
MY plan this month was to write about my fundraising trip to Embu County in Kenya. It was humbling and inspiring in equal measure. I will write a full update next month, but I do want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has sponsored me doing the GROW for Good Challenge—my JustGiving page is still open.
However, there is only one discussion in farming circles right now and that's the recent Budget. The fiscal proposals by Chancellor Rachel Reeves on inheritance tax, agriculture property relief and business property relief are extremely worrying. Losing this tax benefit for genuine farming families has the potential to change the very fabric of the countryside, break up family farms and damage the nation's food security.
Defra Secretary Steve Reed has been defiant, saying that he's 'sick and tired of seeing our public services crumble while the rich and wealthy buy up huge estates, robbing young farmers of their dreams, just to avoid paying their taxes'. I've met Mr Reed and he's visited my farm. I don't believe he's setting out to do harm—quite the reverse—but there are serious questions to be asked as to whether the advice given to ministers is correct.
Esta historia es de la edición November 13, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición November 13, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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A trip down memory lane
IN contemplating the imminent approach of a rather large and unwanted birthday, I keep reminding myself of the time when birthdays were exciting: those landmark moments of becoming a teenager or an adult, of being allowed to drive, to vote or to buy a drink in a pub.

The lord of masterly rock
Charles Dance, fresh from donning Michelangelo’s smock for the BBC, discusses the role, the value of mentoring and why the Sistine chapel is like playing King Lear

The good, the bad and the ugly
With a passion for arguing and a sharp tongue to match his extraordinary genius, Michelangelo was both the enfant prodige and the enfant 'terribile’ of the Renaissance, as Michael Hall reveals

Ha-ha, tricked you!
Giving the impression of an endless vista, with 18th-century-style grandeur and the ability to keep pesky livestock off the roses, a ha-ha is a hugely desirable feature in any landscape. Just don't fall off

Seafood, spinach and asparagus puff-pastry cloud
Cut one sheet of pastry into a 25cm–30cm (10in–12in) circle. Place it on a parchment- lined baking tray and prick all over with a fork. Cut the remaining sheets of pastry to the same size, then cut inner circles so you are left with rings of about 5cm (2½in) width and three circles.

Small, but mighty
To avoid the mass-market cruise-ship circuit means downsizing and going remote—which is exactly what these new small ships and off-the-beaten track itineraries have in common.

Sharp practice
Pruning roses in winter has become the norm, but why do we do it–and should we? Charles Quest-Ritson explains the reasoning underpinning this horticultural habit

Flour power
LONDON LIFE contributors and friends of the magazine reveal where to find the capital's best baked goods

Still rollin' along
John Niven cruises in the wake of Mark Twain up the great Mississippi river of the American South

The legacy Charles Cruft and Crufts
ACKNOWLEDGED as the ‘prince of showmen’ by the late-19th-century world of dog fanciers and, later, as ‘the Napoleon of dog shows’, Charles Cruft (1852–1938) had a phenomenal capacity for hard graft and, importantly, a mind for marketing—he understood consumer behaviour and he knew how to weaponise ‘the hype’.