SOLSTICE!!

Back in the depths of February earlier this year, Ian and I were sat round the kitchen table at ours for our weekly catch up, coffee and obligatory tin of flapjacks at hand, discussing feasts for 2025. Summer solstice seemed a very long way off with the rain beating down outside, and the darkness starting to descend from 3.30pm! Always so difficult to imagine glorious green June, with warm sunny days and evenings, blue skies and late sunsets, with the enveloping February grey.

However, planning for June 21st we were, and letting our imaginations run wild with talk of chickens on spits, feasting al fresco in the courtyard, fire bowls, music, dancing…….and then Boss Morris were mentioned……mostly in a kind of “imagine if……”sort of way, but with the realisation this perhaps may be a bit of a pipe dream?

Surprisingly quickly over the same coffee, this switched to a “ but what if……..” sort of way, and with the “Anything and everything is possible” philosophy that Martin, Ian and I have always shared from the very beginnings of our feast journey, some googling was done, and an e mail was written.

We waited with baited breath for a reply, and then woohoo! Boss replied and seemed interested in the idea of joining us to dance and feast, and so we arranged to meet and show them the barn and the courtyard one very cold spring morning a few weeks later.

More coffee and more flapjacks, and talk of what we could do, and the lovely ladies of Boss having had a ponder, came back to us with a big fat yes! Hurray! We were thrilled, and so began to ponder ourselves and plan our Solstice feast. Whilst we all longed for a full on outdoors feast in the courtyard, we rather pessimistically planned for a night in the barn with the endlessly wet dreary weather of last summer still firmly in our minds. But then suddenly things got sunny in April, again in May, and June got balmy…..and before we knew it the feast was 6 days away and BBC weather for Bisley showed nothing but big fat round sunshines and talk of 30 degrees……

With a flurry of messages between the Boss girls and ourselves, we decided to seize the day, and go alfresco, from start to finish, feasting, cooking, dancing and all!

And what a feast it turned out to be! Guests arrived to a special iced Gin hedgerow cocktail with elderflowers picked from the farm that afternoon, and mingled in the courtyard whilst Ian’s nettle crisps were shared round and enthusiastically devoured, until it was time to settle at the long tables laid up round the outside of the courtyard, and adorned with bramble flowers and grasses from the farm and some locally grown poppies.

The fabulous girls from Boss Morris made a magnificently colourful entrance into the courtyard, and kicked off the evening with some wonderful music and traditional Cotswold morris dancing and the biggest of smiles across their faces. I am not sure there was a female present that didn’t want to sign up and be part of the Boss gang!

After a warm welcome from Ian, he returned to his courtyard kitchen to serve up beautiful golden sunflower topped sunshine loaves for guests to tear large chunks off, and enjoy with sharing platters of griddled asparagus from the fire with lemon thyme and toasted almonds, and vibrant heritage tomatoes with strawberries, mint and creamy burrata.

The rose flowed, the chickens cooked with wild garlic, lemon and oodles of marjoram butter finished their sizzle under Rupert’s watchful eye, and were then shared and feasted upon along with delicous fire roasted potatoes laced with smoked salt and dill, grilled courgettes with mint, chilli and ricotta, and a fresh colourful carrot salad with orange blossom and pistachio Dukkah.

The dogs drooled under the tables, weaving their way through a sea of legs searching for scraps on the floor, ever hopeful of a sneaky morcel of chicken snuck under the table for them by a labrador smitten guest, before being dragged home by Martin, for fear of them joining in with the Boss girls during their next few dances. Instead, the feasting guests were invited up to join the girls, and many enthusiastically did! It was joyful to watch!

Pudd followed, a fire roasted honeyed peach with a delectably light creamy gooseberry fool and a crispy almond brittle.

Boss made their final entrance as the sun set, the music got funky as the sky darkened, and they danced the solstice away with such energy and spirit that you couldn’t stop yourself grinning from ear to ear whilst watching on.

It was a really magical evening and our favourite feast yet!

Thank you to the lovely girls and musicians from Boss Morris who helped make the evening so very very special. Thanks also to all of you who came and joined us for the evening and helped to make the atmosphere so warm, friendly, and happy.

Til the next one……!

Some highlights of our Solstice event below!