Cottages Uncut by Exmoor Character Cottages - S04 E07: Minnie Loves the Podcast

Cottages Uncut by Exmoor Character Cottages

In this special podcast recorded back in September, we welcome Pete Mountstephen, our neighbour on West Street in Dunster.
Pete is a fascinating character. An education professional, author, musician and general all 'round creative.
Possibly best known locally for his lead role in 'Minnie Hates the Hoover', Dunster's very own duo / trio band playing 60's and 70's music in local venues throughout the year, Pete's appetite for life and learning is infectious!
As you will hear on this podcast, we touch on many subjects, from learning to deal with mental health matters to Pete's passion for music. It's a poddy you won't want to miss!
For further information on Minnie Hates the Hoover, click here. We also hope to bring you more information on Pete's upcoming book in the near future. In the meantime, if you were enthralled by 'The Horticultural Society Annual Show', here's the full unexpurgated version:
Alchemilla Mollis The Horticultural Society Annual Show.

It was the day of the show. The show.

Jackie stepped outside the back door of her cottage and breathed in the early August morning on this prince among days.

It had been wet overnight and the beads of rain sat like quicksilver; crazy diamonds running over the dragon frilled leaves of the “Milly Molly Mandy”. It had always been one of Jackie’s dearest sights and never failed to remind her how lucky she was to live here, surrounded by simple, but unbelievably complex beauty and drenched in the sacred wonder of countryside. This was her religion. This gave her the spiritual fix that others sought in scripture, mosque and temple. She felt tiny- small and yet massive at one and the same time and the hills, the fields, the shoreline and the sky seemed to shrink, until they almost became a hedgerow that she lived under and scuttled along, about her bucolic business every day. Then it all exploded to cram the whole cosmos with its green and pleasant, aching perfection.

A big bang within a single seedhead. The universe in a pot.

She didn’t think any of this of course; she was getting her entries ready for the show.

Some of her craft entries (embroidery, anything crochet with a practical application) had gone to the Tithe Barn the previous evening, but the real stars (group of tomatoes, vegetable chutney, pickled eggs, three runner beans, a basket of five herbs, small flower arrangement, dahlias and so on and so on) all of these were last minute arrangments that relied pivotally on freshness and that bloom of fecund promise that begins to die as soon as it is picked.

Everything had to be there by ten so that judging could take place in time for the visiting “Magi of the marrows” to leave their decisions framed in certificate and pickled in rosettes.

Jackie’s husband had baked a cake.
Every year, apart from the last two scuppered by Covid, the men of the village cast aside their masculinity and strayed, shyly into the feminine world of baking. How we all laughed as Geoff bashfully presented his lemon drizzle; or Rob, his great ham hands trembling, gently placed his carrot cake on the trestle table? More familiar with a Massey Ferguson than a Moulinex and sweating within the strange constriction of his collar the cake, nevertheless, carried so

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