So this sorry looking building used to be a petrol station, the brand it was under escapes me but if you live in or near Chipping Norton and used the petrol station at some point (most likely in the 70's or possibly the 80's) i'll be grateful for any photographs you know of or have.
The kids didn't have a field day on my land: We should all know where foodstuffs come from, but my young visitors left none the wiser
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, May 16)
My rape's gone wrong. It's tufty and sporadic and the insipid hue of powdered custard. Some say this is because it's all been eaten by pigeons. Others blame the ban on insecticides or the phenomenally cold spring we've just had. But these scenarios seem unlikely as, just half a mile away, my neighbouring farmer's crop is vibrant and rich and the lustrous colour of a JCB.
I gaze upon his fields and it's like being at a party with the parents of particularly high-achieving children. You know, your boy is working in JD Sports, selling tracksuits to morons, so you really don't want to hear that "Rupert's on the International Space Station and Alex has just got cold fusion to work".
Frankly, I blame myself because in one field the failed areas are in worryingly neat rectangles, suggesting that I pushed the wrong button when I was operating the seed drill. In another, called Bake's Piece — all fields have stupid names — half the acreage is sort of alive and then, south of a dead straight line, it sort of isn't. And pigeons don't eat in straight lines.
In James May Is a Dildo — I may have named that field myself — there's about ten acres of volunteer rape that is growing all by itself. And it's doing a whole lot better than the stuff that I've nurtured carefully these past few months.
The only good news is that rape prices are way up this year.
Because of the Europe-wide ban on neonicotinoid pesticides — sprays that kill bees — many farmers haven't bothered planting it. So demand will exceed supply. I may only grow an ounce but it could well fetch more than a handful of diamonds.
This is a worry because if locally grown oil-seed rape is expensive, vegetable oil will cost more. Which means consumers will be more inclined to buy palm oil instead. That would be bad.
In the not too distant past Sir Attenborough made a show about some orangutans that live in Sumatra. There was one heart-stopping scene where they had to teach their youngsters how to swing over a river that was full of crocodiles, and I couldn't help thinking: "Why are they doing that? Why don't they stay on their side of the river until the toddlers are less likely to fall into the water?"
Then we got a drone shot that brought the problem into sharp focus. The jungle extended only a few hundred yards from
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Anyone know of any nice walks for foraging around Chipping Norton? Thanks!
