… and I was. Last week we made a little sojourn to Somerset, very much one of the green and pleasant bits, stopping at Wells and Bath. Wells, with just 10′000 people, is the smallest city in England, but by no means the least. The cathedral, sitting on its green, is a delight, there are houses to drool over and life is quiet and countrified. Despite its size, you can find just about everything in Wells, including some nice places to stay - The Swan Hotel and The Crown are both in the middle of the action (the place is in a deathly hush by 9.30pm), and offer the typical ‘two teabags and a hairdryer’ as mod cons, but that’s what makes them cute. A super eatery can be found at Goodfellows, who did some nice things with carpaccio of tuna and various bits of very young pea plants, and large bowlful of spelt risotto with gurnard, two rather on trend ingredients in Blighty and yummy too. In Italy we get through quite a bit of ‘farro’ which is spelt-ish in a pearl barley kind of way. With a decent half bottle of Chablis we got away with 70 pounds on the table , which was good for a very enjoyable lunch in a tiny town in southern England.

Also enjoyable was a dinner at Fishworks in Bath, with another showing of gurnard (surely the fish world equivalent of being called Norman?), and some lovely skate. The wine list was pretty good too, (we had Insolia Valle Dell’Acate, which was fine), the place was informal and the service good , and there was an eclectic mix of diners. Front of house was a pseudo fish stall which all looked very tempting and I had a smug dinner (Gianpaolo is slowly accepting that not all the British exist on Dairylea triangles and Pot Noodles), until it was completely ruined by the bill. It was ok in itself, but I really resent a ‘discretionary’ service charge - what a ludicrous term, it’s a tip for goodness’ sake- at 12.5 %. Only someone wearing a t-shirt that says ‘tight-wad’, would decline to pay, so it’s nothing other than a foodie stealth charge and it makes me cross. Take note, Fishworks chaps, people leave a tip because they have had outstanding service; just ’service’ is part of the regular bill. Oh, and another thing, the mussels, which were very nice, were billed as coming from Devon, but the tag on the net of mussels in the window said Scotland, so Devon was a red herring, wasn’t it?