Looking for a writing retreat?

Sheepwash is not, contrary to popular opinion, an agricultural shampoo product, but a lovely little village in Devon. Home to a charming little book exchange in an old red telephone box, and a proper village shop that sells Lockets and shoelaces, it is also the location of the fabulous Retreats For You.

Deborah Dooley, journalist and creator of meringues extraordinaire, has been opening her home to artists, writer and those just looking to get away from it all for three years, and has created a fabulous space to get your artistic head together. Dinner, bed, breakfast and a delicious home-made lunch are all provided, as are wellies, woollies and the chance to borrow a dog and her husband and go blackberrying under the blustery autumn clouds.

I stayed with her for a few days last week and had the most wonderful time. By turns inspiring, energising and relaxing, it gave me the chance to look over the manuscript I have been working on for years and make a plan to move forward with it, and this, coupled with a constantly overflowing jar of flapjack left by the kettle made it the perfect writer's break. Walkers and artists are also welcomed, although how much walking one would want to do after 3 days of cooked breakfasts, home-made bread, fresh eggs from the garden and lots of lots of wine is up to you...

Her daughter Flo very kindly gave me her Ultimate Best Squidgy Flapjack Recipe Ever, which I will share with you now, and if you are looking for a pampering weekend away in the Devon countryside, please get in touch with the lovely Debs and Bob!

Flo's Fabulous Flapjack Recipe
250g butter
220g dark sugar
450g oats
110g golden syrup

Put the butter, sugar and syrup into a pan and melt on a low heat until everything has melted/dissolved.

Add this to the oats and mix well, adding any other bits and pieces you fancy, such as choc chips, raspberries, sunflower seeds.

Pour into a lined baking tray and cook for 15/20 mins at 180 degrees. Leave to cool.

Traveller’s banana pancakes recipe

The Banana Pancake Trail is a loosely defined route that takes in all the most popular of backpacking destinations from India, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia down to Bali, and where you are guaranteed to find this cheapest and most comforting of foods. Travellers often mistakenly think it is a local dish, but the tradition of cooking them spread organically as Western backpackers started to explore Asia and yearned for sweet, sticky filling food. The recipe differs from guesthouse to guesthouse, country to country, but the best ones always are drenched in some form of syrup, crisp and hot and golden.

Makes 4 big pancakes
1 cup of flour
1 pinch salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup of milk
3 small bananas, sliced or mashed
Oil

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder, then make a well in the centre.
Beat the egg and milk together, then slowly pour into the well, stirring all the while.

Stir in the banana and leave to stand for quarter of an hour.

Heat the oil in a small pan, and ladle in enough mixture to thickly coat the bottom.

When the top begins to dry out and bubbles form, carefully turn it over and cook the other side until golden

Serve hot with maple or golden syrup, palm sugar or honey.

Classrooms for Kenya

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to try some volunteering abroad? Well, we were delighted to receive this letter from Leah Norton, a student in West Sussex who went on a trip to Africa to help build a new school...

"Hi Becky, I had an amazing time in Kenya, the mosquito net you gave me was the BEST one there, because it had a door which meant I didn’t have to scrabble with my mosquito net to get out of bed in the mornings. I have attached some pictures of some of the places we went to and the children at the school I was building.

I was surprised at the weather; even though we had been warned that it was the rainy season I didn’t anticipate it to be quite so wet. Every evening it would rain, I think about only two of the nineteen days I was there it didn’t rain.

Whilst we were at the school the children were so friendly and welcoming and whilst we were there it was one of my team members 18th birthday and they held a ceremony for her and performed songs, danced, read poetry and performed a play about a stolen chicken! This was very amusing.

Every morning after the longest bumpiest bus journey a smile was always put on our faces as the children would stand by the gates and greet us chanting welcome and giving us all high fives.

We each took with us donation items to give to the children and the Kenyan builders. We took with us tops, jumpers and pens, we also left the trowels and building equipment that we had been using and gave new building gloves to all the builders as they did not have any. We gave the donation items to the children a few days before we left the school, the tops and jumpers we gave them matched the colours of their uniform and all the children and teachers were so thankful.

Building the classrooms was tiring but it was great to see it taking shape and the achievement of building something was very rewarding. We managed in the two weeks of building to get the classroom up to roof height which was great, the roof would be put on by the builders and it should be complete and ready to teach in very soon.

Whilst at the school I taught an English culture lesson which the children found very funny as their culture is so very different to ours. They found it strange that it was illegal for a man in England to have more than one wife as that is normal in Kenya.

The children at school also loved our hair they would play with it for ages because all of the children at the school had shaved heads so found our hair very interesting. They would also call out ‘Mazungu’ at us which means “white man” you hear this all the time. It was the first word I learnt as even driving to and from places children would point at us and shout ‘Mazungu!’

We went to Mount Elgon one Saturday; we drove up most of it and climbed up part of it. The climb up was quite difficult but the view from the top was amazing and we had lunch up there. After visiting Mount Elgon we visited Kitum cave which was a bat cave it was really amazing seeing all of the bats however the smell in the cave was horrible.

We also went to a baby rescue centre and orphanage, I was expecting this to be very upsetting but all the children there were so happy and friendly and it was such a lovely place they were staying in that this was one of the best parts of the trip. At the baby rescue we constantly had children on our shoulders or on our hips. The children didn’t speak much English but all of them knew the word for “shoulders” and “again.” We also donated toys and clothes to the baby rescue centre and all of the children loved them.

The last day at the school blew me away it was astounding just how giving the school was to us. They lined us up and sang to us and whilst this was happening children came out with gifts and necklaces and gave them to us. They also brought us caps with the letter R on they said that this stood for “remember, remind, return” it was amazing how selfless the children and teachers were as you could not imagine that happening in England which is a much more wealthy country. When we were driving away from the school all of the children were running after the bus cheering and shaking our hands.

As a celebration of all the work we had done we all went on safari; I saw lions, giraffes, buffalo, rhino, flamingo and a lot of monkeys they were as common as pigeons are in England. "

By Leah Norton