Karen Wright: A festival finale with a dash of adventure

We travelled down in the car the day before and stayed overnight in a rather fancy hotel complete with spa and golf course and it was only five minutes drive to the circuit. As much as I love my campsite holidays, it was fantastic to relax in a beautiful space and, of course, swim in that pool.

We headed into the festival bright and early to beat the queues and made our way to the food arena where the cookery stage was set in an enormous tent. All my ingredients had been bought and prepared for me so it was a breeze to get on the stage and cook my show recipes.

There is usually a compère on stage with me and this time the host was a lovely guy called Simon Brown. I thought he seemed familiar and, once we got chatting, I realised why. Twenty years ago, my eldest daughter worked as a floor manager on TV’s the Jewellery Channel and Simon was one of the presenters on the show. What a small world!

I had the best day working at the festival, the weather was perfect but I had something else up my sleeve to finish my day with, a bit of an adventure, a mad dash from Silverstone to catch a shuttle over to France. I love France and I take any opportunity to visit. I have a friend who lives in France called Sarah and I decided to take a holiday to see her. We booked the gîte on the campsite we love, the Château de Poinsouze in the pretty town of Boussac. There is just the one gîte but there are lots of different style mobile homes to choose from too and there is a tranquil lake and a gorgeous pool too.

We made good time driving to catch the shuttle from Folkestone and were lucky to get across the channel on an earlier crossing and settle into our hotel for the night. The next day we woke to a glorious blue sky and drove as far as Chatres before stopping at another hotel to break the journey.

I love to travel and this year I do seem to have been away from home more than ever. However, as Autumn draws ever closer I will be looking forward to cosy days at home too and spending more time in my kitchen cooking up those lovely comforting winter dishes that we all love so much. However, before we close the lid on summer next week, I will share my French adventures with you!