EDitorial ± 11-May-2012

Light Lunches: Suffolk Punch Trust, Hollesley

Horsin' around, as the great Paddy McAloon observed, is a serious business. Take that horseplay a little bit too far, however, and you could end up with the bad boys, Ray Winstone et al, in the Bet365 borstal. Such an institution was based at Hollesley Bay, out past Sutton Hoo (Andy's manor) on the edge of nowhere. The Bay had some rare breeds -- as you might expect from young offenders -- in the form of some Suffolk Punch horses.

Which brings us to the Suffolk Punch Trust, a charity which took over the stud of gee-gees from the jailers. We've scaled the office walls using a makeshift ladder made from discarded printers and run away to check out the cafe in the the visitor centre. Diagonally opposite the gift shop sits a string of colourful chairs, some of which are already occupied by other escapees. Young foals that we are, we find ourselves in the midst of the lunchtime stampede.

Clingfilmed platters don't promise much, and the nice lady informs me that the corn beef hash (hello, Tea Pot) is Shergar. There's soup, she says: French onion. Deux chevaux! She ladles two servings from the little urn and there's a choice of rolls, all for £2.95 a pop. How good and hot and tasty is it? Champion! Woah: I appear to have hit my exclamation point quota.

A leisurely canter through the soup sets us up nicely for sweet stuff, for we have espied the range of cakes. Mine's a sumptuous slice of moist ginger cake topped with runny icing. What with that and a cafetiere, it won't last furlong. Here at the Colony Stud, the going is good.

If it was a car -- Ford Mustang.
If they were passing by -- Jeffrey Archer.