These are store cupboard and pantry days in the kitchen. Meals assembled from the toughest veg standing out in the garden, combined with those brought in to dry storage last autumn together with our own preserves and frozen supplies put away during the last growing season. With soft herbs, oriental greens and winter lettuce in the polytunnel, a variety of lentils, beans and grains in the pantry, a well-stocked spice cupboard and those ingredients that add depth and savour – think anchovies, capers, parmesan, olives, tahini, miso – there is little need to venture to the shops. And so, over the past couple of chilly weeks, we have hunkered down and eaten simply and mostly our own.

In the vegetable garden a continuation of last year’s blighted season saw all our early purple sprouting broccoli, many of the kales and even the red cabbages succumbing to the brutal freeze in early December. On one night it got down to minus 10ºC and many of the potatoes stored in paper sacks in the uninsulated barn were also frosted beyond use. ‘blue Danube’ was. the exception, retaining it’s firm, pure white flesh, so I’ve just placed an order for tubers to grow again this year. Adding insult to injury, after I had carefully nursed them through the heatwaves last summer, all but five of the sixteen celeriac were reduced to balls of slime. And the chard, usually our most dependable, productive and frostproof winter crop, have been eaten repeatedly by deer. So, although we are eating mostly our own, this year it has been a more limited diet than usual of beetroot, cabbage, pumpkin and potatoes.