Building Holmes

Lytham St Annes. 6.00am 25/09/09

Two days, five projects and around 1,200 miles into the judging tour for the 2009 Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards and I have finally got a few moments to gather my thoughts on proceedings so far, and report on some of the amazing projects we have seen…

My fellow judges, Jason, Peter and Angela and I have had a couple of 5am starts, some pretty long days and have travelled from the Midlands, Wales, London and Oxford down to Devon and Cornwall, up to Edinburgh and Perth, across to Glasgow and back down the North West coast.

So far (and I do have some empathy for my poor fellow judges over this) I have done the driving. Unlike in previous years, however, I have thus far managed to keep all four wheels on the ground and have drawn only fleeting attention from the law when a patrol car from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary gave me a polite warning flash to encourage me to hold back a little.

None the less, the other members of the panel, prejudiced by prior experience, remain nervous passengers. So much so, that I am now hypersensitive about my driving - even the slightest tight bend, overly eager dab of the breaks or cutting in at a roundabout manoeuvre, draws whelps of distress from the back and has them clutching to any part of the car they can grab. This is all entirely unnecessary, as this year I have decided to be a considerate driver. I have recently had a day’s training at Silverstone by professional racing driving instructors, and have not once used my mobile whilst at the wheel.

The introduction this year of a sat nav system has removed some of the fun of getting lost on the trip, and the opportunity to ridicule whichever judge happened to brave the passenger seat, clutching the map and trying to decipher the incomprehensible directions sent in by awards entrants. However, it does give warning of speed cameras, for which I am very grateful.

The trip so far has been good and there have been some memorable experiences, including the odd judging lunch - that essential interlude from the dull miles on the road. The Cornwall Arms, near Palzeath, a local pub now owned by Rick Stein of seafood and TV fame, turned out to be an excellent establishment, complete with suitably rustic looking locals - of the sort usually evicted as soon as a TV superchef takes over a local boozer and turns it into a gastro pub (although we did speculate that these salty seadogs might actually be out of work extras hired by Stein for effect). My Mackerel in sea salt and lime was delicious, and good value. I’d highly recommend it.

Another outstanding South West eatery, this time in Lympstone on the south coast of Devon, is the Puffing Billy - or at least so we are told. One of the entrants gave us a glowing ten minute review and having got us enthused and salivating, kindly offered to get us a table.

Alas the place was fully booked, unlike the Quay Brasserie where we ended up, empty bar one table, but not sufficiently so to prevent the greeter from enquiring whether we had booked. Alarm bells ringing that you should never order anything raw from a restaurant unless it is heaving with customers, I could not resist the steak tartar. No repercussions yet.

Prize for perhaps the oddest culinary experience of the trip so far was in Bearsden, one of the posher suburbs of Glasgow, where a delightful waitress, attacked by Angela for having the audacity to allow the establishment which employed her to charge £1.50 for peppercorn sauce, continued to be polite and attentive until Jason asked for mayonnaise, at which point the poor girl turned white and had to get help. Why? She had a phobia of the stuff. She couldn’t look at it, serve it or carry it, yet alone touch it. Jason’s speculation as to the origins of such a condition, now diagnosed as mayophobia, are not repeatable.

Whilst the quality of the dining may have been reasonable this year, the same cannot be said for the accommodation, which has definitely been credit crunched. The Best Western Hotel near Exeter airport is the sort of place that has you weeping into your pillow with homesickness. It has a grinding drabness that, given sufficient exposure, could do lasting damage to your will to live: I had always thought lorry drivers slept in their cab to save their accommodation allowance but I now suspect otherwise.

On arrival we noticed that the windows to one of the first floor rooms had been completely breeze blocked up from the inside. Why on earth would anyone do this? Had the room been condemned? Was it a solution to prison overcrowding? Had something awful happened in there?

Speculation gathered about the grim fate of some lonely forgotten salesmen sealed in alive, the doorway perfectly papered over - ‘room 72 officer? You must be mistaken, there is no room 72 here.’ We all laughed, whilst quietly praying for a room on the other side of the hotel.

When we asked the pretty girl on reception what had happened in there, she laughed as if we were joking and denied that any of the rooms had been blocked up. When we persisted she just smiled, as one humours the rantings of the mildly insane and refused to even acknowledge the question.

That night I texted Jason -‘If you wake up to find you have been sealed in, feel free to text for help.’ After a night in the hotel, he pointed out that it had more likely been suicide than foul play. I knew what he meant.

As for the houses we have seen so far? I am afraid that will have to wait. I am already late to meet the other judges for breakfast and we need to be on our way to the first project of the day. Let me say this though - you will not be disappointed. The standard is incredibly high and I have already been sufficiently inspired to want to sell my home and build again…