Yorkshire Air Ambulance

This week, what with the Bank Holiday weekend and such like, has been fully blown, so to speak. Customers, traffic, car park rage and sunshine, pretty normal for holiday weekends in the height of summer on the Yorkshire coast. What made this weekend a bit more thought provoking, was the BBC's showing of the first in the series of Helicopter Heroes, a documentary following the live emergency rescues in the Yorkshire region.

In many parts of rural England, the rescue helicopter services offer a serious option for emergency treatment following trauma, whether road, agriculture or equine accident for example. We all watch these programs with interest l am sure, knowing the service is there but never once dreaming that we will be a part of a rescue. So it was that we all sat down in front of the box at 9 am on Bank Holiday Monday to watch the program.

The first episode followed a two year old, hit in a freak accident by a gate resulting in 3 fractures to her skull and a broken arm. This little girl is my niece.

The accident happened last autumn on the family farm when a young horse, after being spooked, skidded into a galvanized gate which was thrown across the yard, hitting AT. I should mention that country children are brought up from an early age to be aware that animals and machinery are dangerous, little AT was stood well away from any source of danger, or so Hazza's cousin thought.........

Alone, LT rang for help, the progress of that help was shown dramatically in the program. The rescue mission was touch and go, there was a genuine fault with the gear box which worse case scenario would have resulted in the chopper being grounded.

AT, was air lifted to Midlesborough safely and you will be pleased to note that she has made a full recovery, going on to win the fancy dress competition at this year's Malton Show!

As a result of the accident the familyhas been raising money for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity fund, donating Christmas and birthday present money and even ice cream at Driffield Show.

On a slightly more frivolous note, AT spent last Monday in London after appearing on BBC's breakfast news alongside the swimming phenomenon that is Michael Phelps. AT thought that London Zoo was marvelous and so did Little Teddy!

Perhaps l just ought to mention that the program was filmed in 'real time' and was not a reconstruction.

Late August

I am sat here, in the office preparing for the final onslaught of the 'summer' season, august bank holiday. The weather, thanks to the good old jet stream has been absolutely **** crap. We have, just, manged to combine the oil seed rape and winter barley but many farms in the area still have the early sown crops in the fields, winter wheat hasn't been touched yet. l noticed today on my weekly trip to our local town that the floods were 'out' once again around the castle motte. August my foot!

So, what a wonderful summer for the hoards of tourists who are once again re-discovering the pleasures of the English summer holiday. All roads heading to the coast have been busy, [understatement], not that we mind. The coastal resorts are reporting a bumper year with sales of buckets and spades being at a record level. Certainly here, we have noticed a new wave of customers, families either coming for the day, or as they say in this part of the world 'comfurt'day', or stopping on one of the many caravan parks the litter this coastline, so thanks to the 'credit crunch' the beautiful, historic and varied landscape of Yorkshire is being discovered once again.

This year, our immediate cliff has not eroded too much, however, further north along coast towards Bridlington, the sea is washing up the mud cliffs at every high tide, eroding vast amounts of boulder clay, resulting in the road being closed and several houses in imminent danger of being washed into the sea. Locals are pretty sure that this pounding of the cliffs is due in large to the sand dredging out in the bay, which incidentally we also reckon has resulted in reduction in common tern numbers who feed on sand eels.

It will be interesting to see how busy we are this weekend, the forecast isn't good, but when your on holiday you have to go somewhere, and at least we have indoor as well as out door seating. The ice cream team are busy making loads of napoli tubs so as to keep our wholesale customers stocked up over the coming bank holiday, so, if you are visiting the Yorkshire coast, look out for the signs and try a proper dairy ice cream, you can find us here at base camp, or along the coast from Hornsea to Whitby! Have a nice weekend!