A Culinary Tale in a Cute C17th Blewbury Inn

Unlike the Thomas Hardy novel, Wessex Tales, The Red Lion Bar & Kitchen located in the novel’s title is far from a tale of unrequited love. The home-made bread served at breakfast is in direct opposite to Hardy’s style – instead it’s full-filling, nurturing and satisfying.

Dating from 1612, The Red Lion Pub & Kitchen is a characterful and charming 17th century Inn with 3 rooms, hidden away in a quiet corner of the ancient village of Blewbury which lies at the foot of the Berkshire Downs in south Oxfordshire, also known as Wessex.

Chef and proprietor Phil Wild and wife, Arden, took over this dining pub a little over a year ago and re-opened in March 2016.

The menu for me is the clincher for a visit and this, without a doubt is a well-hidden food destination – a deserved hit among locals, yet to be discovered by tourists.

“We didn’t want it to be over the top, but we have items on the menu that are quirky,” says Phil.

Take the Frog’s Legs as a case in point. A first for me, and astoundingly good. The starter is awash with a succulent and tasty garlic sauce and caper-combo served with the most delicate of green salad leaves.

My partner and guest for this trip went with the waiter’s recommendation of octopus and wasn’t disappointed either. Perhaps it’s something to do with the freshness as fish deliveries come to the Inn at 1am the previous morning, I’m told.

Service, like the food is impeccable.

The two staff (in smart uniforms) have been here for over a year and live on site. They’re professional and attentive without the over the top-ness that’s also avoided in the menus.

With original features, The Red Lion Pub & Kitchen has been decorated using vintage, country antiques and quirky finds with just 3 beds completing the Inn for an intimate touch.

It’s understated here, warm and cosy.

But you really should come here for the food and service, with the rooms being a comfortable place to rest your head (my partner and I slept very well here) and sundry to the dining experience.

Phil’s locally sourced, seasonally-changing menu is modern and unique. It features British dishes with French influences. There’s also a cosy, oak-beamed bar with additional dining space, a working Inglenook fireplace and flagstone floors. Outside, an orchard garden for summer dining and drink with views over neighbouring fields to complete your eating experience.

The village of Blewbury is also well-known for its literary and artistic connections. Kenneth Grahame who penned Wind In The Willows was a regular at The Red Lion Pub & Kitchen. Barbara Euphan Todd writer of Worzel Gummidge, and the ex-jockey and thriller writer, Dick Francis also lived here, while Agatha Christie lived in the nearby village of Cholsey.

The bookishness is reflected in the snug while we take a night cap for the evening by the ample fire – there’s a full book shelve to peruse.

We take a spring stroll around the village before leaving. Daffodils jostle against a backdrop of thatched cottages and a church keeps compass for our freestyle trek as it’s centred in the village.

With top-notch food and cosy rooms in a little known literary spot like Blewbury, The Red Lion Bar & Kitchen is well-worth a visit and with room prices starting at £95 it provides value for money too.

Accommodation was provided by The Red Lion Bar & Kitchen, Chapel Lane, Blewbury, Didcot. For more information visit theredlionpubandkitchen.co.uk or to book call 01235 850403 or email eat@theredlionpubandkitchen.co.uk

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Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday – a review

Hearing Voices (the exhibition and supporting website) and Hearing the Voice (the interdisciplinary research project which produced the exhibition in collaboration with Palace Green Library) charts the phenomena of voice hearing. The Hearing Voices supporting website (and also at the exhibition) are a detailed and empowering take on an archaic mystery that left me feeling like there’s more to schizophrenia than pills.

Although diagnosed with a psychotic illness, schizo-affective today, I rarely hear voices. I have done in the past, though, but they have always felt a world away from the psychiatric wards on which I’ve spent a little time. For me, the voices I’ve heard have been shared by my mother and have always felt otherworldly, spiritual, like a dream. The idea that these voices are more than just disturbing thoughts for the few is explored in full both at the exhibition at Durham University and on the online portal at hearingvoicesdu.org.

A series of 10-15 minute podcasts, which have a feel of Radio 4 about them, explore voice hearing in every plausible context apart from the gutter press headline-grabbing crime stories in the local paper. Tracing all voices from God speaking to Adam & Eve, to literary greats developing their characters with the added auditory for which novelists are often renowned. All is blended into the study’s plot channelled through predominately academic narrators, with stories from people of the International Voices Movement hemmed into the rich tapestry for good measure.

Many people can find the voices they hear distressing but the spiritual aspect of the study is especially fascinating for me and it’s been helpful locating unusual experiences (less the voices and more the tactile hallucinations) in a holistic context. For instance, I keep a dream journal to help with making the next day’s decisions and for inspiration. I’ve also used the Tarot cards to try and bring new perspectives on tricky problems. And I regularly use Buddhist meditation and Traditional Chinese Medicines for relaxation.

A paper published in Schizophrenia Bulletin this month, looked at the voice hearing experiences of non-help-seeking voice hearers and diagnosed patients with auditory hallucinations. It says that those with negative voices are more prone to a negative reaction or stigma from others and concludes that much can be learned from those hearing voices who don’t have the diagnosis.

[Image courtesy of Rai Waddingham on twitter]

A shift in others’ perspectives on what voice hearing means would be a welcome one. Freelance trainer, consultant, writer, public speaker and trustee for the National Hearing Voices Network, Rai Waddingham, is involved in the Durham exhibition, too. She’s Vice Chair of ISPS UK, Chair of Intervoice and an Executive Committee member of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis. From 2007 – 2015 she managed Mind in Camden’s London Hearing Voices & Distressing Beliefs Projects (including Voice Collective youth project and the London Hearing Voices Prisons Project). She also happens to hear voices. Rai, however, today rejects her psychiatric label and considers herself a ‘survivor’. It’s always great to see co-production in action and for this project she facilitated workshops for young voice hearers.

“No one understands if you try to explain … so you just put up with it”                                         Workshop participant

While this online study and exhibition fully acknowledge how terrifying voice hearing and hallucinations can be, it also looks at the lesser-known and more welcomed attributes to the phenomena. Most of the podcast material is mannered, but this is undoubtedly the correct sane and measured response the voice hearer deserves. I don’t want to be afraid of voices or hallucinations, delusional or otherwise. I might have preferred Radio 5 to Radio 4, but what refreshingly different, distinctive and thorough study this is.

• Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday is on show at Durham University’s Palace Green Library until 26 February 2017. Details of the associated events programme are available at www.hearingvoicesdu.org, and information on Durham University’s interdisciplinary voice-hearing research can be found at www.hearingthevoice.org.

Creative Writing: Baby Snail

The scale of the baby snail, so small, so very sweet as it slides like wet silk along the greenhouse, brought back memories and allowed me to wallow in the past with reliable rose-tinged glasses that the uncertainty of the future doesn’t allow for. But it wasn’t just memories of pet insects kept in jam jars this baby snail had. It kept a home like a Cadbury’s swirl balanced on its back. This wobbly, sticky shell could so easily be defeated with the pinch of my clumsy fingers. It was exciting both then and now to think I could have something real, something that lives and breathes, right here and now completely at my mercy of my impulses. As I smoked a cigarette outside I thought about my partner upstairs, still sleeping, and offered the baby snail a verdant Maple leaf for feasting on or sheltering from what looked like a rain storm brewing.