novels of never dreamed it would become Stephanie Meyer. a bestseller, still less a landmark in publishing or a figure of speech.”

Fortune: At the last count, Erika is said to have earned £75 million Film: Erika fell out with Fifty Shades from the sale of her books and the film director Sam Taylor-Johnson. film adaptation of the first volume, House of Cards director James Foley starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota will take on the next movie, Fifty Johnson.

Shades Darker.

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Interview

[

EMYLIA HALL

Inspired by the sea

[

Sarah Pitt meets an author who has written an enchanting love story, set in Cornwall’s far west

By Sarah Pitt

mylia Hall is striding across Porthmeor beach in St Ives, a big smile on her face.

It is a beautiful autumn day and the beach is almost deserted, apart from two riders ambling with their horses along the water’s edge.

The writer is down in the far west of the county on holiday with her husband and toddler son. But because her third novel, The Sea Between Us, is now out in bookshops, the trip has turned into a bit of a busman’s holiday, with promotional interviews to be done. Not that Emylia is complaining. She slips her flip-flops off on the sands, and is gamely climbing up onto mussel-encrusted rocks along the edge of the beach for the photoshoot for West magazine.

“I always begin a story with a place,” she says, once

E

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portraits: victoria walker

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Emylia’s latest novel is set in west Cornwall and tells a long-distance love story

the photos are done and we are sipping coffee in a café overlooking the beach. “With Cornwall’s far west, I had this single image of a boy and a girl sitting on granite cliffs overlooking the sea. That was the start of my story.”

The book opens in a remote Cornish cove where – on one of the last days of summer – teenager Robyn Swinton is drowning, out of her depth and tugged by a current while surfing. She is rescued in the nick of time by local boy Jago Winters, and a spark is ignited between them that will play out over seven years, as their paths diverge and take them far away from the lonely spot in West Penwith where they first met.

“I love the idea of a story set in this part of the

world, where the remoteness is such an appealing factor but also a potential bar to happiness,” says Emylia. “Especially as Jago and Robyn are 19 or so when the book starts, and there is so much impetus at that age to leave home behind.

You are very conscious of the whole world being out there for you.

The story is very much following the two of them as life takes them in different directions.”

The novel is also a love letter to the unspoilt beaches and wild seas of the far west of Cornwall, where Emylia first holidayed as a child and has, more recently, returned each year with her own family.

“When Robyn does move away from this part of Cornwall, she finds herself longing for Jago

‘I had this single image

of a boy and girl sitting on

cliffs overlooking the sea’

but also longing for the sea and open skies of home. The two are bound up in one another,” she says. “The sea is a metaphor in the book for the way their lives ebb and flow.”

Emylia first secured a book deal with publisher Headline back in the summer of 2011, with The Book of Summers. That novel was loosely inspired by her childhood memories of scorching holidays on Lake Balaton in Hungary, where her mother’s family live. “I had such fond memories of travelling across the continent every summer.

I wanted to use those memories, with a bit of artistic licence to give it a darker twist.”

While Emylia’s mother is half-Hungarian, she herself was brought up in the Teign valley in south Devon, where her parents – her mother is a quilt-maker and her father an artist – still live.

Emylia and her husband were on the beach in Shaldon, opposite Teignmouth, when she got the call telling her she had secured a six-figure book deal with Headline. “We ran into the sea, larking around in the waves and then went to a really old fishermen’s pub and celebrated with fish and

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Interview

Win

The write place Emylia’s Cornish retreat

When Emylia Hall got to a tricky point in writing The Sea Between Us, she took herself off for a writer’s retreat at seaside hotel The Old Coastguard in Mousehole, just down the road from the fictional cove where she has set her book.

Win a copy We have five copies of The Sea Between Us by Emylia Hall (Headline, £7.99) to win. To be in with a chance, email westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk with your name, address and phone number, by October 30. Normal terms apply, West will not share your details.

Pedn Vounder cove near Porthcurnow inspired the book

chips and champagne.”

That six-figure book deal was the reward for the risk Emylia took when she gave up a steady job in advertising to concentrate on her writing.

Now writing her fourth book, Emylia, 38, writes mainly at home in Bristol, in the special writing shed in her garden. She and her husband Robin, who is a writer of comic books, have an enviable

childcare arrangement when it comes to looking after their toddler son Calvin Jack, or CJ as his mum affectionately calls him.

“My husband and I look after CJ 50/50. I have him in the mornings, then we have lunch together and we have a handover, then I write in the afternoons,” she says. “It works really well.”

Her latest book came into being alongside the arrival of her son, she explains. She started work on it just before she got pregnant, saw her manuscript interrupted by crippling morning sickness and was on her way back from meeting her publisher in London when her waters broke on the train.

After Calvin was born – she just about made it back to the hospital in Bristol as planned – Emylia went back and rewrote the passage where one of her characters gives birth, with the benefit of first-hand experience. “I had written a description of labour that said something like ‘she had a tired smile on her lips’,” she says. “I was in the middle of the labour ward, with gas and air, thinking: ‘Get me a notebook quick, I so

“I spent about five nights there,” she says.

“It is the perfect hotel for writers because there is no TV – just Roberts radios in the bedrooms. I went there in November and there was a big open fire crackling and a wonderful lawn leading down to the sea. I’d get up early and write – then stop when I thought I’d done enough to earn a good breakfast. At lunchtime I’d go out and have a bracing walk, and the views of the sea were amazing. I wrote about 15,000 words over the five days.

“The team at The Old Coastguard have been really fantastic supporting the book. They have got copies in all the bedrooms and have chosen it as the launch book for their book club. I’m thrilled.”

need to rewrite that!’”

As Emylia fed her baby in the small hours, she would find herself drifting off to the fictional Rockabilly Cove, loosely based on the remote Pedn Vounder cove west of Mousehole.

“Being a mother, those first few months, is such an intense experience. Absolutely nothing can prepare you for it, and being able to take some of these experiences and emotions and weave them into the story felt quite cathartic. I have no doubt this novel is a better book because of Calvin, and a different one too.”

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People

Don’t send me back there, please A year ago, Ukrainian orphan Iryna Mynich came to Cornwall to be fostered by a local family. Today, the 14-year-old is under threat of being deported to a Ukrainian orphanage, due to visa issues. As the campaign to save Iryna gathers pace, Becky Sheaves hears her poignant story

nice. Now, I never feel I have a problem.

Heather and Terence, my mum and dad,

By Becky Sheaves are such kind people and they are always on my side. I used to live with my grandryna Mynich is 14 years old. mother but she was so old, so ill, I had to She loves nail varnish and do all the cooking, all the cleaning. I was music, is busy training her always worried, always afraid.” family’s new puppy at obeShe even loves school, she tells me endience classthusiastically: “My school es and has just got her in Bodmin is so good, it is new uniform as a proud incredible. In Ukraine the ‘The Home member of the Devon and school was just rubbish. We Office says Cornwall Community sat at our desks and copied Police Cadets. from the blackboard, the that if she does So far, so normal. But teachers would smoke in the not leave the Iryna’s happy family life class and never taught us country, she will in Bodmin has been hard anything. be deported – if won. She’s an orphan, and “Now, I can just get on was rescued from acute with my life and be happy, necessary by poverty in Ukraine by her because I have a family to force’ foster parents Heather take care of me. I just want and Terence Voysey just a to scream, I can’t believe it year ago.

– what a beautiful life I have Speaking English astonishingly fluent- here in Cornwall.” ly – with just a hint of an accent – Iryna There can be no doubt that Heather explains why she loves her life today in and Terence Voysey, both in their 50s and Cornwall. “Bodmin is amazing. It is so retired, have done a remarkable thing by

[[

PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMES DARLING

I

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Iryna this summer: she desperately wants to stay in Cornwall

Iryna with her Cornish foster parents Heather and Terence Voysey

giving this Ukrainian orphan the life of a protected, educated British youngster. But today – much as they try to shelter Iryna from the true facts of her situation – a cloud is hanging over her future.

The Voyseys are bracing themselves for a High Court battle to allow Iryna to stay in Cornwall.

“Iryna had a letter from the Home Office in September threatening to deport her, if necessary by force,” explains a clearly furious Terence, who used to work as an insurance broker.

“She was so upset, we found her curled up in a foetal position in her bedroom, sobbing her heart out. But we will fight this tooth and nail – as far as we are concerned, it is not going to happen.”

Heather and Terence have appointed a specialist immigration lawyer and a barrister and the case is set to be heard in the High Court in London.

Their MP, Scott Mann, has urged the Home Office to review the case, saying: “Apart from offering Iryna the opportunity to finish her studies in Bodmin and lead a happy life in north Cornwall, a positive outcome from a review, avoiding an appeal will save valuable court time and public money that such an appeal would cost.”

And the people of Bodmin, who have taken

[

Iryna to their hearts, are right behind the Voyseys’ campaign. On the town’s Facebook page, more than 100 people have pledged to “physically barricade the house” and refuse to allow Iryna to be deported. And the family’s funding appeal for money to cover a legal fight has reached £4,275.

“Iryna is absolutely bowled over by the response.

She cannot believe how supportive everyone has been to her,” says Heather.

Iryna’s story starts back in 2012, when she visited north Cornwall as part of a trip organised by a charity called Chernobyl Children Life Line, of which the Voyseys are leading fundraisers. Heather and Terence were only too happy to offer children accommodation, especially since, as Terence stoically puts it, “we were never blessed with our own children”. Heather is more voluble: “We tried IVF, many years ago, and it was a great sadness that we couldn’t have our own children. But we accepted it and just got on with our lives. So it was lovely to have the Chernobyl children staying and to go on trips to Flambards or Crealy with them.”

Iryna’s group had arrived in the summer of 2012, and Iryna was staying with a host family in Bude, when Terence, as area co-ordinator,

[

‘Iryna is absolutely bowled over by the response.

She cannot believe how supportive everyone has been’

received a shocking phone call. “It was truly dreadful news. Iryna’s mother, who was a single parent, had been murdered. She and her then boyfriend had both been in a car when their throats were cut, they were shot in the head, and then dumped in a river.”

Terence understands that the murders were political in origin, linked to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and Iryna’s mother’s boyfriend’s political activities. “It’s a lawless place, virtually a policeless state,” he says. But the immediate problem was what to tell Iryna, who was only 11 years old. “She was such a sweet little thing, and having the time of her life on the holiday,” remembers Heather. “It was heartbreaking.”

After much consideration, the charity decided to wait to the end of the holiday to tell Iryna the appalling news. “The Ukrainian custom is to have the funeral within 24 hours of death, so there was no way we could get her back in time for it,” Heather explains. “It seemed kinder to allow her to at least enjoy the only holiday she was ever likely to have in her childhood.”

Once Iryna had returned home, she went to live with her 74-year-old grandmother in a small village in rural Ukraine. Terence takes up the story: “Unfortunately, her grandmother had the beginnings of dementia, and was also recovering from major surgery. Instead of the grandmother looking after Iryna, Iryna became her grandmother’s carer.”

Indeed, when – six weeks later – one of the charity’s lead workers made the journey to check

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People

First meeting

The charity that brought the family together Iryna first met her foster family on a trip organised by a charity called Chernobyl Children Life Line, of which Heather and Terence Voysey are lead fundraisers and local organisers in Cornwall.

“The idea is to give children from the area around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster a holiday in the UK at around the age of 10 to 12,” Terence explains.

“It’s been proven that a month away from the nuclear pollution, with lots of fresh air and good nutrition, just before the teenage years, greatly increases their chances of staying cancer-free in later life. It’s like a health cure for them, boosting their immune system.”

Since 1992 CCLC has given 56,000 children from Ukraine and Belarus a holiday in the UK. For more details, visit www.ccll.org.uk

up on Iryna, she was found to be in dire straits.

“They reported back to me and Heather, and the news was not good, not good at all,” Terence remembers.

Iryna, still only 11 years old, was doing all the shopping, cooking and cleaning in the tiny house.

She was barely attending the village school, was handling all the finances of the household and was even having to help her grandmother cope with a colostomy bag. “When Heather and I heard this, we felt – well, almost guilty. Very responsible,” says Terence. “After all, Iryna’s mother’s death had happened on our watch, as it were. We felt we had to do something.”

Over the years, ten children who had been brought to Britain for CCLC trips have stayed on as foster children with host families. “Heather and I discussed it, and to us it seemed the obvious answer. We would invite Iryna back to the UK and look after her, at least until she could finish her education.”

As soon as they could, the couple travelled to Ukraine to make contact with Iryna and suggest themselves as her foster family.

“I have to say, we were totally unprepared for what it is like over there,” says Terence. “Rural Ukraine is like going back 100 years in time,” adds Heather. “The roads were cobbled, the women worked in the fields from 7am to 10pm and almost nobody has a car. Iryna’s home was a glorified shack with no bathroom, no kitchen, two electric lights and a single socket. She didn’t even have a bed, let alone a bedroom – she was sleeping on an old sofa.”

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People

As soon as the move to England was suggested, both Iryna and – more importantly – her grandmother were totally in favour of the plan.

“Iryna’s face lit up, and her grandmother knew it would be so much better for her,” says Terence.

It was agreed that her grandmother would go to be cared for in the east of Ukraine by relatives, who were not able to take Iryna as well. After much red tape, on November 3 2014 Iryna finally arrived in Bodmin. Here, she has settled in with surprising ease. “It has been so wonderful for us having her here,” says Heather. “I absolutely love doing all the little things for her, making her sandwiches, washing her school uniform, taking her shopping. We have changed her life, of course. But she has totally changed our lives for the better, too.

“It was always so hard for us, being a childless couple. People didn’t mean to leave us out, but they did. Now, we go to barbecues and get-togethers with other families – it’s so lovely.

“Before I retired, I worked as a PA in the NHS. I would hear my colleagues moaning about being a taxi service for their children, having to take them here and there, and I just longed to be able

[

to do that. Now, it is such a joy to drive Iryna to Plymouth to go shopping, just chatting away in the car. I feel so much younger and more lively in myself – we both do.”

At first, Iryna attended a private language college to bring her English up to the required standard. Then, in June, there was good news: she was given a place at Bodmin College, the town’s comprehensive school. “I was worried for her, of course, because her school in Ukraine had 50 children, while Bodmin College has 1,500 – it’s huge,” says Heather.

“But within a couple of days she had found herself some friends.

Our first parents’ evening in July was such a proud day. She is a real model pupil. In fact she has really old-fashioned, disciplinarian values.

She is horrified if the other kids mess about in class. All the teachers are so pleased with her progress.”

But all was not well on the visa front. Iryna had come to the UK on a six-month visa, which expired in May 2015. At that stage, the Voyseys filled in Home Office forms and requested what is known as “leave to remain”: “It’s not a new visa, just a sort of pause on the existing one, given the

‘Here in Cornwall, I can just be happy, because I have a family to take care of me’

[

fact that Iryna’s grandmother is now 78, more frail than ever and her dementia was more advanced. There is absolutely no one to care for Iryna back at home. She would probably have to go into an orphanage, and they are truly grim,” says Terence.

For five months, the family heard nothing, until a letter arrived on September 11, addressed to Iryna herself. “It was an appalling letter to send to a child,” said Terence. “It says that if she does not leave the country she will be deported, if necessary by being forcibly taken to an immigration centre.”

These are worrying times indeed. “Because of everything she has gone through, Iryna can be very mature for her years,” says Heather. “But then sometimes she is just like a little girl – all this is very hard for her.”

But when we talk, Iryna is putting on a brave face: “I want to make the most of the opportunity. I go to school, I get on with studying. I am so happy here with everything, my own bedroom, the house, Heather and Terence. The letter is frightening but I am trusting Mum and Dad. I know they will sort it out for me.”

And, while they have breath left in their bodies, there is no doubt this remarkable couple from Cornwall will do just that, for the child they have grown to love as their own daughter. It would take a hard heart indeed not to wish them luck with their campaign.

To pledge a donation to the Voyseys’ GoFundMe page, go to https://www.gofundme.com/rh4a4c94

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interiors

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escape

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fashion

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Curtains made from Mulberry vintage floral fabric, £89 per metre; Albany sofa covered in Parton check, from £1,100; Timorous Beasties for John Lewis black thistle cushion, £80; russet linen cushion, £40, and Mulberry home clan chenille cushion, £120, all available at John Lewis.

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Interiors

Autumn colours Welcome the year’s most colourful and sumptuous season into your home. Sam Wylie-Harris leafs through autumn’s finest hues ith the leaves turning and the countryside ablaze with fiery reds, burnt oranges and golden yellows, there couldn’t be a better time to spice up your space and introduce some warm accents and comfy chairs to ‘fall’ into – forgive the pun.

Even a short ramble in autumn sunshine can inspire a shift in style once you get back indoors.

Cue a gorgeous array of furniture in rich hues and modern metallics, accented with splashes of rust and berries to capture the allure of the season’s richly-coloured foliage.

And with Dulux announcing its Cherished Gold as the 2016 Colour of the Year, there couldn’t be a better time to reflect that golden glow. “Adding gold to your hallway in the colder months creates a glowing halo that welcomes guests,” says Paula Taylor, colour and trend specialist at Graham & Brown.

“Our Quill Gold wallpaper looks fabulous in this part of the home in particular. The large-scale pattern elongates even the smallest of spaces, making it perfect for any sized home.”

For an extra hint of luxury, pair gold print wallpaper with golden accents on furnishings and subtle elements, such as metallic light fittings. You can also offset metallic wallpaper with autumnal shades like rich browns.

Balancing light and shade will set the tone for when the clocks change, and you’re inviting friends and family in out of the darkness.

Turning over a new leaf and making the living room warm and cosy is easier than you think, and

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Eva sofa, from £1,975, and pouffe, both upholstered in Fox velvet at £40 per metre, Camilla cushions, £55 each, covered in Dark Rye and Fox fabrics, www. neptune.com

Copper twist candlesticks, £40, and other metallic tableware, £10-£45, www. oliverbonas.com

doesn’t have to happen in one fell swoop, advises John Sims-Hilditch, managing director at design firm Neptune.

“Don’t be afraid of experimenting with colour,” he says. “Start by introducing splashes with accessories and textiles that are easily changed if you change your mind.

“For the braver, choose one colour family and stick to it – blues and greys are great together. Our seasonal shades of Fox and Chestnut blend perfectly and look wonderful with the earthy colours of autumn.”

Indeed, one hero piece on the coffee table, such as a handcrafted woodland bird, plus scatter cushions on the sofa in tactile wool fabrics, or a wool throw in a squash or pumpkin shade strewn across an armchair, can make all the difference. Not to mention a sideboard styled with colourful decanters, and set against a wall painted in a rich, russet shade, or a backdrop of floral printed curtains to add warmth and interest.

Furnishings and accessories with metallic finishes are another way of adding an autumnal feel to your décor.

Inspired by modern metallics, the new tableware range from Oliver Bonas contrasts soft textures with splashes of bold colour and metallic finishes, to

[

bring a touch of rough luxe to table settings.

You could pair this with a dresser or larder stacked with copper cookware, earthenware and wooden chopping boards to add texture, which will not only revamp your kitchen or dining area but double up as a storage unit.

In the bedroom, you can also create a cosy autumnal atmosphere with the fabrics and colours you choose.

“For an elegant and serene bedroom, try a palette of champagne, mink and taupe.

Add layers of sumptuous bed linen, quilted and silk throws to create an inviting feel, while adding warmth, colour and texture,” says Kerry Nicholls, interior decor buyer at John Lewis.

“Reflect the autumnal hues of the countryside with parquet flooring, and lay a warm, woody-toned rug for a little extra luxury and underfoot comfort.”

After all, what could be nicer than stepping onto a throw rug and padding around on a smooth wooden floor? To warm things up, you can always style the room with a velvet chair in a sumptuous colour, invest in a luxury scented candle, or do something as basic as changing the wattage in your light bulbs to create a warm, yellowy glow. That’s it! Cosiness guaranteed, whatever the weather outside.

[

Don’t be afraid of experimenting with colour.

Start with splashes, using accessories and textiles

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Interiors

GET THE

LOOK

Rich colours and metallics add a golden glow for autumn

Waterford Rebel Collection decanters in blush, amber and plum £120 each www.amara. com

Yellow glass ornamental bird from Finnish brand Littala £249 www.amara.com

Scattered fern linen cushion £45 www.clarrisahulse.com

Raj kilim rug £169 Marks & Spencer

Velvet tub chair £445 www. oliverbonas.com

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Gardens

ANNE SWITHINBANK

Hedging your bets Devon’s Anne Swithinbank, panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, says the time is right to prepare the ground for new hedges edges win hands down over walls and fences for me, not to mention being better for wildlife. Now’s the time to plot, plan and prepare your soil to take deciduous hedge plants from now till spring, with evergreen ones best planted in springtime. Many plants are suitable as hedging material, so what should you choose for different situations? Well, the hedge needs to be the right size and shape, sit comfortably in its landscape and do the job it has been planted for.

In my semi-rural garden, we have a lot of native hedging, consisting of field maple, hazel, blackthorn, hawthorn, holly and the occasional elder.

Wild roses, honeysuckle, ivy and bramble thread their way through. These hedges yield bean supports, smell delicious when the honeysuckle is out and are currently festooned with the bead-like fruits of another wild climber, black bryony. On the negative side, growth is exuberant, These hedges brambles and ivy root down into borders and red campion is forever yield bean seeding itself into the garden. Yet supports and the hedges look at home here and smell delicious we manage them with a mixture of cutting and laying. when the As screens or garden dividers, honeysuckle is yew is a classy and controllable out evergreen and surprisingly fast to take, as long as the soil is well cultivated. Ours went in as young plants supplied about 60cm/24in tall and never looked back. One cut in September every year is enough to keep them under control. Beech is another classic, especially between neighbouring gardens and although deciduous, the russet leaves cleave to the branches all winter. Unfortunately, they don’t shed their

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[[

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leaves properly until well into May and can ruin the otherwise fresh look of an April garden full of new leaves and daffodils. Hornbeam is similar and useful on heavier soils. These are the hedges of stately homes.

Most hedge queries focus on the need for quick fixes to hide ugly buildings or shield properties from roads. By way of research, I took a quick spin through our nearby village, which is bisected by a busy road, so houses there need a decent screen.

By far the most interesting I spotted was a recently planted, colourful hedge of mixed evergreens. The plants were put in as large specimens, probably grown somewhere like Italy and consist of photinia (a plant I’ve never really liked because of its pinkish-red, almost visceral, new growth), what looks like a plain-leaved Chinese privet (Ligustrum lucidum) and L.l. ‘Tricolor’, whose leaves are edged with cream, prettily suffused with pink when young. The Chinese privet is an inspired choice, as the leaves are longer and far more elegant than suburban common privet (L.vulgare). But I think I could live without the photinia. Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) was well represented and certainly successful, although the large leaves are not easy to

cut prettily with shears. I preferred a hedge of spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica) whose leaves, being toothed and patterned with small gold spots, are less blocky. The foliage of Portugese laurel (Prunus lusitanicus) is narrower and more refined. Possibly my least favourite roadside hedge was a clipped golden conifer which obviously had been well-tended but with age had started to loom alarmingly over the path.

Seaside hedges’ main purpose is to stay alive despite the ravages of salt-laden gales, so they can shelter both people and less stalwart plants.

Tamarix, escallonia, Euonymus japonicus, sea buckthorn and griselinia (in milder areas) are good at the job. So what about my favourite hedge, one so handsome it always stopped me in my tracks? It would have to be the pyracantha outside the kitchen of my father’s bungalow. Crisply trimmed every summer, it sported white blossom then later in the year a profusion of orange berries. The top was precisely horizontal, making a perfect foreground to show off a large weeping willow beyond. After he sold the property, the new people used a different gardener and the pyracantha was never as good again. Proof indeed that a hedge is only ever as good as its keeper.

Question time with Anne I only have a small garden and would like to plant a large patio tub so it will be like a winter-flowering border in miniature. What should I use?

What a lovely plan, and ideal too, for brightening up driveways and entrance areas of larger gardens. A good mix would include a dogwood grown for colourful stems, so maybe Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ for its orange-red wands. You’ll need an evergreen, so look out for a handsome holly. The small but spiky hedgehog holly Male Ilex ferox ‘Argentea’ or a small female with berries would be ideal. Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ is always good for its handsome red buds opening in spring to creamy flowers. Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) and the fabulous marbled Arum italicum ‘Marmoratum’ will fill gaps, with a few narcissus ‘Jetfire’ to push through in early spring. The best idea is to shop with your eye and put the plants together in a trolley to test whether they look good together.

Q

Anne’s advice for your garden

• Dig and nourish soil really well before planting a new hedge and make a slight ridge 30cm/12in high if the area is at all prone to waterlogging.

• Use a garden line to make sure the route of the hedge is straight and set most larger hedging plants 45cm-18in apart, depending on type.

• Plant winter flowering heathers

West reader queries answered by Anne Swithinbank

Q

This week’s gardening tips

as ground cover because they are colourful, unfussy about soil, knit together and keep weeds down, supply nectar for bees and are even good for cutting.

• Plant corms of Anemone coronaria cultivars to flower in spring, setting them 5cm/2in deep and 10-15cm/4-6in apart. These are great for a cutting garden.

I bought a plant labelled Impatiens velvetea from an autumn fair and have no idea what it does, or how to look after it. The leaves are dark with a pink stripe down the middle.

Impatiens morsei ‘Velvetea’ is a balsam, a relative of the busy lizzy, and so it is equally tender and for the winter at least, should be kept as a house plant. In summer, you could place it in on a sheltered patio in light shade and away from wind. You are in for a treat, as along with the handsome foliage, impressive mainly white balsam-type flowers will open next summer.

They have orange flashes on the ‘cheeks’ and yellow marking on the lips. For winter keep in a warm room in good light and move away from harsh sunlight in spring. Keep moist but not waterlogged and if it continues to grow, give it a weak feed every month. Pinching the growing tip out (or taking it as a cutting) will help the plant branch.

Create a new compost heap by digging a 60cm/ 24in deep pit first. Pile the soil up and add this in thin layers every so often to add soil microbes to the ingredients.

Use a pH testing kit to find out whether your veg plot soil is acidic or alkaline. Unless already alkaline, add garden lime or magnesiumrich dolomitic limestone if you can get it, where brassicas will be growing next year.

Send your questions to Anne at westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk 27

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Beauty

[[ Scrub up for a healthier glow – exfoliating preps your skin ready for moisturising

Going coco The Body Shop Coconut Body Butter (£14) and Scrub (£13) These two products are the perfect partners and in my favourite scent, too. A great way to combine exfoliation with moisturising, and they smell gorgeous, they really do.

Abbie’s

Beauty box

Expert advice from beauty guru Abbie Bray of Newton Abbot Oh, honey Burt’s Bees Lip Balm set (Marks & Spencer, £7) A little treat for your hands and lips, in the perfect handbag size, too.

With the days getting colder, the winter climate can often have harsh effects on our skin, so it is important to look after both your face and your body in the months ahead. This week I’m all about exfoliation and moisturising, so be honest: do you scrub your face and body regularly? Exfoliating is often the step that people leave out in their beauty routine, but that’s such a mistake.

It will give your skin a healthier glow and regular exfoliating preps your skin ready for moisturising.

The winter weather can also dry out your lips, so here’s a little tip that you can try at home to stop getting chapped lips. Use a pinch of sugar mixed with olive oil, rub it on to your lips in circular motions, then rinse off. Hey presto, you have super-smooth lips and you can now apply your favourite lip balm (your lips need moisturising, too, don’t forget!).

fave!

Scrub up Clarins Refining Exfoliator (Debenhams, £25) This is gentle face scrub that I have found will give your skin a radiant glow, creating the perfect canvas for your make-up.

Fragrant My mum loves the Elemis Frangipani Monoi Body Oil (Elemis, £34). She says it isn’t sticky, she likes the scent and it is perfect for mature skin.

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13/10/2015 14:07:23

Fashion

Pom pom hat £8 Marks & Spencer

Suede boots £26 Marks & Spencer T-shirt £13 Next Red beanie £6 duffle coat £35 Next

Boy’s waistcoat and shirt £15 M&Co

Unicorn skirt £16 Next 30

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Bow detail cardigan from £12, T-shirt from £6, embroidered bunny jeans with braces from £15, beanie hat £6 M&Co

Cosy kit

Novelty bear hat set (with mittens) £12 Marks & Spencer

ith half term just around the corner, and the weather turning autumnal, it’s time to stock up on some fun outdoorsy fashion for the kids (or grandkids) in your life. Right now, the shops are full of cute winter outfits for small people. Luckily, practicality as well as style is the keyword here, so children can have fun while looking adorable at the same time.

We love this embroidered hoodie with woodland motifs from Next, perfect for a conker-collecting session. And these sturdy boots from Tu at Sainsbury’s are just the thing for a play on the slide and the swings. With Trick or Treating on the horizon, not to mention November’s fireworks parties, here’s how to wrap them up warm in a bright knitted hat and cosy coat.

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Boy’s trousers, from £12 Next

Hoodie £21 Next

Boots £14 Tu at Sainsbury’s

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Trend Dress, River Island, Princesshay, £50

MAIN PHOTO HAIR: CHARLOTTE AT SAKS, EXETER MAKEUP: CLARINS, DEBENHAMS (BOTH PRINCESSHAY) PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVE HAYWOOD STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHS: PR SHOTS

Hat, River Island, Princesshay, £28

HOW TO WEAR IT:

Bag, River Island, Princesshay, £48

Vivid prints

Boots, River Island, Princesshay, £50

Kathryn Clarke-Mcleod celebrates the art of making a splash here was no shortage of boldness at the AW15 shows. Top designers from Dior to Jonathan Saunders sent their models down the runway in ensembles that had the fashion editors in a daze. From checkerboard and coloured cubes to bold botanical prints, optical illusions have made a bit of a comeback this season.

As I write this I am smiling, because these dazzling prints are the best friend of a girl that had both a scone and a piece of fruitcake for breakfast. They confuse the eye, keeping it constantly on the move and never allowing it to settle anywhere it isn’t welcome.

It’s also a look you can build. Embrace the shapes and swirls top to toe if you are feeling bold or simply wear it in blocks, breaking it up with monochrome staples. My top two suggestions for this look are a colourful tunic style top, or a sleeved dress.

I’m just not Both of these can be worn ready to wrap through all four seasons with a little artful pairing, and both myself in woolly should fit pretty seamlessly into layers and your wardrobe. admit defeat – Tunic styles are having a real moment. Their clean lines are this dress is my the perfect canvas on which last hurrah to wear a print of your choice and they pair effortlessly with jeans, leather trousers and even shorts with opaque tights for the more adventurous among us.

What swung me on the dress is its ability to be woolly layers and admit defeat, and this dress is right at home in a wide variety of situations. I my last hurrah. It’s bright, yes, but uses colours think it will look the part in a boardroom under a from the muted side of the palette, which gives blazer and I equally look forward throwing it on it a sophisticated edge despite its eye-catching over a still-damp costume, rolling up its sleeves pattern. I’m warm enough as I run my errands and sipping post-surf cocktails in it on an exotic today but my grand plan for when the mercury beach somewhere. In the meantime I plan on drops a little lower is to wear a good old-fashusing it as the perfect weapon for days that are ioned sleeved vest under it. The high neck and sunny but cold enough to sting the tip of my nose buttoned sleeves mean it will be virtually undeon the walk to the train. tectable and I will walk around snug as a bug, I’m just not quite ready to wrap myself in until early November at least.

T

Perhaps that is how the Russian girls manage it? My fiancé went on a trip there last year and came back declaring that all the women were walking around in skirts despite it being deepest darkest winter. There was a clear inference that both myself and the rest of the female population of the UK should take notes. Looks like someone is out to start a cold war of their own.

All fashion in these pictures is from Princesshay Shopping Centre, Exeter, www.princesshay.co.uk

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NEW LOOK Red crochet longline sleeveless cardigan £19.99

GET THE

look

DEBENHAMS Star by Julien Macdonald dress £60

Style tip Wear this jumper with blue jeans for casual weekend wear or dress it up with a black pencil skirt and over the knee boots for the office.

MONSOON Jenna Jacquard skirt £49

DEBENHAMS Principles dress £35

MISS SELFRIDGE Black floppy hat £30

DEBENHAMS Principles top £35 33

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Fashion

The edit Your straight line to style: go smart with wrap dresses plus heels and a glittery clutch

+

£35 Monsoon

£79 Phase Eight

+

£79 Dune

+

£34 Oliver Bonas

+

£32 BHS

+

£62.50 JD Williams

£149 Dune

£69 Monsoon

£26 Brantano

+

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Stars

Your stars

by Cassandra Nye This week’s sign:

Happy birthday to...

Librans thrive as part of a couple, because they are both romantic and loyal. They are also naturally sociable and adept at saying the right thing in social situations. They like to stay on an even keel, something which leads them to avoid conflict at all costs.

Charm comes naturally to them, so they make natural hosts, and ideal guests.

Felicity Jones born October 17, 1983 Actress Felicity’s gone from Ambridge to Hollywood. Her role as Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything has propelled her to international stardom after a long stint as Emma Grundy in Radio 4’s The Archers (now played by Emerald O’Hanrahan). She’s filmed four movies this year, including A Monster Calls, with Liam Neeson, and Inferno, co-starring Tom Hanks. People born on this day are said to tackle their longterm life ambitions by setting themselves goals along the way. Happy 32nd birthday, Felicity!

LIBRA (September 24 - October 23) Answer emails and phone calls promptly, choosing your words carefully. As we drift out of your birthday month, look back over the last few weeks and see the changes that have happened. Deciding which of these to develop or drop is important. This weekend is crucial for your love life.

SCORPIO (October 24 - November 22) A bit more organisation will help the weeks run more smoothly. Are you organising others for a holiday party or performance? Disruptions will not throw you if you have your finger on the right page. An unusual or rare event may be causing you tension.

Believe that you are more than capable.

SAGITTARIUS (November 23 - December 21) During a blissful few days this week you realise your position is so much better than you thought. Let this lead you on to make changes that are well overdue. Rome was not built in a day and what you want will come at a steady pace also. Confiding in a loved one releases any tension.

CAPRICORN (December 22 - January 20) Something about you is changing, but you will not see it in the mirror. As you keep going forward so your confidence is building. With each new thing that you do, and each new person that you talk to, knowledge grows. Don’t worry about appearing nosy as others just love talking about themselves.

AQUARIUS (January 21 - February 19) Organising an event may not be your favourite pastime. Don’t worry. There is someone close at hand who would love to help. Don’t disregard someone just because they have a quiet nature. Being set a task can bring out the best in them! Community feel-

ings are strong, although you may not feel like taking on the world this week.

PISCES (February 20 - March 20) Visiting relatives or holiday plans may seem a long way off. However, be aware that there are bargains to be had if you shop ahead. Entertaining at the weekend brings revelations about family. This can give food for thought when researching family ties.

ARIES (March 21 - April 20) Nostalgic romantic thoughts need dealing with this week. Unexpected news from a younger member of the family makes you sit up and take notice. Perhaps this will refocus you on the future! Making mistakes is often the way we learn and move forward. Just be aware that, this week, you are in danger of repeating one.

TAURUS (April 21 - May 21) Travel and invitations open up new vistas for you right through this week.

Progress at work seems to stop and start as finances all round are in flux. When looking ahead, be sure to see all of your options, not just those offered to you. As we make our own destiny by allowing good influences in, so we keep bad ones out.

GEMINI (May 22 - June 21) Plans are just as influenced by outside forces as they are by our own acts.

Ahead of you this week there are more than a few options. Keeping your aim in view, choose the one with the best long-term chance of success. Cash flow may be up and down, but you have a steadying influence. This is a period to look ahead and not back.

CANCER (June 22 - July 22) As it is such a busy time, why not make the weekend special? Forget work and really relax. Do something you used to do as a child and loved. Get that crucial balance. Forgotten to worry about everything and everyone? Good! Bringing more lightness into your life now boosts your spirits and health.

LEO (July 23 - August 23) You don’t have to spend megabucks or push ahead with anything that your partner doesn’t like. Get together and take a few trips out. When did you last go somewhere new? Let the holidays come early and maybe brighten up the home ready for celebrations. The weekend sees you wanting to get rid of any clutter. This will certainly have the effect of clearing your mind.

VIRGO (August 24 - September 23) Your ambitions are strong but you may worry about overstretching yourself. As long as you keep finances within limits, this can be a time of growing confidence. That sparkle in your eyes is very attractive to a colleague.

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Wellbeing

the boost

EXERCISE...

your brain

Life just got better. We’ve handpicked the latest wellness trends, best-body secrets and expert advice to help you be your best self, everyday

The World Bridge Federation has submitted an application for the card game to be included as a sport at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Radiohead frontman and former Exeter University student Thom Yorke is said to be a fan of the pursuit, although opinion’s divided over whether ‘mind games’ ought to be classified as sport. Curious? The Devon School of Bridge teaches beginners and improvers at Thorverton near Exeter. Call Mike Gregory on 07585 442 628 for details. www.bridgewebs.com/devonbridge

SKIN SOS

Strong!

Should perfume be a no-no in hospitals? According to doctors in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, strong artificial scents can trigger asthma and allergies in patients and should be banned. If you’re in danger of over-spritzing, fragrance blog Perfume Shrine suggests a subtle dab to your calves, rather than the decolletage.

Get your skin winterready with an oxygenating home facial: Sothys has introduced this two-in-one mask (£15.50) and vitamin treatment (£18) both enriched with hydrating blueberry and cranberry extracts. Available now at Sothys salons, including Shine in Falmouth and Zamora in Exeter.

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THE SECRET OF LAVISH LASHES Long for lavish lashes? A drop of olive oil applied with a clean mascara wand is a great conditioner, said to make them stronger. Make it part of a bedtime routine, to also ensure you remove every scrap of your make-up – another lash improver.

But if they still lack the pep of Call The Midwife star Helen George’s peepers on Strictly, here’s the secret: eyeCANDY stick-on lashes! Get the look for just £4.99 at Superdrug, Sainsburys and Tesco.

MUMMY TUMMY – THE ANSWER Kourtney Kardashian has been spotted wearing a couture version (she designed it herself!), while singer Kelly Rowland and actress Minnie Driver are also among the celebrity fans of Belly Bandit.

It’s a post-pregnancy shaper, which is not only designed to help you feel more confident during those ‘mummy tummy’ months, but helps support the spine and help your muscles ease back into place. They’re now available in the UK at Mothercare, priced from £30.

What’s coming up? Tweet us your wellbeing diary dates

GOODBYE CELLULITE: Essential fatty acids help to improve tissue-cell hydration in the skin, which can also reduce the appearance of cellulite.

Nutritionist Dr Marilyn Glenville says: “You can find them in linseed (aka flaxseed) oil, walnuts, brazil nuts, hempseed, and oily fish.”

@WMNWest or email westmag@westernmorningnews.co.uk 37

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Wellbeing

I often get strong cravings for certain foods. Is this my body’s way of telling me that I am deficient in something? DF, Paignton

Q

Mood food What your cravings are really telling you

Devon-based dietitian Sophie Medlin says: If only! Unfortunately our body isn’t as sophisticated as this. Because if it were, we’d all be craving fruit, vegetables, take recreational drugs and drink alcohol. This nuts and proteins as opposed to doughnuts, ice shows just how powerful the effect of food is on cream, cake and bread. our brains and explains why if we’re tired or low, That isn’t to say that food cravings aren’t real we can feel a really strong urge for our favourite however. Cravings can be powerful at times and food. Another thing that might stimulate a cravare often quite specific in terms ing can be a happy memory or of the food you are pining for. nostalgic childhood event.

What we know is that our mood, A good way to manage food situation, stress levels and blood cravings such as this is to find a When we eat a sugars can influence the type of non-food way to stimulate your food we like, our foods we are likely to choose. endorphins in the same way. Try brain releases In our culture, we use food to listening to your favourite song, celebrate, comfort and commiscall a friend for a catch-up and endorphins, erate. Whatever the occasion, a laugh, go for a walk or enjoy the chemicals it tends to be linked with food. some exercise. Your body will be For this reason, if we are happy just as satisfied. Try writing a released when we like to eat and if we are sad, ‘things that make me happy list’ good things tired or bored we also like to eat. to refer to when you are craving happen The most important thing unhealthy food. is identifying your personal Aside from hedonistic food triggers. When we eat a food cravings, our blood sugar levels that we like, our brain releases may cause us to feel driven to endorphins - feel-good chemicals. These same consume certain foods. If you start the day with chemicals are released when we exercise, have refined carbohydrates like white bread or sugary sex, laugh, listen to our favourite music and even cereal, you will be living with yo-yoing blood

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sugars. This is because these foods cause a sharp rise and a rapid fall in your blood sugars. When our blood sugars are falling rapidly, our body tells us we’re hungry and it will be those sugary, refined foods that we’ll be craving to get our blood sugars back up. Start the day with high-fibre, low-sugar foods that are digested slowly and release their sugar slowly.

The other thing that is sure to have you craving unhealthy foods is depriving yourself of them! Aim for a balanced view of the food you enjoy. If you know you can’t live without chocolate, have a strategy for this. Allow yourself to have it in a controlled way, such as one chocolate bar twice per week and don’t feel guilty about it. Maintaining a healthy, positive attitude to all foods, finding lots of non-food activities that make you happy and being mindful of your blood sugars will help keep those cravings at bay!

Sophie Medlin works with individuals and organisations to manage their health through diet. Contact sophie@sophiedietitian.com (07795 123030) or visit sophiedietitian.com

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Eat

Ingredient of the Week

Hazelnuts with Tim Maddams

he whole hazel tree is a bit of a make those little hazelnut shortbread biscuits wonder to me. Its supple stems are the Italians call “Baci di dama” or lady’s kiss. the backbone of the hedgerows Cooked slowly in a lower than normal oven they along with blackthorn, and its keep a whiteness to them that is belied by their leaves are just the crumbly, sand like texture. Wild most lovely green in the early hazels really do make the best summer. But by far and away biscuits. the best thing about the hazel I am also very fond of fungi and Particularly tree is the hazelnut. nuts. They go together like all taking my fancy You won’t struggle to find seasonal bedfellows in the most in the kitchen hazelnuts growing in the pleasing of ways and a few roughly hedges right now, and the chopped nuts chucked into a this week is the only real chance of confusion good mushroom risotto or pasta humble and would be with the Cobb nut will add a dimension of pleasing which is similar but far larger. harmony and added texture to the underrated Gathering your own nuts may whole dish, changing it in a way English seem twee or rather pointless you may not have expected. hazelnut when they are so cheap in the The arch enemy of the nut shops but wild hazelnuts are forager is the greedy grey vastly superior to the imported squirrel. They will roast very well cultivated ones. at this time of year, maybe even Once you have gathered a hatful, simply served up shredded over some pasta with some crack them open and eat them, or roast them pesto (see panel). A dish called revenge that will after shelling for a fuller flavour. I love, too, to certainly be best served hot.

T

[[

Nuts in October Pesto is the real winner of the hazelnut harvest, particularly if you can rustle up a few blanched nettles to go with parsley, tarragon, thyme and rosemary.

Add plenty of garlic, a good glug of rapeseed oil, as much hard extra mature cheddar or goat’s cheese as you can handle, salt and pepper, and whizz... Ah, happiness. @TimGreenSauce

Tim Maddams is a Devon chef and author of Game: River Cottage Handbook no. 15 (Bloomsbury £14.99) 39

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12/10/2015 16:58:05

Eat

Outdoor-reared pork belly in beer Recipe by Nick Cottrell of Dolphin House Brazzerie, Plymouth Made using Hunter’s Brewery Crispy Pig beer from Ipplepen, south Devon

Nick says: It was fantastic coming across Hunter’s Brewery and its Crispy Pig beer, which uses fresh apples and is bottle-conditioned – perfect for this dish

Method: 1.

Coarsely chop the onion, celery, ginger and cooking apples. Place in a roasting tin, sit the pork on top and cover with the beer.

Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for eight hours or overnight.

2.

Take off the cling film, season with salt and pepper and cover with baking parchment and two layers of foil. Place in a preheated oven at 140C/Gas mark 1 for five hours.

3.

About 30 minutes before the pork is finished, put the eating apples, scored around the middle and wrapped in foil, into the oven. You will remove them when the pork is done, and keep wrapped up until needed

Ingredients 1kg boned belly pork (ask your butcher to remove the skin and keep it) 2 cooking apples 4 small eating apples 1 onion 2 sticks of celery 1 small piece root ginger 1 bottle Hunter’s Brewery Crispy Pig beer Cornish sea salt and black pepper to season

4.

Meanwhile, cook the crackling by cutting the skin into thin strips, salt and put into the oven, cooked to maximum temperature for 20 minutes.

5.

Take the pork out of the oven, remove from roasting tin and let it rest while you strain the vegetable juices into a pan, discarding the vegetables. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce the liquid by half to a syrupy consistency.

6.

Cut the pork into four, place it fat side down on a hot griddle pan for 15 seconds, then place each piece on a warmed plate, dress with the juices and serve with crackling and a baked apple.

This recipe comes from A Taste of the West Country (£16.99) by the food producers’ cooperative, Taste of the West, with photography by David Griffen To order your copy, designed by Jeff Cooper of We Make Magazines, see www.tasteofthewest.co.uk or call 01404 822012 40

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Drink

Beer of the week At Docktoberfest, the annual beer festival at the Dock Inn, Penzance, Black Rock Brewing’s Black IPA proved the star of the show for me. It doesn’t fit my strict definition of a black IPA – close your eyes and you think you’re drinking a golden, hoppy beer – but it’s a cracking brew, smooth and creamy with a raspberry ripple fruit note on the front. Top dog in a small fest of very well-chosen beers.

Darren Norbury

talks beer y liking for an occasional wellFood Companion, Stephen Beaumont argues that crafted brown bitter is now well bitter, high-cocoa content chocolate needs a jolt documented and one of the tastes I of sweetness to make it palatable, just as sweet most enjoy encountering is chocochocolate needs the cocoa bitterness to stop it late, which is curious because, being a sugar bomb. So a chocolate brownie with otherwise, I am not a great chocolate lover. tart raspberries would pair well with a sweetish Can take it or leave it. Will chuck away a forbeer such as Exmoor Beast or Meantime Chocogotten portion of egg long after late Porter, while a Mississippi Easter. Mrs Norbury, however, Mud Pie might need the slightly appears firm in the belief that fruiter notes of St Austell HSD or It’s worth chocolate should be one of your Cornish Crown Porter. ‘five a day’.

There are no cocoa solids in seeking out The interesting thing about white chocolate, so the IPA route not only those the chocolate taste in beer is might be a nice one to take, bebeers that offer that, most of the time, the flacause firstly it offers a bitter foil vour hasn’t come from actual to the creaminess of the chocochocolate notes, chocolate but from the malt late, and secondly I’ve managed but those beers, used in the brewing process. to get five paragraphs into a beer too, which Roasting the malt for different column without mentioning IPA, pair well with amounts of time can vary not so it must be time. only the colour, but the intenBeer is not just for drinking, chocolate sity and type of flavour. Longthough. A small amount of stout, roasted malts are popular in for instance, adds great depth of porters and stouts and often flavour to a chocolate cake. You give chocolate notes. Not milk chocolate, but an don’t need too much liquor in the batter – about intense, bitter Lindt-style note. More roasting eight fluid ounces or so. Or how about porter in and you’re off into the territory of bitter coffee. a chocolate mousse? But if your thing is a Lion This being the start of Chocolate Week, from bar in the pub with your brown bitter, well that’s October 12-18 (I’d heard a Wispa it was immifine, too. Just makes sure it’s a great Westcountry nent) it’s worth seeking out not only those beers bitter, and if you can get hold of a local choccy that offer chocolate notes, but those beers, too, bar, too, all the better. which pair well with chocolate.

Darren Norbury is editor of beertoday.co.uk In his new book, out this month, The Beer & @beertoday

M

CELEBRATION OF CORNISH BEER Don’t forget, Cornwall CAMRA’s main event of the year, Falmouth Beer Festival, gets under way on Thursday. Full details at www.facebook.com/falbeerfest

Brew with your MP

Brewers are being urged to get in touch with their local MP and invite them to their brewery – to help make a beer! The initiative, from the influential All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, aims to increase Parliamentarians’ understanding of how our national drink is made and the crucial role brewing plays in the local economy.

[[

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Enjoy A WEEKEND IN...

Totnes

The River Dart

ld meets new age in ‘transition town’ Totnes, where the community is working together to create renewable energy projects, build eco-homes and other projects that make environmental concerns compatible with 21st century living. There’s always something interesting going on in this creative and historic market town – and no shortage of places to find wonderful things to buy and try.

O

Stay: At the Royal Seven Stars Hotel in the town

The bustling town centre

centre, where a double room costs from £118 a night. The hotel’s brasserie, TQ9, does great food – look out for the catch of the day from Brixham on the menu. Or experience the supreme comfort of contemporary green living in the Totnes Passivhaus B&B (www.passivhausbandb.co.uk) a stylish house built and fitted out with all manner of energy saving technology where a night’s stay for two costs from £90.

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Arrive by steam train

The town market

The Royal Seven Stars Hotel

bone china upon starched linen tablecloths.

Do:

Feeling crafty? Social Fabric (www. socialfabric.co.uk) has regular craft classes plus Knit and Natter sessions on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Arrive by steam train on the South Devon Railway from Buckfastleigh – it’s an easy walk into town from the station – or paddle here upriver with www.canoeadventures.co.uk.

The town’s Film Festival is at the Civic Hall on November 14 and 15 (transitionfilmfestival.org.uk).

TQ9 brasserie

Eat: The town’s oldest pub The Kingsbridge Inn serves great foodie grub, with mains starting at £9 and as many veggie options as meat dishes on the menu. Willow vegetarian restaurant on the High Street is renowned for its meat-free meals and also caters dairy, gluten, wheat and sugar

free diets, too. Try Fat Lemons cafe for a light veggie lunch, great coffee and de-stress herbals teas – they even make thick shakes suitable for vegans. Or pull up a Lloyd Loom chair at Vintage Tea for hot buttered crumpets, cake, petit fours and delicate sandwiches, beautifully served on

See: Enjoy the view from the Norman castle currently open all week and on Saturdays and Sundays from November 2. Seek out bric-a-brac, vintage, plants and all sorts of interesting things at the town’s Friday and Saturday markets.

Discover:

More than 55 traders sell at the Totnes Good Food Market on the third Sunday of every month. There’s wonderful original contemporary art at the Bowie Gallery.

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The north coast towards Perranporth

My Secret Westcountry Brian Hoskin Artist Brian Hoskin was born in Cornwall and grew up in Looe.

After working as a freelance illustrator in London for several years he moved back to south east Cornwall and now lives in St Germans with his wife and daughter. He works as an illustrator and also creates fine art prints and paintings of the local area and quirky house portraits.

My favourite...

Walk: The whole South West coastal path is a favourite, but the walk out around Rame Head, along to Cawsand and Kingsand and on to Mount Edgcumbe is a fabulous and varied piece of countryside. I love it in winter when you can watch huge seas crashing onto the rocks and track storms sweeping in across the bay. There are magnificent views for miles along the coastline in both directions, and back inland across to the moors.

Festival: Port Eliot is a fantastic summer festival right on our doorstep in St Germans. It opens its gates to a wide variety of artists and eccentric festival-goers. The music, comedy, author and artist talks, food, drink and activities are all set in a fabulous riverside location and make for a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

Activity: I love the sea, was brought up in Looe and helped my father and uncles on their boats throughout my childhood. I also love paddling a kayak up East Looe River, spotting the egrets, herons and kingfishers. Once I counted 15 kingfisher sightings on one trip, but usually I see only one or two.

Food: I always enjoy the fish and chips served at The Coddy Shack between Millendreath and 44

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People

Cornish dolphins

Brian Hoskin’s art

Looe. They serve fresh, sustainable fish with handcut chips, cooked to order.

Tipple: Jail Ale and Doom Bar are definite favourites. There is also a delicious locally-pressed apple juice, Kerensa Aval (applevalley.co.uk), made from the apples around south east Cornwall, always useful for those days when driving is part of the plan!

Kingfisher spotting

Pub: The Rod and Line at Tideford serves good beer, excellent home-cooked food and has a blazing fire in the winter. It has music from a variety of talented musicians, and lots of local fundraising events.

A good night out!

Restaurant: Waves Bar at Seaton has a great menu, friendly staff, and fabulous sea views. Last time I was there we sat up on the upstairs balcony as the sun set and a pair of dolphins played just offshore.

Way to relax: I’m a surfer, and have been for over 30 years, so sitting on the dunes at Penhale Sands near Perranporth, watching the swell roll in after a good surf session with a bite to eat and nothing

pressing to do is a fine way to spend a bit of time.

Weekend away: I spent a fantastic family weekend in June last year, camping on the Lizard Peninsula. It was one of those unexpectedly hot weekends, with few people around. We were able to walk around the coastal path, visiting nearby villages for meals.

Gift shop: Panache Gallery in Kingsand is a treasure box, selling paintings, jewellery and other gifts. I can always find interesting presents there.

Secret place: I grew up near Trenant Woods, Looe. Now, the Woodland Trust has opened up a walk through them, with views along the river valley and towards Looe. From the top of the hill I can wave to my mum on the other side of the valley.

Kerensa Aval juice from Cornwall

Trenant Woods For details of Brian Hoskin’s art visit www.brianhoskin.co.uk 45

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My life

[

man and boy

Comedy duo

[

Phil Goodwin, father of James, five, becomes part of an unlikely double act he odd couple has been the bedrock of British light entertainment for decades. Two men with conflicting personalities thrown together seems to offer endless comic possibilities. Tony Hancock and Sid James; Ronnie Barker and Lennie Godber in Porridge (my favourite); Morecambe and Wise; Reeves and Mortimer… even Cannon and Ball.

And of late I have been living through my own bizarre sitcom partnership with my father-inlaw – a show labouring (sorry) under the working title of The Builders.

For the best part of a week my Russian wife’s dad, Valera, has been helping me renovate my late mum’s place in Merseyside. My brother Tom and I have decided to hold on to the place for now, partly out of sentimentality but also for practical reasons. Tom works abroad and needs a UK base and I need a place to lie down

T

in a dark room for a couple of hours after each trip to see the once-great Liverpool FC crash to their latest low. The house has needed a facelift for a long time, thanks to mother’s refusal to allow any major works, fearing what she called ‘upheaval’. I tried to persuade her for years that actually a few dust sheets and a rolled up carpet was simply minor inconvenience, but to no avail.

Not being a professional DIY man myself, the call went out to the family expert – step forward one Valera Gyorgich Shmuratkin, foreman and member of the Communist Party building committee, Sochi. As a committed Stakhanovite – the Soviet doctrine to increase production – he is probably the hardest working man I have ever come across. He loves hard work, saying it gives him energy. Luckily, he is also a football fanatic and is happy to help out in return for a couple of tickets to watch the Reds, no matter how badly they play.

So off we go up the M5, the van full of paint, tools and gear. Within hours mother’s beloved house is a mess of sheets, tools, paint pots and bags of plaster. Technically I am in charge here and need to explain what needs to be done. Unfortunately, to my shame,

[

after eight years of marriage, my Russian remains limited and Valera’s English is practically non-existent – think Manuel the waiter in Fawlty Towers and you are not far off. So we spend our days like all builders do, plugging away with radios blaring, sipping endless tea.

There are, of course, disagreements as to how best to proceed, mostly conducted with much confusion, gesticulating, scribbling and miming. We are very different characters – he quite fiery, impulsive and accident prone, me more thoughtful, careful and chilled out – and there is much misunderstanding, disagreement and bewilderment, at least on my part.

In one of our impromptu games of charades, Valera spent an age trying to explain that he wanted cotton wool and bandages. I had to give up on this one and call the interpreter (my wife). ‘But why does he want them?’ I asked her. It seems in Russia all builders work with these on hand, just in case. ‘But we are only painting.’ I protested to him. ‘Let’s work carefully.’ He just laughed and patted me hard on the back.

After all, this is the man who went to tackle a nest of hornets in his roof wearing just a pair of gloves and a cement sack on his head, laughing when he was chased and stung quite savagely.

I think he feels sorry for me. My job is not ‘real work’ to him. He sees me sometimes working at home – just talking on the phone and tapping at a keyboard. Like now. Of course he is right but each according to his ability, right?

Hang on. What was that crash? What’s he saying? Better dash.

I think my father-in-law feels sorry for me. My job is not ‘real work’ to him

[

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Bovey Castle Exclusive dining in the heart of Dartmoor…

Murder Mystery Dinner

November 6th From 7pm £65 per person

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13/10/2015 14:12:51

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THE ANTI CORROSION HARDWARE

13/10/2015 10:54:40