They served a celebratory supper of spring vegetable stew and baked loaves of sage-crusted bread, with a dessert of apple 'n' blackcurrant crumble, made from fresh ingredients which the Dibbuns had gathered from the orchard.

The Dibbuns were spooning in blackberry jam roly-poly pudding and swigging gooseberry cup as if they had survived a seven-season famine.

Brother Burlop arrived with two pottery beakers of freshly brewed rosebay willowherb tea and a platter of warm wheat scones.

For dinner, they prepared celery and leek turnovers, with forager’s stew, almond shortbread, and a fourseason plumcake.

Half an hour before dawn the young mouse was roused by a shrew who gave him an acorn cup full of damson juice, a loaf of rough flatbread, and some tasty fresh roots he could not identify. By first light they were on the move again.

There was red cheese with celery and onion, barley and oat dumplings, a latticed wildberry tart with maple sauce, golden-crusted bread hot from the ovens, and a choice of tansy an' coltsfoot cordial or elder-bark tea.

That dandelion beer looks nice 'n' cool. Pour me a beaker. Look at this, button mushroom 'n' parsley turnover, mushroom pasty fried in spring onion gravy, pear crumble, an' a bowl of whipped honey. They certainly know 'ow t'feed us at this Abbey, mates!

Maple scones, warm and fresh from the ovens, spread with elderberry jam and washed down with cowslip wine.

I'd have a wedge of white cheese, the one with celery and onion in it, and one, no two, of Friar Gooch's fresh rye farls, straight from the oven.

Laughter and merry chatter rose to the rafters of the big room beneath the Abbey. On the tables, candied fruits and sugared chestnuts vied for place with autumn salad and vegetable soups.

Take your friends along to the larder. I want two small red cheeses flavoured with chive, two large meadow cheeses with almonds and hazelnuts, and one of the extra large red cheeses with celery and herbs.

That rosehip'n'redcurrant wine looks nice 'n' cool. Pour me a beaker. Look at this, celery 'n' onion turnover, carrot 'n' mushroom pasty with onion gravy, apple, blackberry 'n' plum crumble, an' a bowl of yellow meadowcream. They certainly know 'ow t'feed us at this Abbey, mates!

Up and about since the crack of dawn, they had rekindled the fire and made a meal. Warm seedcake with honey, fruit salad, and wild cherry juice.

Oh, well done! Nothin' prettier than an apple an' blackberry tart with a good crisscross lattice of pastry on it. Open the top ovens, I can smell that crumble, it's ready!

Here, matey, how's that for pale summer cider? Try some of this hot root punch. How d'you like fruitcake? Have a wedge. D'you reckon you'd get the better of one of these preserved strawberries? Come on then.

A pot of motherwort tea with honey to go in it, a platter of roast chestnuts with cream, and elderflower bread lightly spread with clover butter.

After the meal, there were blackberry scones, yellow cheese studded with chestnuts and celery, and crusty seeded brown bread for those still wanting to nibble.

Three trolleys were laden with buffet lunch—beetroot, potato, and radish soup, rye bread and cheese, elderberry an' larkspur cordial, followed by a dessert of elderberry pie with yellow summercream.