Horridge Deer Farm

Nestling in the very rural middle of Devon, about midway between Exeter and Barnstable is Horridge Deer Farm, where we spent a very pleasant week in May. It's a working deer farm, with a herd a several hundred red deer, and very tasteful modern accommodation in one wing of a converted barn attached to the main farm house, with a view from the garden looking down the valley into the deerpark. (More pics)

Unlike many farms, it's very quiet and peaceful, given that there's no early morning milking, no chickens and the deer don't go "moo"! There's a large bath and shower room, a bedroom, lounge, and dining room/kitchen with all mod-cons. The lounge is well equipped too, with all the audio/visual accessories you could need should you wish to spend a day in due to bad weather. (Widescreen TV, selection of CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, books, maps, etc).

Apart from much touring about in the narrow leafy lanes of Devon, Martin shot a 4-min video (test) for the farm's owner, John, showing the deer handling system which he has built and is starting to sell. You can view it here or on a web page here.

The old boiler

After twenty years of faithful service and minimum maintenance, our gas heating boiler sprang a major leak during a recent cold spell, flooding water under the adjacent door and into the garage. Nothing too serious, and we quickly shut off the supply and drained the system. However, the plumbing and heating profession in our area all seem to be fully booked up in the weeks before Christmas, so we are without central heating for the holiday period but expect to get a replacement fitted in the New Year.

Unfortunately for us, the rules and regulations for gas boilers changed in April 2005, so although we were perfectly happy with the old boiler and simply wanted it repairing (at a cost of under £1K), we have to have a new-style high-efficiency condensing boiler, which is actually only about 12% more efficient, costs around £2K, looks about as complicated as the inside of a jet engine, and is unlikely to last more than 15 years even with regular maintenance. And that's progress. I never thought of myself as a luddite, but I'm beginning to mourn the passing of technically simplistic devices that require little more than common sense to understand how they work.