A decision in my life that I'll never regret

It's 8am, the wintry sun is glaring though the window and I am woken by the sound of the black Welsh sheep bleating in the adjacent field. They are lucky, for if black Welsh were a rare breed of sheep they would be featuring on next week's menu.

We have specialised in the sole use of rare breeds of meat for over a year now. It's something I feel quite strongly about - traceability, transportation and natural feeding of animals.

Since I took over the Bricklayers Arms just over 18 months ago, I have spent a lot of time searching out suppliers, visiting farms and talking to people about their thoughts on food and the food chain.

On the majority of the smallholdings and farms I have visited, I have found them to be honest and passionate people with bottomless pots of tea and big Aga cookers filling the kitchen with heat.

For example, during last year's floods Liz, with whom I have become good friends, had to bring the majority of her animals, buffalo included, into her house to save them from drowning, and lived with them, although not quite in harmony! She suffered quips like "how do they put up with the smell in the house, those poor animals!" and everyone survived to tell the tale.

I bought this business primarily to give myself some kind of quality of life, and to fulfil a longtime ambition of owning my own restaurant into the bargain. Now when I walk in the fresh crisp wintry air along Offa's Dyke, or up on Styper Stones in the Welsh hills, I realise I wouldn't change my lifestyle.

I have done the big city bit, the 4am rises for six years, the split shifts and travelling on the bus early morning and late at night, sitting in heavy traffic, cursing and swearing. But now, if I pull up at a junction and see two cars go past, it's rush hour!

When I see smoke coming out of the chimney, the bar is warmed with heat from the log-burning stove, and Ella the Great Dane comes bounding towards me on her lanky legs, I know the one decision in my life I will never regret is moving to Montgomery with belief in myself that I could make this work.

Even after the terrible hardships we suffered last year, things can only get better.

Sara Pezzack is the proprietor of the Bricklayers Arms, Montgomery, Powys

Next diary from Sara Pezzack: 28 February