Poodling Around

Jane Hunt talks to Robert Stacey, the executive chef for the Levens Hall Estate, whose role includes overseeing all of the foodie developments related to Levens Kitchen and Levens Bakery, two food-related venues associated with the visitor attraction of Levens Hall and Gardens.

Jane discovers Robert's prestigious background as a chef in top London restaurants and culinary roles, explores how he came to be in the South Lakes and discovers how the vision for Levens Kitchen has evolved.

They discuss the ideal location of the foodie bolthole, in the beautiful tourism destination of the South Lakes, close to Milnthorpe and Kendal and then explore some of the delights of the menu.

Jane then finds out more about the relatively new addition to the food options at the Levens Hall and Gardens site - Levens Bakery - and what other food delights visitors and non-visitors alike can enjoy as a takeaway option, whether that's as a a winter warm-up, as a delicious bread or cake to take home, or a very good grab-and-go coffee.

There's a bit of sauce during the discussion and a few mentions of things to tempt in the gift shop, if you are a food lover.

Jane and Robert discuss the options for different types of customer - local, tourist visiting Levens Hall and Garden, coach party - and even four-legged canine visitors.

Jane also discovers a few things she didn't know - of great interest for those visiting Levens Park for a wonderful stroll along the river bank or picnic - and finds out more about future plans.

Jane Hunt offers unique and personal insights into a trip to the Italian capital city, offering tips as to what to do and what not to do in Rome, drawing on both her own experience in the city and the knowledge she has acquired during the course of her travel and tourism PR and blog writing at Catapult PR.

With practical advice relating to where to visit and how to best go about it, what anti-theft measures to take, how to survive the regular summer heatwave in Rome, how to keep the mosquitoes at bay and even where to find the best gelato, Jane offers some useful travel planning thoughts for anyone visiting Rome. With the Jubileo coming up in 2025, this could be useful for many.

With some other insight into what to expect and safeguard against, if heading to a music concert at the Stadio Olimpico, the episode is well worth a listen, if you wish to avoid some travel issues.

Whether you wish to avoid fines, negotiate the travel system, escape to the coast, or understand the visitor experience at major sites, this episode can be your guide, as Jane encourages you to life life on a different, independent axle.

Jane Hunt talks to three of the overseas wrestlers who head, with their compatriots, to compete at the traditional Lake District event of Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show each year, in the Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling events.

Interviewees Guðmundur Stefán Gunnarsson and Jana Lind Ellertsdóttir, from Iceland, explain how a similar version of the sport of backhold wrestling is conducted in their country, where it is called Glima and involves the use of a belt. Léa Quillien, a Breton wrestler from Brittany in France, then explains about the Breton version of the sport - Gouren - with another variation being the wearing of a jacket.

All highlight their passion and love for their sport but also the strong Celtic tradition underpinning it, whilst also conveying the buzz they get out of coming on tour to England and competing at Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show, the pinnacle of the Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling events calendar, with its 170+ year history, as an event

Their fascinating insights into the sport, its European footprint and the success in growing it in their countries, makes for an absorbing listen.

Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling is a sport with roots that go back centuries and which now has participants only in the northern counties of England – in Cumbria and Northumberland. To discover more about this form of traditional wrestling, in a backhold style, Jane Hunt speaks to Linda Scott and Robert Wharton, both part of the Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling Association.

Jane finds out more about the sport and its rules, the current take-up of opportunities to learn the sport and why Grasmere Sports is seen as the pinnacle of the Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling championship season.

She discovers why this type of wrestling has a geographical footprint far wider than the north of England - and actually right across Europe - and why this could potentially become an Olympic sport one day.

She also learns about the deep appreciation that those in the sport have for Roger Robson, in memory of whom a new trophy has been created this year, for young wrestlers competing at Grasmere Sports in a mixed boys and girls category.

Linda provides her memories of Roger but so too does woman wrestler and multiple Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling champion, Connie Hodgson, to whom Jane also talks.

Connie also explains all about her wider family's involvement in this traditional sport, her fantastic success in the sport and the international travel it has given her. She also highlights how she is using her role as a physical education teacher to spread the love of this sport and how she is also having great success taking the sport into local primary schools.

The podcast is part one of a double-header, with another episode, featuring backhold wrestlers from Iceland and Brittany, hot on its heels.

Teenage athlete and fell running sensation from Yorkshire, Charlotte Rawstron, talks to Jane Hunt about her progress through the world of athletics and the fascination of running up the seemingly impossible steep fell at Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show - and back down again!

Jane discovers how Charlotte got into running up hills and why it's something she loves to do, despite the commitment involved. She learns of her successes to date and which triumphs have really stood out in Charlotte's athletics career so far.

She also discovers more about Charlotte's future goals over the next few years, what events she will most enjoy watching at the Olympics and who has inspired her, so far, in her career.

The duo also discuss the forthcoming Grasmere Lakeland Sports and Show, at which Charlotte is the reigning Ladies champion in the Senior Guides race - the prestigious final fell race of the day, in which both men and women compete. They reference the current Ladies record, set pre-Covid and whether or not it can be broken, with a £500 incentive for any woman runner who can.

Charlotte also explains what being at this show means to her and the great day out that it comprises for anyone, whether taking part in the fell or track races, Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling events or hound trailing programme, or simply attending as a spectator or family wanting some outdoor fun for a full day in the glorious landscape of the English Lake District.

Jane Hunt meets Brian Johnson, pet parent to social media doggy star, Pip the Golden Retriever, someone who Jane avidly follows on X and who has fans worldwide. Jane discovers all about Pip and his social media journey, finding out where Pip likes to poodle around, how he spends family time and what being a doggy with followers entails, whether good or bad.

Jane, a Golden Retriever lover, and former Goldie pet parent herself, also asks Brian for his views on some brand-new consumer research that Catapult PR, as a crafter of creative and award-winning pet product and pet insurance campaigns, has commissioned. The discussion moves towards topics such as why pet insurance can be so vital and whether it should be compulsory, the sacrifices pet parents are willing to make for their pets, the pain of pet theft and rewards for pet recovery following theft, and the huge issue of pet grief. Opinions on dog walkers and the number of dogs that should be legally walked at once, plus the current rise in dog attacks, are also given.

Catapult PR's research questions elicited thoughts around these issues – and more - affecting all UK pet owners, as well as assessing the impacts of the cost of living crisis on pet parents. The topics discussed are probably issues shared by other pet owners, worldwide, so have relevance to all pet owners.

Brian provides helpful tips in relation to these issues, which may benefit any pet owner worried about some of them or uncertain what to do in relation to them.

The research findings have also been brought together in a new download, at the Catapult PR website – www.catapultpr.co.uk (available in the Downloads area under About and also on the PR for Pet Brands page (B2C PR).

Having discussed the various topics in the context of Pip and his daily life and routine, which involves poodling around idyllic places in Kent, the south west and elsewhere, Jane also learns all about Pip's dad's plans for the future and an exciting new pet podcast in the planning.

Jane Hunt homes in on the delights of a formal English garden in the summer months, by talking to the head gardener of Levens Hall and Gardens, in the Lake District, Cumbria. This amazing garden was first established by the French gardener, Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, in 1694 but has been under the care of current head gardener, Chris Crowder, for the past 38 years.

Whilst best known for its topiary garden the oldest in the world which does come into the conversation, the Levens Hall garden has so much more to offer. Jane explores the various parts of the garden, with Chris's help, focusing on the general delights that a visitor can enjoy, if they visit during the months of June, July and August. She also quizzes Chris about some specific plants and shrubs that might be seen and some more unusual features that you wont find anywhere else.

The podcast highlights why lovers of gardens and gardening, no matter where they live in the world, should make a beeline for this incredible garden, not just to tick a sighting of the worlds oldest topiary garden off their bucket list.

It also discusses some particular attractions and events for summer 2024 and what to look forward to in the first week of September.

With Chris Crowder being the 11th head gardener at Levens Hall and gardens (eleven being not that many since 1694), Jane takes the listener through a little bit of work that she did last year, as part of her PR work for Levens Hall and Gardens focusing on all 11 of the men who have shaped the garden during its long history. From 1694 to the current day, she explains what we know of these men and how they shaped the gardens of today.

If you can't head off to Italy this year, you simply have to bring the tastes of the Mediterranean to your own home and what could be better than a tasty woodfired pizza, bubbling with cheese and with a beautifully charred base worthy of any pizzeria in Naples? Maybe a pizza - or even better, another recipe concoction, rustled up in your own garden oven?

But how do you top that? Maybe by serving up that pizza from an oven you've built yourself, so it comes with a big topping of self-satisfaction?

Jane Hunt interviews Andrew Manciocchi, the Anglo-Italian and managing director of Orchard Ovens, who first introduced the concept of woodfired pizza ovens to the UK in 2003, to get to the bottom of what's involved with building your own pizza oven. Having helped homeowners incorporate ovens into garden designs not just in the UK but beyond, Andrew has a wealth of knowledge to impart.

So how much time do you need to allow for a DIY pizza oven project? Is it a two-person job? What are the first steps, if you want to be poodling around your garden, living life as if in La Bella Italia … or as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jamie Oliver, or other Valoriani celeb customers who've been furnished with pizza ovens by Orchard Ovens?

Jane learns all from her Catapult PR client, to discover how homeowners can get their DIY skills into full swing and have a glorious self-built pizza oven in their own garden or back yard, potentially in time for the 2024 Euros, if they buy themselves a Valoriani pizza oven kit and adopt a Tuscan-do attitude. With these Valoriani ovens available not just in the UK, it's something that anyone in Europe, the USA – or in other countries – could do.

Jane discovers how many DIY talents you might need for the project, how the kit concept works and how not to get the whole project wrong, by buying the wrong self-assembly pizza oven kit in the first place.

Tips are provided as to where to situate the oven and avoid regular pitfalls that many of those building their own pizza oven encounter. Jane also discovers what help is available to UK buyers and what sorts of dishes, beyond pizza, could be cooked outdoors – including those she has managed in her own pizza oven!

But if DIY isn't your thing but you desperately want the lifestyle benefits of cooking and entertaining outdoors, Jane and Andrew discuss what the other woodfired pizza oven options might be, for those who are not that handy with bricks, mortar and render but who want to have the ultimate garden party catering option. With these Valoriani ovens also being available worldwide, it can inspire anyone.

With a Coldplay Chris Martin story thrown in, and Jane explaining how she finds cooking in her own oven and who she'd most like to serve up a woodfired treat to, in her dreams, at a pizza party, there's lots to digest.

With the worldwide phenomenon that is World Topiary Day just around the corner, the creator of the multi-award-winning gardening awareness day, Jane Hunt, managing director of Catapult PR, talks to Patrick Salembier, President of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society in Europe.

Jane discovers why the award-winning idea is a huge hit in France but also in the USA, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and other far-flung places and not just in the UK where it has put Levens Hall and Gardens, the founder of the day and the world's oldest topiary garden, at the top of the topiary tree.

Jane explains about some of the specifics of the World Topiary Day activity this year, both in terms of what is happening with regard to activity between participating gardens and what is specifically happening at Levens Hall and Gardens.

She also gives listeners an insight into why the day of World Topiary Day - May 12 - had such significance and why the raucous Radish Feast, which preceded it centuries ago, was so notorious.

Patrick highlights what worldwide gardens find so appealing about the concept and describes some of the French gardens participating again this year, including an amazing garden that is his society's current award winner and his personal favourite, which is just 'perfect' all year round.

Jane Hunt records some of her own impressions of the city of Bremen, in Northern Germany, whilst building on her own experience with the knowledge and insight provided by experienced Bremen tour guide, Guido Klostermann. Jane provides details of her own experience, quizzing Guido on some of the things she saw, to discover more about this incredible but lesser-known city that has so much to offer to the visitor.

Together, Jane and Guido discuss the cultural landmarks, the local cuisine, the festivals and the shopping experiences in Bremen, as well as the city's remarkable and undeniable connections to music and the Brother Grimm's fairytale of the Town Musicians.

After learning more about what she herself saw in Bremen and discovering other things she really should return to see in the future, Jane hints about her greatest wish. She then moves on to emotionally explain what led her to Bremen in the first place and why this was so significant for her family and potentially that of 6 other families in the UK and Canada. The emotional podcast ending indicates why peace is so important.