Harry Mead enjoys a companionable ramble on the North Yorkshire coast.

SEASONS AT SUNNYSIDE by Elizabeth Buchannan (Bayfair Publications, Coralline, Silver Street, Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire, YO22 4SB, £2 locally or £2.99 by post)

AMONG the paths that descend the steep hillside into Robin Hood's Bay is one that emerges from a wood on to an ancient trod that runs directly in front of a pantiled farmhouse with a long range of outbuildings. The magnificent view of the bay grabs the eye, but the farmhouse might in future win attention as the home of the author of this delightful booklet, offering what she calls "a flavour of life up here on my vast (all three and a half acres of it) estate half way up the moors".

Certainly sunny, the house is also prey to the cutting North-East wind, which, says Elizabeth, "tears through all the Yorkshire lights" (windows) and "fair nithers you". My father's term for its chilling force was "it hobnails your liver" - and I know just what he meant. Mind you, the house, still with its original peat hearth and "reckon", is today much warmer than when the breath of Elizabeth and her sister, sleeping in the attic as children back in the 1940s, froze on the inside of the roof in winter.

Elizabeth began her jottings of life at Sunnyside in 1999 when she took over the gardening notes in the local monthly magazine, the much-esteemed Bayfair, from the retiring correspondent. Happy that she has never felt confined by her remit, editor Jim Foster has assembled a collection of her pieces. Enhanced by line drawings by a friend, Ruth Edgington, they make a most enjoyable read.

Join Elizabeth on pleasures like her walk "up the back garden path on a brisk November morning with the sun just glowing into life over Ravenscar", to pick "juicy Autumn Bliss raspberries, straight from the canes, for breakfast (al fresco)". Share her frantic attempt to repel an invasion of mice before the arrival of B&B guests. And learn of disasters like the time Sally, the pig, entered the kitchen and devoured young kittens.

Elizabeth scythes, attends her stock (a couple of cows, some sheep, farmyard fowls), tells us much about the old house, which dates back to at least 1697, and takes walks with her ever-present collie, Gale. And of course she puts in a bit of gardening - Sunnyside style.

"The annual purge of deep rooted weeds is underway. My docker, a long handled instrument for grubbing up docks, dandelions and nettles, is in daily use". There's not much demand for those at the garden centre.

Published: 15/02/2005