Heather Fell, Olympic modern pentathlete silver medalist, writes about her life 'on and off' the track.

WHAT a shock it was returning to Bristol on Friday afternoon, two weeks of sunshine in France and we return to torrential rain!

I was hoping this weather might have deterred tourists from heading south on the M5 but it didn't limit the visitors to West Devon; I made the mistake of venturing into Tavistock on Saturday. I'd always thought my parents exaggerated the traffic situation on Plymouth Road, apparently not. Twenty minutes later I reached Bedford Square and eventually found a parking slot. I made the mistake of trying to rush on foot through the market - I've now realised that you can't nip into Tavistock on a Saturday especially on a bank holiday.

The farmers market must pull in tourists to our lovely town. Perusing the stalls I was very impressed by the local produce, something I'm very passionate about. Let's encourage these markets and not allow any more of the hideous out of town supermarkets to scar Tavistock.

One thing I miss when abroad or even in Bath is proper home cooked local food. I have been well and truly spoilt thanks to my mothers' cooking and my fathers' gardening. One meal consisted of three types of vegetable from our garden, beef from one of our cows and potatoes from my uncle's farm; you can't get more local than that!

By my usual standards it has been a relaxed weekend. After an early morning swim at Kelly College I nipped into BBC Radio Devon to surprise ex Tavistock Swim Club captain Ollie White, live on air. He was promoting his charity relay swim from Holyhead to Dublin, good luck Ollie! I then headed up to Sandy Park to watch a rugby match.

On Sunday I was just finishing off a riding lesson on the third horse of the day when we took quite a hard tumble. Nothing serious but I was too sore to do much else!