'The Good Life' is a bit obvious but I can't immediately think of a better title

When I moved to the country it wasn't through any great need to get back to my roots and immerse my hands in mother soil. It was more a matter of moving to the village that the LOML was born and brought up in so we could be near her family and friends. I am a townie, a smallish-market-townie-in-a-fairly-rural-area, but a townie nonetheless.

When the LOML and I had our first house, in a town, I remember being amazed that she could grow french beans that you could actually eat up some canes by the shed. I mean, I knew that where beans came from was not Sainsbury's, but I imagined growing your own was strictly the preserve of arcane alchemy (if this isn't a tautology) known only to crusty old allotment holders. Passing on the secrets of their grandfathers, no doubt. So a germ of a kernel of a seed of an interest in things green gently sprouted.

I gradually became converted, dug a small veg patch, experimented, learned, prospered. In the current CwhatC garden there are four veg patches and a greenhouse. All organic, natch. I even entered the Village Show, and won some certificates (uh, 'best short carrots', 'best any other vegetable - 3 specimens', 3rd best 'onions - spring sown', yada yada).

The LOML's parents, you see, are 'of the land'. They grow stuff for a living - soft fruit, cut flowers, florists' foliage - on 12 acres on the edge of the village. They met at horticultural college actually.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall became a bit of a guru; except, obviously, as regards haircuts: I think I could teach him a thing or two there. I visit his River Cottage website regularly, and have seriously considered taking a trundly down the M5 to one of his events. I'd love to keep pigs and make my own ham and stuff. It looks a fabulous laugh and hey, I love ham. And bacon. And sausages.

And when you look a bit deeper, it's a bit of a moral journey as well. There was a programme on BBC telly a while back called (I think) 'The Real Food Show'. (Was it called that? Anyway*). It was the one which had a zoo-type format somewhat copied from Top Gear. The premise of the feature in question was that all meat-eaters should be able to kill the animal they were going to eat. Hugh F-W used to have a section on it: a step-by-step guide culminating in actually slaughtering and butchering and cooking and eating an animal yourself. I can't find it now, but his other food essays are very good. I like his meat manifesto particularly.

The presenter from the BBC went out to a farm and selected an animal (a beef bullock, if I recall) and watched it being killed, and butchered. He cried on camera, and I am not mocking him here. I think this is important. But he did it, and he ate the meat, and I reckon was a better person for the experience. It's something we all ought to be prepared to do: if not, you know the answer. Vegetarianism. A simple, moral, code to live by. I can, and have, slaughtered animals. How many of us who buy our meat shrink-wrapped in Tesco can say the same? Not many, not many at all. Most, I suspect, would blanch at the sight, sound and smell of a twitching, newly-dead animal being eviscerated for our ultimate culinary pleasure. And then throw up their 4-grain Cheerios all over their Hush Puppies.

But do not the animals who died so that we may eat deserve our respect? I respect them by buying ethically raised non-intensive meat from my local butcher. They have only lived so that I can eat them, but this in no way means that their lives need not be as contented as possible in the meantime. It makes you think; it damn well ought to make you think.

*breathe*

Sorry.

Did it again.

Started off all light-hearted and ended up screaming and shouting off an oversized soapbox, spittle running down my chin and no doubt into the audience's faces. Sorry. Have a tissue. Comes of being an opinionated sort of chap, you see. I get carried away. And there's no-one here to say "Hey, shush. Calm down a bit" until afterwards, when it's too late, usually.

So, anyway. Right. Um. I guess that the whole point of this is that the reason that Hugh F-W's programmes were so popular is because we all hanker for it, really. That Jimmy's Farm that's on again is in the same mould - actually, it was probably watching that last night that set me thinking about it all again in the first place. We're all hardwired, deep down, into producing our own food. Just some of us are further removed from it than others.

Tell you what, I'll let you know how this year's food production activities are going, occasionally, and then at least you can grow veg and fruit vicariously through me if you want to. I may even kill some animals and eat them and we can all grow as people through the experience - me physically, you morally.

Any requests?

*I've now found it on Sky. It's called Full On Food.