Today we've been down to the NEC in Birmingham to visit the BBC Good Food and Homes exhibition.

Its been a very good day, with the highlight being a live kitchen demonstration by Gordon Ramsay and a wine tasting session in the afternoon. We also saw Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (pic).

Gordon's bit was very good, entertaining, and as we managed to bag front row seats we could smell it all, and got some pics! The wine tasting was equally good fun, with two wines and two sherries to taste. It only served to reconfirm our dislike for sherry, but the white wine we tasted was exceptional - Dourthe No 1 Sauvignon Blanc 2005

The rest of the show was filled with wandering around hundreds of stalls. In all we bought some ginger cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese Company, a proper Melton Mowbray pork pie from Dickinson and Morris, and a pricy, but very useful pan from RUN Cookware.

Along the way we saw some funky radiators, clocks, aquariums, water features, and quite a few show rooms. Finally on the way out we caught Andrew Winter giving a talk on buying and selling houses. All in all a very enjoyable, busy day. Recommended!