Country Living: Our Man in Arundel

The third Saturday in Arundel is the monthly Farmers Market. Twice a month would be better, but once is better than none at all. Rather like the town's shops, the stallholders at the market sell products that vary from the practical to the kind of food you probably don't need more than once a month (or once a lifetime, it's been suggested).

My favourite is the fisherman – for yes, this is the chap who catches them himself. He has the weathered, ruddy look of someone who does a 'proper outdoor job'. Although the River Arun still offers the occasional trout, he's usually found off the coast at Selsey. That's about 10 miles by boat, which is close enough for me to feel smug about food miles. The last time I was chatting to him (and buying a sizeable, well-priced cod that wasn't shovelled out of the sea by an aquatic bulldozer) he was explaining how he's lucky because of the monthly market. Thanks to Arundel, he has a guaranteed audience – which puts him at an advantage to many other fishers (is that the generic term for fishing people of all genders?) who are more desperate to sell and therefore inclined to take more risks during bad weather when other fisher-people aren't sailing.

Now, I'm not about to start a poster campaign that says "Buy local – save lives"... but it makes you think, doesn't it?