Romantic Roma!  I have been to Rome many times in my fashion and car racing careers, but always flashing through; never with enough time to take in the tourist sites. In fact last time Monty and I arrived late at night at the Vatican, the last car home on the famous Mille Miglia car rally after 500 miles of tortuous driving. We had broken down with clutch and battery problems and were playing catch up, limping in to the splendid Vatican buildings, but too tired and relieved to really appreciate anything. This time our mission was much more relaxed, we had been invited by The British Embassy to present our Sharpham Park Spelt food range to Prince Charles and HRH Camilla as representatives of the best that Slow Food UK and Italy could produce. We felt very honoured as we found ourselves beside the best Parma ham, Parmiggiano cheese and wine producers. We were at the British Ambassadors residence, which few of you will know was the headquarters for the Gestapo during the 2^nd World War, the British neatly bought it at a good price shortly thereafter! The Ballroom where we had laid out our wares was full of dignatories from all over Italy and the world, HRH had been kept waiting for an audience with the Pope so we all hung around making small talk, we had to continually fend off the greedier of the Italian diplomats and journalists who were determined to polish off all the food before HRH got there! When he finally arrived he was full of beans and praise for what were are doing and promised to have a chat with his farm manager at Highgrove to see if they could grow some spelt for us.

We were then quickly back to reality with preparation for the Sky Wedding TV Channel who had asked to come and film at Kilver Court for the launch of their new series in September.  We had gathered together all our suppliers of wedding furniture, florists, china and decorations, lighting and fireworks, dresses to make it into the dream wedding location that is. So rather like a film set it was all dolled up to go. The weather was looking great, but then the wind got up and the first problem was that our model bride lost her veil to the middle of the lake! Apart from that and a Chinese burning lantern that blew in through one of our picture windows nearly setting fire to us, it all went off without a hitch!

Back on the farm Monty’s alpacas have given birth to the first of their new progeny - a beautiful little black cria called Minty!  I have yet to tell her that alpaca steaks are extremely low in cholesterol and according to Amy (Fred, our youngest sons girlfriend) who travelled in Peru, tastes delicious!  Although I know Monty is planning on selling some as posh lawn mowers they may become a feature on the Charlton House menu as a future delicacy!!

With the few downpours we have had, everything is now growing wildly and the cattle have started to give birth.  We find ourselves bottle feeding 2 calves, one who lost its Mot her and the other who was rejected by its Mum who had given birth to twins.  We have a new face at the farm, Emily (seen here with our baby alpaca) who joins us from Cirencester on a six month assignment and she has already gone from weeding to fork lift truck driving in the mill, to weeding, to alpaca shearing, to weeding, to clearing the lambing sheds with the tractor, to weeding!

I returned to London to entertain a journalist at Claridges where the chef, Martyn Nail, served us spelt risotto and Sharpham Park White Park sirloin, which was delicious.   The same day we launched our new Speltotto range with great success at Selfridges.

Normal">Next month will see our first fawns being born…………, we’ll be at Glastonbury Festival selling organic White Park burgers where Freddie is playing with his band Cromwells League for the first time……. will my dandelion potion work in the biodynamic routine or will it be a step too far?!  To be continued.....!

Roger Saul, June 2009