Allergy-friendly holiday: Higher Lank Farm (Part II)

SO we booked, and we went, and we will definitely go again.

Despite the fact that he’s currently going through a poker-face-meets-wuss phase, Sidney had a wonderful time. No, he didn’t crack a smile when we bottle-fed the clamouring lambs with warm milk; yes, he took some convincing to perch atop Bill, the placid pony, leaning fearfully into me, his riding hat tipping drunkenly over one eye; and, yep, he did thrash about wailing when Ruby the goat made a bid for his bucket.

Allergy-friendly holiday: Higher Lank Farm (Part I)

WELL, IT’S taken us more than two years and I never thought we’d do it but… we did, we have, we found a holiday place that caters for food allergic children!

Welcome to Higher Lank Farm, a glorious working farm in the midst of the Cornish countryside where the wonderful Lucy Finnemore has taken it upon herself as a challenge to cater for the oddball needs of food allergic kids. What a lady.

We only heard about this place after a friend, whose own toddler has a similar raft of allergies to Sidney, stumbled across it while searching online for child friendly UK breaks. She saw the website, which mentions in passing – and in typical no-razzmatazz Lucy style – that they “enjoy catering for people with special diets and food allergies” and there you have it.

Pizza Express – could it be…?

BIG excitement among Coeliacs in recent months over the new Pizza Express gluten free pizzas, and rightly so. But so far I’ve held fire.

The company is among the best in providing allergen information on its website but, somewhat oddly, while it mentions garlic and mushrooms among them, sesame and lupin – two of the top 14 under EU guidance – are not listed. For obvious reasons Sid’s (relatively rare) allergies to chickpea, lentil and green pea are also not on the list. So I wanted to find out for sure the full list of ingredients in this new gluten free base, not least because chickpea flour, lupin, psyllium husk and all sorts pop up in many non gluten offerings.