Normally at the start of every year I get off to a good one, all refreshed, lose my Christmas indulgence weight, restore my fitness and so on.

This year it didn't feel the same. I just didn't feel right inside. I decided, sod it, I am taking Monday off and booking myself a day to myself. This was after I received a promotional email from River Cottage that made the decision so much easier. A full one day cookery course it was then!

Although I gave myself two hours to get from Bournemouth to get to River Cottage HQ, near Axminster, for a 9.30am start on a Monday morning, the rush hour traffic along those n

arrow roads added a bit more onto the journey and cut into my contingency. Made it fine in the end so, after parking up, had a few minutes in the fresh January air at the tractor stop before we all jumped on board and made our way down to the cottage.

There was a mixed bag of people from those that had never cooked in my class, to one chef who seemed to be begrudgingly there having been bought a cake baking course by his girlfriend. A few tense words between that couple over with and we down by the cottage ready to walk in.

We were introduced to Conor who was going to run the course, and his helper whose name I have forgotten but she was so helpful and nice during the day, being very encouraging and right there when you needed something.

First point of order was being shown how to sharpen a knife. I went back to my station and unrolled the knife pack and proceeded to pull my knife out from the middle of the blade, hence just nicking my finger on the adjacent knife. I normally pull my knives out from a block my the handle rather than the tip, but didn't fall foul of this for the rest of the day.

The Meat Course

Although Bread was the first item on the agenda emailed to us, we started off learning about Meat. There was a huge looking slab of meat and ribs on the bench as if Desperate Dan would be round for lunch. We learned about the ambiguity of supermarket packaging where something that might say 28 day aged, could well mean that the meat was cut and packed and sat there for that amount of time. What you should be looking for is the word "hung" where possible. Butchers will have hung their beef, but the bright red supermarket beef just shows that it hasn't been developing flavour by hanging around.

The beef brisket had already been diced for us, so we just had to prepare the vegetables to go into our braise/stew. Having seasoned thick Le Creuset pots made a difference, so we were able to get them ridiculously hot before a splash of oil and then the beef straight in. Don't start from putting oil into a cold pan and then turning the heat on. Once the beef was browned good and proper, the veg and garlic went in, then splash of wine to deglaze the burnt goodness from the base and finally stock went in. Down to a slow simmer and we continued with the next section.

The Bread Making

I've only made bread once or twice from packets with mixed results. The whole day was hands on, but making bread was especially so. After learning about wheats, processing, glutens, kneading and what not, it was our turn to get messy. The trick seems to be long stretches of the dough, and not keep whacking more flour onto your work surface. The accordion what of stretching the dough out was pretty funny as well as lobbing it out onto the worktop.

After all the fun, it was time to let our dough rest, or swim in oil for most of us misjudged how much to line the bowl with.

Now that we were messy with flour we kept to a similar theme with making gnocchi. Like most things, home-made gnocchi is nothing like the shop-bought stuff, which tends to be hard and dry. The trick we learn was this is light mixing with the fingers, of the baked potato innards, flour, cheese and eggs mixture, before rolling out. No kneading involved. After rolling out, it was a case of cutting into similar sized pieces and dropping into a pan of boiling water. When they pop to the surface, they are done. How easy can this be?

As an additional touch, we pan fried then in olive oil, garlic and rosemary, and butter. By the time we had done all of this, the braised beef was ready and we finally got to plate up - "plate up indeed" - and ate our lunch. Sitting down was a welcome treat, as was the food. Beef so tender and flavoursome.

We were learning standing around can be tiring, as well as constantly cleaning your station down.

We went back to working on our bread after its first proving. Getting it all nice and tight into a basket for the second stage proving.

Whilst that was doing its thing, we went onto the next thing. The dessert course. A chocolate fondant. Ooooo, gasps.

Call me thick, I honest thought that it was made from suspending a block of chocolate in cake mix before baking and that's how you got a soft oozing centre and sponge on the outside. Seems I was wrong.

Once all the mixing was done, the metal pudding basins were put into the fridge so we could move on.

We now had to give one final piece of attention to the bread. After it had risen in the basket we had had to turn it out onto a baking tray and make a decorative cut or cuts. Mine ended up a little bit gynaelogical looking. We whacked it into the oven and poured a mug of water into the bottom of the over before shutting the door. The steam is supposed to help getting a nice crust on the bread with a nicely cooked inside. We shall see.

The Fish Filleting

Fish time. My thing. Whiting. When you watch someone fillet a fish, it seems straightforward doesn't it. I thought with all these eats of eating fish and prepping fish at home I will nail this. Normally I'd cook fish on the bone anyway, but I've seen it done so many times so was really confident standing there with flexible knife in hand.

What a hash I made of it. Left loads on the fish frame. I had to scrape some off and recover it as a goujon. The fish was absolutely fresh and the bits that we didn't eat that day, we took home, so when I cooked with it the next day it was still lovely and firm.

We prepared some more veg and was introduced to the Jerusalem artichoke. A bit of pan frying the fish, veg and butter then we were done. There was a lot of butter being used that day. I enjoyed my fish. I only wished I was able to have filleted a big enough piece. I had one whole side the next day, which made up for it.

Our bread was ready but we had Conor's instead so we could take ours home. I got good comments from friends at home and work who tried the bread. Because it was not mass produced, I didn't feel bloated even after more slices that I would normally have in a day.

The dessert

The finale approached. Would our chocolate fondants end up being a chocolate mess. Conor said timing was so important when it came to the pudding and baking in general. 8 minutes 20 seconds he said. We all put ours in at the same time.

He went to show us how his had gone. The first one came out at 8 minutes and that collapsed. The one about 30 seconds later stay firm and true, with the obligatory oozing centre. See, it's all about timing.

He told us in a restaurant that he worked at, there was one timer on each level of the oven. Imagine 30 orders at the same time and you had to ensure they were all perfect! Timers going off left, right and centre.

We made toffee apple pieces to go with it, and I think we deserved the calories for all the hard work that we had done.

It was soon time to get a tractor lift up the hill to our cars.

I had a fantastic day. Really really enjoyed it. Everybody else was nice and enjoyed the day even though there were some stressy points.