The Pig launches in England's New Forest

David Elton and his partners in The Pig deliberately want to turn the idea of the English country house hotel upside down. The result is enchanting comfortable bliss, from beginning to end of a stay.

You drive through the New Forest, not a building in sight but thousands of trees and the occasional wild pony. Suddenly you see a giant sign, a three-dimensional near-lifesize golden pig set high on a light avocado-coloured board. You turn up a 300-metre drive, winding through the nine acres of garden, with mature trees. The carpark’s wall is a stack of logs, to burn (photo). You see a two-storey house, 1634 originally and now expanded with a giant conservatory (sorry, greenhouse, as the panes of glass are smaller). In front is a lifesize bronze, of a pig of course (photo).

Inside, through the front door, it is bare unpolished wood floors, oak planks that could be recycled rail sleepers, like most of the tables. There are a few scruffy oriental rugs, and metal watering cans on a sideboard, and bright pink umbrellas. Fifteen yards ahead, behind a small counter, a charming young Frenchman in the pale pink shirt that is uniform, with black trousers and Converse trainers, welcomes me. The ‘look’, like the interior design and the DNA of this ‘shabby chic’, has been put together by David Elton and his business partners, Robin Hutson and his wife Judy, and financier Jim Ratcliffe.

Mr France leads me through the Green House, the restaurant, and the adjacent bar, and through two deliberately shabby-chic lounges. No silk or damask here, but comfy, throw yourself on huge seating, enjoy the big, blazing log fires. One room, The Library, as well as real books has wallpaper of fake books: go through, from here, to the outside courtyard, with masses of sleeper-wood tables and lavender bushes and real olive trees, and a working pizza oven and a Roman-type outside fireplace that burns about half a tree at once (photo).

An extension adjacent to the main house occupies one side of the courtyard. This houses some of the 26 rooms, including No 14, on the main floor. I entered through a semi-private terrace with table and 2 chairs, and on through French windows with louvre shutters as well as curtains. The main room, about 15 x 15 ft, is cool in summer, cosy in winter, pale yellow-grey walls and cabinets, and matching turned newel posts at the corners of the delightfully firm but yielding bed (with luxury-level super-linens, nothing cheap about this place). The floors are unpolished oak, and I had a polished oak table-desk with two UK sockets. The large Panasonic flat screen stood atop The Larder, which opened to reveal a glass-fronted minibar, with Guy de Chassey Champagne and savoury tomato and caramelised onion cookies, and a Nespresso machine and kettle for the Dorset teas. The bedroom led to a dressing room, with a century-old dark-wood bureau, and a wardrobe with white wood hangers, and an Elsafe. Continuing back, I came to the tiled bathroom, looking into a back garden: it had a freestanding tub and an enormous glass-walled rainforest shower. Two lengths of terry and wattle robes were dark-sage ‘garden’ colour, as were wrapped slippers. Toiletries were Sprout Out rustic-look, organic by Gilchrist & Soames.

The ring-binder guide to services had heavy wood covers: open it up and first page looks like a noticeboard with post-its, giving breakfast, lunch and dinner hours, (free) WiFi instructions, and dial for operator, outside line. Do Not Disturb was a heavy wooden plaque with a pig’s face, Yes (come in, make up) and, on the reverse, its rear, No (stay out). Pig Keeping, by Richard Lutwyche, was one of the National Trust books in my room – interestingly they are all printed in Finland. I learned the pitfalls of trying to keep a pig as a pet. Among other handicaps, you need special permission to take your pig for a walk and you can then only use designated pathways.

I decided, instead, to take my bike for a spin. The cycling round here is GORGEOUS. Stick to the ‘main’ road and the traffic is ultra wary, because of the aforementioned wild ponies. Veer off, either side, any time, and you find marvellous forest tracks and little lanes. At one point I went down a rough track and over an even rougher bridge across a brook. I just managed not to topple over and in.

The Pig has a massage hut but you can go to its sibling, Lime Wood, under two miles away. The Herb House spa complex there is, well, extraordinary, and should not be missed. Stay on here at The Pig, however, and they will bring in someone to perform in the Massage Hut, or for other exercise there is a tennis court, and the Walled Garden. Any gardener would go nuts: the whole garden area is meticulously planted and tended by Mike Kleyn and his team, and a printed guide shows you what is what. You can also go foraging for wild food in the surrounding area, with onsite Forager Garry Eveleigh.

Some of what Garry has found that very day will be on the menu. We started our evening with drinks in the bar, where the counter is a raised wooden altar, and a pair of matching cabinets behind (both holding bottles) flank a window with glass shelves holding some of The Pig’s extraordinary collection of ‘antique’ glasses. No one glass matches another, but all are fully usable. My glass of Champagne came in a 19th century decorated flute, my friend Sue’s in a different one. We nibbled on saddleback scratchings (pork crackling) with homemade applesauce, and then we went into the Greenhouse for dinner.

Sleeper tables bore pots of living herbs, and ceramic-topped bottles with herb-infused olive oils. There were more motley old, but unchipped, drinking glasses and cutlery. The single-sheet brown-paper daily-changing menu is headed ’15 Mile’, meaning 95% of produce comes within a 15-mile radius. Headings are Piggy bits (canapés), Starters & small plates - or bigger, Forest & Solent (New Forest meats and seafood), Literally picked this morning, Garden sides, Puddings. Most items are 2 sizes, so, from Literally picked… you can start with a small Grilled garden courgette salad with whole walnuts, go on to a big size of Cavolo Nero and Blue Cheese polenta, with sides of The Pig’s Walled Garden salad, and Flower pot of chips, namely triple-cooked chunky fries in a paper-lined pot. Dessert might be a lemon verbena brûlée and a garden mint mousse. The back of the menu has details of main suppliers, and distance from the hotel. We drank Ladybird 2009, an organic Merlot blend from a Stellenbosch winery owned by a Germany biologist and physician, Dr Petra Laibach-Kuehner.

Slices of just-baked bread, by the way, came in wood-handled wire baskets lined with brown paper. In the morning, a stack of these baskets was ready for your make-your-own toast. Now, the sun streams into this lovely room, and you can more easily see the vines and potplants growing in there (some are set in old chimneys, now used as planters - photo). The table where we dined last night is now the buffet, with items carefully described, hand-written in chalk on small slate boards. There are big bowls of whole fruits, berries, cereals and muesli, and Dorset yoghurt. Simple jugs hold just-squeezed juice. You can boil your own eggs, with timers provided, and breads include already-sliced or slice-your-own wholewheat-health bloomers. Tables have butter rounds, and pressure jars of home-made preserves, and old-fashioned bottles holding fresh milk. Coffee comes steaming, in big mugs (all this for a mere £10 by the way – add another fiver if you want hot, à la carte). The Spanish student serving us told us about her Chemistry studies at nearby Southampton University, and about her dream to work for NASA. The Pig is enchanting, from beginning to end. www.thepighotel.co.uk

underwater overnight

Not sure a girl would really want to stay in a semi-submerged hotel pod. This is what is planned, however, for Qatar. Amphibious 1000 (why ‘1000’?) will have 80 pods, look out at coral and fish and so on – there are also four-floor Jellyfish Suites for those who want to be above as well as below the water. What does fascinate me, however, is the fact that the designer, ravishing Roman Giancarlo Zema, is actually a naval architect, and for this project, which is costing a whopping $500 million total, he is working with a Vancouver company, Underwater Vehicles Inc, which specialises in autonomous underwater vehicles. AUVs, as they are generally called are individual submarines, and apparently Sir Richard Branson has cottoned on to them as the next-thing for exploration and travel generally. Virgin sub, anyone?

The Grove, England

Any gal would love this metre-wide sculpture hanging from one of the 45,000 trees at The Grove, just west of London. We were there last night, specifically to see the temporary outside sculpture exhibition – 79 large works dotted over some of the 125-hectare estate of The Grove. This sculpture (top picture) is actually a dichroic acrylic Eclipse by Chris Woods (she obviously has a vivid imagination). Another woman, Virginia Grub of www.artcontact.co.uk, has curated the exhibition, which sadly closes 31 August 2011 – and one of the other female sculptors, Nicola Toms, is showing a pair of lifesize dachshunds, bronzes of Floosy and Frank (picture). Another piece I loved is the giant granite and aluminium rocks, separated by a vertical reflecting stainless sheet, that is Simon Hitchens’ The Other-I (picture)

Great hotel this, The Grove. It has 227 rooms, in the original 18th century manor house built for the Earl of Clarendon and in 21st century matching extension built for the current owners, who do not want to be named. The new GM, Jonathan Critchard, is definitely a name to watch. He is all about details, and people. Look after your people and they will look after your customers, he says. He is actually running a mighty operation. The Sequoia spa has 500 outside members, who come from a radius of some ten miles, and golfers flock play the 18-hole pay-and-play Kyle Phillips course.

We found even our arrival at The Grove made us feel like dancing above the ground, golf course or otherwise. Five minutes after turning east from exit 19 of the M25 London orbital (20 minutes’ north-west of Heathrow), the mile-long rolling drive takes you over the Grand Union Canal and gently upwards between golf holes three and eight, on your left, and four and six, on your right. There, above hole eight, stands the lifesize Hunter, another sculpture, a galvanised steel wire piece by Rupert Till. There was something to engage the senses everywhere. Go into the hotel and, behind reception, the wall bears three boards with, I am told, 360 old-fashioned door keys.

I loved corner room 16, in the main house (it came with electrically-heated towel rails and Roederer in the minibar, and there were 1.5 bathrooms with The White Company toiletries). WiFi was free (this ultra-generous hotel has ample supplies of complimentary Hildon mineral water, and there is no charge for bicycle use). Ah, the bikes. The two we tried were good, well-maintained and ideal for following both the two- and three-mile circuits along the Grand Union Canal tow paths, watching holiday-makers maneuvering their long barges along the twisting waterway and through self-operated locks. I also, being a hungry girl, worked up yet more of an appetite by a good workout on some of the Technogym pieces (and the Power Plate) in the gym, and doing laps in the serious-swimmers' 22-metre indoor pool (for kids, there are two indoor, and beach-side outdoor pools, as part of Anouska’s club in the two-hectare Walled Garden).

We could have fine-dined at Colette, or buffeted in the Glasshouse, but we opted for the barn-like The Stables. Wood stall-dividers separate the room, which is set with solid oak furniture, and red and white teatowel-like napkins. Come here for some of the world’s best H. Forman smoked salmon, as well as fish’n chips or rib-eye and thick chunky chips that come in their own separate bowl. I liked the way the wine list offers whole bottles, or 175ml glasses or 500ml carafes – and I loved the Carey Mulligan-look alike Kate and her fellow servers’ gear, namely tight blue jeans and embroidered blue cowgirl shirts – the teams elsewhere are mostly in heather and soft grey shades. And for a supreme breakfast, nothing beats the Glasshouse’s buffet, where many stations offer fresh juice through to whole hams on the bone (and did you know there were so many kinds of berry?). This is a www.kiwicollection.com hotel, by the way, well worth checking out for meetings, family parties or romantic stays, or even for a girl alone who wants to spa, workout, laze, ready in the library, take a bike out and so on. Yes, this was a sensual stay, from beginning to the very end, when we nosed our car out of an area divided by meticulously-manicured topiary hedges, a very permanent sculpted highlight at The Grove, www.thegrove.co.uk.

Yorkshire sheep

I’m in Yorkshire, England, in The Dales area – me, plus bike, plus husband (who took photo of the two aforementioned). Great ride today, over hill over dale (valley). Cycled past thousands of Swaledale sheep: in some cases farmers had separated mums on the one side of the road – left, of middle photo – and their now-teenage lambs on the other. The cacophony of noise they make has to be heard to be believed. It is more a MAAAA…. than a gentle Ba. Got back to our temporary house to find, hanging on the wall, this rendering of Swaledales, last photo.

Turnberry heaven

More on what girls-by-themselves can get up to, say for hen parties, or mums-and-daughters or what. I think even with a single (for which read one) girlfriend I could have a great time at Turnberry, on the wild coast of south-west Scotland. Wow, one week ago I was in the sunny winter of Rio, at Copacabana Palace, and here I am, one week later, in the non-sunny summer of Scotland

Any time of year, coming here,I would hope to have won the lottery to helicopter in from Glasgow airport. As it happened we drove, seven hours north from Banbury. Our GPS satnav, Gertie, served us beautifully until I mistook a road that deteriorated into a half-track potholed path over scrub-full highlands with thousands of roaming sheep and cows. At one point we were surrounded by a bovine family, complete with strong-looking daddy bull.

Eventually we reached the 375-ha Turnberry estate. The main hotel is a three-floor, sprawling white palace with red-tiled roof which sits proudly a hundred feet up a grassy slope from a quiet road separating it from the wild Firth of Clyde waters by Ailsa, one of Turnberry’s three championship golf courses. A doorman in grey-plaid tartan kilt and beret with a tall pheasant feather sticking up said hello (first photo). I felt as if I was entering a private mansion, not part of what is, in total, a 240-room Luxury Collection resort. Designer Mary Fox Linton (think London’s One Aldwych and west-of-London Cowarth Park and The Grove) has done a brilliant job in updating heavy-oak and plasterwork interiors of what opened back in 1906 as The Station Hotel. Room 222, up 57 carpeted stairs (or via the elevator) to the top floor looked out over the sea to the 1,199-foot Ailsa Craig rock (like a giant dinner cloche), 11 miles out. My new home was divinely modern, with a twist. Shades of grey were complemented by parquet floors and an Art Deco carpet with soft heather-coloured corners and, bliss, one of the world’s best-ever beds with bedhead-hung fibre optic reading lights. I had Twining’s teas with oatmeal cookies, and a Frette robe. The bathroom had a free-standing oval bathtub and heated electric towel rail. The Water l’Eau toiletries, from Antwerp, said they contained green tea but felt more like seaweed.

Golfing girls have 2.5 courses, here, the signature 18-hole par-70 Ailsa, the par-72 Kintyre and the

nine-hole par-31-Arran. Spa girls have an ESPA heaven, and for the energetic the Technogym, like the indoor pool, is open from 0630 (best time to go, before the pool is clogged up with other people’s kids). I also had my folding bike so had a great and highly-aerobic workout on the steep road behind.

And this place is bliss for the culinary inclined. Dinner was most memorable for the flambé cooked at table by Dimitar Angelkovski, a charming young Swede who is current winner of England’s Academy of Culinary Arts’ rising young chef award (second photo) For that, he had to cook, by himself in four hours, razor clams, a venison wellington and a new-look lemon meringue pie, which he put on a base of Scottish shortbread. We were dining with Turnberry’s new GM, the super-suave Catalan-German Jordi Tarrida who has the panache to wear his bright turquoise glasses as a necklace, which he magnetically clipped together when he actually needed to see something, say the wine list (third photo). This is a challenging modern SmartCellar electronic notebook: touch it to get into red, white and whatever, then into new or old world, then country, then type and so on. My take is that a girl would end up buying a much more expensive bottle as she would not want her mates to see she really wanted to choose the cheapest (last photo). We asked, in his honour, for Spanish, and Jordi chose a Ribero del Duero Tempranillo 2008, which was beautifully decanted.

The new-look main restaurant, 1906 for obvious reasons, is breathtaking. It must seat about 150, at tables covered with immaculate and highly-starched white linens (more are used as floor-length aprons under servers’ black jackets. The whole restaurant area, rectangular with a gigantic protruding semi-circular bulge along the wall looking down to the sea, has white-fluted interior columns and heavily-moulded plaster ceiling areas, all so cunningly, and theatrically, lit. Colour comes only from golfing-types dining in bright-coloured Pringle sweaters, and turquoise panels above some windows (and from Dimitar Angelkovski’s continual bursts of orange flambé flames).

To be honest, my culinary highlight was breakfast – and why not? For so many healthy girls it is, indeed, the most important meal of the day. Here the juice is fresh, and the fresh-brewed coffee comes in individual shiny-stainless plungers. I was brought toasts in a traditional silver toast-rack, but the buffet’s breads were outstanding, especially carve-yourself brown loaves with integral nuts. I had started with unsweet prunes and Greek-type yoghurt (yummy), and a banana off the fresh fruit bowl. My pal loved the muesli, and smoked salmon and cream cheese, and Jumeirah’s marketing genius Thatcher Brown, at the next table with seven golfing buddies, joined them in one of the many à la carte hot dishes. Back to the buffet. There was a bottle of Mumm, ingredients for make-your-own Belvedere Bloody Mary and, next to the urn of hot porridge, a bottle of Bailie Nicol Jarvie whisky.

When in Rome… but when in Scotland, do as the Scots. They ate their porridge out of wooden porringers, and added salt rather than sugar, and downed it with a wee dram of whisky. Bailie Nicol Jarvie, incidentally, is part of the Glenmorangie stable and is one of The Independent’s best Scotch whiskies, 2011. It is named for a magistrate in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy overcame a sword-wielding miscreant by setting his kilt on fire. And at that point, sadly, it was time for me to leave.

Gals in the know do not always want to stay in hotels! Hen parties want a change from routine and regime. I am staying in a smashing private home now with my good friends John and his wife Camilla (top photo). I am trialling my new folding bike, a Montague X50. It says Swiss all over it but I suspect it is made in Taiwan, ha ha. It folds in half, the front wheel takes off and therefore the whole thing pops easily, or quite easily, into our 4x4. Camilla and I went off for a ten mile ride before breakfast (second photo, taken in part of the enormous garden – their estate seems to go on forever.

As it happens they travelling themselves later to day as this weekend their home is being rented to a party of 14 girlfriends, a hen party for one of the ladies’ forthcoming nuptials. Camilla runs an amazing site, www.eventfulstays.com She has over 700 homes around UK and rents them, on behalf of their owners, not only by location but by event – want something near to Ascot 2012?

The lucky gals staying here, at John and Camilla’s home, have plenty of space. As well as five bedrooms in the main house there is accommodation for four in the pool house (bottom photo). I just hope the sun comes out before those hens arrive.

I never had a hen party before my wedding. My sister had a hen birthday party. I will leave it to others. For me, mixed parties are much more fun.




Life is so exciting. Every time I look at my Rio Carnival hat, stored above my dressing table at home, I think back to the samba lesson I had pre-Carnival 2011 at the fabulous Copacabana Palace, my home on Copcabana Beach (first photo). And when I glance through photos I have taken over the last few months, I see such exciting compositions – and only wish my memory, and/or notetaking, was better so that I could remember where I took them. Whatever, I like this dish (second photo) because the lemon is stylishly held in muslin, and because of the Mozzarella and the avocado, both favourites of this travelin’gal. There are also mushrooms on that dish

Mushrooms, are they are another story. I have admired Hans Willimann for many years, since I first knew him when he was GM of Four Seasons Chicago. He had bright yellow cloths with matching flowers on the breakfast tables, which certainly cheered up sometimes-dark mornings in the Windy City.

Hans Willimann is now GM of Four Seasons Resort Vail, which he opened last Summer – sadly, I have not yet been to visit him but I have it on my list for 2012 – as he says, he is not selling bedrooms but ‘lifestyle’. The 120-room resort offers space (smallest bedroom is 58 sq m) and there always surprises. For five weekends every summer, Hans Willimann personally leads mushroom foraging. He sent me two photographs taken last weekend, one showing chanterelles (third photo), which were later made into risotto for the guests, and the last photo shows porcini, served with olive oil and a hint of garlic. When he sent me the photographs, he said ‘love from the American Alps’.