muddyboots

gale force winds along the coast

2011-03-11T15:44:00.000Z

As the snowdrops are slowly replaced by early daffodils, so it is that weekly ice cream production kicks into action. Over the winter months we played with several new flavour ideas, testing the results on all too eager customers as they braved snow and howling gales to come for their weekly 'ice cream fix'! Ideas for flavours came to us from our Facebook & Twitter pages. Flavours ranging from chocolatey to nutty to chewy. Narrowing the suggestions down to 'hm, thats sounds good', we began test mixes of things like white choccy & raspberry, chocolate n orange & honeycombe toffee [we are still experementing with 'soft' or 'crisp'].

When not playing with flavours, we were making contact with new customers and getting a little carried away with our graphics, mr moo seemed to be enjoying learning how to play rugby league & diving! So, if you are attending a rugby match or pop concert at KC Stadium in Hull, you can top up you ice cream cravings with a pot of Mr Moo's, available from the snack counter or why not stop & but one from one of the vendors walking the terraces?

Mr Moo, did rather well with his learning to dive lessons, managing to be one of the first bovines to manage a snorkle and eat ice cream beneath the waves at the same time. Yes, you can find him in the cafe at The Deep and in the much aclaimed restaurant, eat your pudding whilst being watched by sharks & rays.

It is amazing just how busy Mr Moo has in fact been, Monk Park Farm has now a wonderful colourful counter and even on a chilly day in February chilldren were waiting in great anticipation for their teddy cones topped by a scoop of mr moo's ice cream!

All go then for the team here at Mr Moo's, it is really great to meet with potential new customers and pass on our enthusiasm for proper dairy ice cream. Towards the end of the month sees the announcement of the REYTA 2011 Awards at Bridlington Spa, so, fingers crossed, we may be in the running for an award this year, lets hope so!

Busy busy busy

2011-02-08T15:59:00.000Z

Second week in February, wow, doesn't time fly when you're busy! The past weeks have seen Team Moo busy with data bases, new customers, inventions of new flavours and trying to remember what day it is.

The Ice cream Parlour remained open during the winter months, closing only during the heaviest of snow & lowest of temperatures. With an improvement of weather trade is building up week by week as weekend visitors and day trippers return to the coast. The Traditional Yorkshire breakfasts have proved popular with us taking part in the Farmhouse Breakfast week at the end of January.

The Caravan Club CL site bookings are coming along nicely, with Easter being fully booked. This year the CL site is for adults only but, small people, do not worry as the Rally Field has been re-named the Family Field, a whole field to play and run about in.

The Moo Experimenters have been in action too, with new flavour suggestions being made by our Facebook & Twitter followers; so probables for 2011 include chocolate orange and white choccy chunk with a red berry, perhaps raspberry or strawberry, haven't decided yet.

Mini Moo & JD have just started their Advanced Apprenticeship work through East Riding College, so hopefully by the time they finish their course they will know everything about, well everything!

We have some good new outlets & customers for the coming year and are actively looking for a distributor in the South to supply Mr Moo's Real Dairy Ice Cream to a growing number of inquiries from Southern England. Will be announcing new tourists attractions stocking Mr Moo's in the near future, we will also be doing a press release to coincide.

This is only a quick doodle as my brain is somewhat higgledy piggledy and my spelling and grammar are even worse than normal, perhaps because as l sit in the office blogging, answering the phone / emails whilst listening to Steve Wright in the Afternoon l am just not too good at multi-tasking [but don't tell anyone please]? So as l close, please watch this space over the coming weeks to keep abreast of what is happening down here on the farm and if you have any suggestions for interesting flavours, please feel free to comment away!

Escape from the weather

2011-01-09T17:12:00.000Z

Winter proper started here in East Yorkshire mid-November. Frost followed by snow followed by yet more snow and ever lower temepratures. Normally we try to get away for a holiday in January or February, before the season proper starts, this year I suggested, why not holiday before christmas?

Where shall we go at such short notice, where do we actually fancy going to? As many of you will know, we visited Kenya back in Februay 2010, stopping for once in what is termed a proper hotel. The ones that have piped musak absolutely everywhere, the ones that have buffets positively growning under the weight of vast amounts of frankly, booring food, you know the ones that have organised activities and have large perimiter walls & fences to keep the locals & wildlife out. So, after scrabbling around on Trip Advisor and researching flights out of Humberside our local airport, we decided to go to Kenya again, this time staying in tents and trying our hand at what can only be termed 'Glamping' at Gazi Beach Retreat.

We booked our flights independently with KLM from Humberside via Schiphol & then on direct to Mombasa the accommodation through africasky.com. All pretty straight forward really. We duly arrived at Moi International Airport, Mombasa obtained our visa, collected our bagage, cleared customs and then walked out in the bright sunlight and tropical heat, from -10C to 35C not much of a temperature shock really? You know when you fly somewhere and then walk out through the arrivals door you see people holding up cards with names on? Yes, well there was no one there with our names on. Yes, OK we were'nt so daft as not to book transfers. Fortunately, we had contact phone numbers and began dialing, assisted by a very helpful young taxi driver called Simon. The mobile phone signal kept cutting out. It was Jamhuri Day, a BIG public holiday, everyone was partying. Simon spoke to our contact who asked him to bring us to the resort. So, off we went in a bright yellow taxi, roaring through mombasa at great speed, through the arched elephant tusks, over the Likoni Ferry, past the street parties, southward heading to Ukunda and then turned off to Diani. Diani?

Turning south at the T junction at Diani, we drove past the high walls of the BIG hotels, where are we going? Simon indicated left, pulling into the driveway of Galu Beach Retreat, security guard opened the barrier and in we drove. Deadly silence. We were met by beaming staff clutching trays bearing fruit punch for the weary and, to put it mildly, somewhat suprised travellers. 'You will be staying here', we were informed by the jovial Whitecliff, 'Doris is on her way'. as we were shown our room, and given a guided tour of the retreat.

We sat, sipping ice cold Tusker, looking out across the white coral sands and turquoise blue of the Indian Ocean. We paid the Simon and moved in! One look at that view was all it took. Superb, awesome, fabulous. So this was where we ended up, not really sure why we were here, but we didn't mind at all, in fact Farmer said he prefered this site much to the relief of our new best friend Doris, was somewhat relieved to discover that we weren't bothered at all about the morning's potential disarster!

Galu Beach Retreat is owned run by Destination Adventures Kenya whose other resorts include, Gazi, The Cove and Sable Valley Tree Houses. All the resorts are pretty small, no more than 8 rooms each l think, hence us booking. The meal plan is all inclusive, OK l hear you groaning, but this was AI with waiter service, choice of menu and you could eat either in the treehouse banda or ourside your room, we chose the former. The place is so relaxing, no need to 'dress' for dinner or slap on the make up, this was my idea of heaven. I would have gone barefoot all week if the pathways wern't so hot!

The rooms themselves were of a good size & for life's little luxuries there was air conditioning. There was decent sized bathroom [though the original taps were a bit of a pain to use], proper fridge filled with soft drinks / Tusker plus the really nice touch of a water dispenser, nothing is worse than being somewhere hot and having to keep buying drinking water. The bed, traditional Lamu style, came complete with mozzie nets. The covered terrace with comfy day bed was a favourite lazing spot and wasn't it great to not have TV or internet access or crappy music wafting past the frangipani trees.

I tell you what, the staff were absolutely wonderful. Helpful, polite and happy, they even tried to teach us some Swahilli! Asanti sanna! Being a bit of a foodie, what is brought to you on a plate is of some importance. Here the choice of food was fresh, local and cooked to order, not wearing a timepiece for 10 days, the only way l knew what the approximate time was, was when Sieed brought the lunch or evening menu for us to choose from. Oh, and it was so nice to have cocktails before dinner. Cocktails whilst wearing flip flops how very funny!

There were other facilites there, it had been an Holistic retreat before being taken over by the current owners, so there was a jacuzzi, some sort of fancy wooden yoga floor, star baths, [apparently you lie in a buble bath and look at the stars], mud bath and spa treatments. I did let Phoebe have a go at my nails which she took one look at and then proceded to tell me off whiilst stressing the word 'nail file'!

Whilst stoping here at Galu, we did have one night up at Sable Valley inlcuded in our holiday. These are two treehouses out in the bush en route to Shimba National Park. The drive itself, once you left the tarmaced highway at Ukunda, are along red dirt tracks and are really interesting. Passing though small villages, seeing local people fetching and carrying large cans of water from bore holes or streams., the strength needed to do this must be immense? The houses were surrounded by vegetable gardens where they were growing maize, casava and other vegetables.

The tree house, well words fail me. Ours was called ndovu in Swahilli, was heavenly, even the no door bathroom wasn't a problem. We watched the sun sink behind the acacia trees, supped sparkling wine in the jacuzi, then tucked into our 3 course supper prepared by Sieed who came with us as chef. Then as the bushbabies started to tune up & the geckos emerged from the grass roof, the large mosquito covered bed was rolled out onto the veranda for us to sleep in under the stars. It was like being 6 again and camping out in the garden and this time there really were wild animals at the bottom of the garden!

The following day after breakfast, we set off to Shimba National Park and spent the morning spotting game with Moulai. Propabley the best bit was watching the pygmy elephant in the undergrowth. Yjere he was totally oblivious to the world, calmly stuffing his face full of greenery - and forgetting to chew, when all of a sudden a large agrigate lorry thundered past. Up went his tail and he began thrashing through the undergrowth trumpeting away. Poor beastie was terrifield!

Our last trip our was 45 minutes south to Gazi, where we took motorboat trip through the mangroves followed by a guided walk along the Women’s boardwalk which was really intersting especially as you could plant mangrove seeds!

The trip home back to Yorkshire went fine, we heard about the very low temperatures and airports being closed yet again so we were pretty lucky that our flights were unaffected. We did however land in a snow storm at Humberside, there was 2 inches of snow on the runway!

Would we go again? In a word yes. This is a place to relax and totally switch off, with a ‘no news, no shoes’ feel. Thank you Doris & your team for such a great holiday!!

The other thing is, my spell checker here on blogger does'nt seem to want to work, hence the mulitude of typos! Sorry.

Update - Press Awards

2010-11-20T14:43:00.000Z

So we went along, no l tell a lie, we sent Harry along [Farmer doesn't really like wearing black tie gear] with the promises of good food & a free night out. As he left, he asked would he need to make a speech if we won? I casually assured him that he wouldn't, just shake hands, smile for the photographer then go and sit down.

I didn't hear Harry come in, but over a late breakfast shared with the previous evening's loot scattered across the kitchen table l was informed that a] the food was blurdey brilliant b] the tables were growning with bottles of plonk and c] he had to make a speech and no he couldn't remember what he said. The award evening, Harry proceeded to inform us, were more MTV than School Prize giving.

So we are now proud holders of the York Press Family Business Award 2010.

PS: in the photo Harry is right in the middle of the shot stopping down behind a brunette [girlfriend] & blond who are in the front row.

Freezers, Awards & Gales

2010-11-11T13:52:00.001Z

It's quiet nice really, the end of the season, a little more opportunity to have 'me' time, relax and generally catch up on things that get side lined during the Summer. The ice cream parlour is now closed on Mondays & Tuesdays, whilst we operate reduced hours during the week, 11 - 4, but remain open as normal during the week end. Don't get me wrong, we are still busy, wholesale orders still come in, farm shops & restaurants busy ordering seasonal & Christmas flavours, best of these seems to be the new winter flavour, damson & plum crumble with Christmas pudding coming in a very close second.

We have some new customers this autumn, with Drewtons Farm Shop holding a very successful opening last weekend with Jenny providing samples of Mr Moo's Real Dairy Ice Cream to the shop's visitors. It's really great to get direct customer feedback and with the new flavours going down an absolute treat! Other major projects this year have seen the building of a new purpose built freezer room, this has made storage a much easier task with easy access to stock & reduced electricity bills! We have also improved the visitor facilities for viewing the livestock. Not content with the freezer room & barns we have also set up an anemometer care of Fastmast, to record wind speeds on the Hill Top field with a view to installing some sort of wind turbine. So you see, nothing just stands still we are always busy with something!

On the farm, the sheep have arrived for winter grazing whilst the red polls heifers & Malcolm the Hereford are now inside for the winter. The sheep today do look pretty miserable as the wind is at storm force and the sharp squally showers seem to resemble water coming out of a pressure washer. The heavy seas at high tide have resulted in large chunks of the SSSI being washed away, ice age peat deposits stand no chance against the pounding waves of high tide. The whole beach area looks as though a tsunami had struck, bolder clay, concrete WW2 defenses being strewn like balsa wood across the sand & clay.

Our seasonal staff have now finished with us until next year whilst Harry & Jenny are starting their Advanced Apprenticeships in food manufacture whilst the rest of us have updated our CIEH stage 3 food hygiene certificates. Some of the photos on food hygiene were pretty gross, the worst being the man from japan who, after eating sushi for many years, had parasitic worms lodged in his brain...............

Well, there go, busy season, sales have gone well with our wholesale customers, we have had some good press coverage in several national publications, and on a whole the summer months have not been too bad. Bookings are starting to come in for next year on the CL site, though we are now an adults only site, with Bank Holidays about fully booked. Wish us luck for next Thursday as we are short listed for in the Family Business category in the York Press Business Awards.

Autumn vacation

2010-10-12T17:27:00.000+01:00

Autumn came with a suddenness that we haven't seen for a while. Past Septembers have been more Indian than an early launch into late wet autumnal weather. Certainly up & down the east coast, the seasonal weather has been, well unseasonal to put it mildly, oh sorry about that! I do really hope that winter in not going to be a repeat of last year's. Snow & cold are fine if you are in the Alps & skiing but when you are having to work and rely on the public it is not so good.

So then, lets get on with the blog. As you may know, we have bought ourselves a motor home, couldn't afford the holiday cottage purchase on the North York Moors so plumped for a movable alternative. In previous Septembers we have flown south heading to the greenness of Corfu, this year we headed north, north to Scotland.

I haven't really been to Scotland before despite having an ancestor marrying a Scottish lady, Miss C MacDonald, in the 1820s. Yer, wasn't too bad you know. Yes it was very wet, the wind howled, the scenery when emerging from the mists was spectacular, the oysters from Kishorn were to die for, the tourist honey pots of tartan & shortcake were, well, not really my cup of tea.

I enjoyed the historic aspects, the harsh northern coast line, the painfully narrow roads that were blissfully empty, was that due to the weather? Then there were the coach loads of Grannies............. Best bits? Thanks to rain, couldn't explore the Culloden battle field site, but l think the vast emptiness of the Western Highlands was pure tranquility. I really can do isolation, just me & the landscape.

We have been away since coming back, nipping down to Devon to have a look at some wind turbines cited on a dairy farm somewhere at the back end of beyond down a myriad of country lanes. We have also, no Farmer, has some good ideas how to improve the CL site for motorhomes next year. Amazing as to how many motorhomes we have had stop here during the summer, Haz thinks it is something to do with being over a certain age, elderly nomads?

Half term is now almost upon us, Christmas seems to be coming at all local garden centers and l have surcombed to the fist of the sniffles and sneezes, great. We are already starting to think about next year, e have erected an anemometer to record wind speed, its standing in the Hill Top field & already accepted by te local birds population who seem to see it as a rather good 'tree' on which to roost.

The CL site is more or less closed for the winter, Caravans & motor homes can park at the end of the car park. Next year we have made the decision to become an Adults Only site, a move widely supported by our regular visitors. I guess it's just how things are moving forward now. Footballs and sat dishes don't really go very well.

The dogs are scratching & howling at the back door, they aren't supposed to come into the house you see . Gordon & Lucy-Piglet need to go and chase more wildlife; they have been ratting this afternoon with Haz; L-P proved to be pretty good despite being a labrador, Gordon, well, not so good a bit like Anne Widdicombe on Strictly, tried hard but showed no real ability!

Ladybirds& Filming

2010-08-20T16:49:00.000+01:00

Now that the summer season is in full swing bringing with it busy roads and grid locked coastal towns, it is sometimes easy to forget that the farming calender continues to creep along in between rain showers. Yesterday saw the last field of winter wheat being combined and field headlands baled before the evening's drizzle called a halt to the contractor's square bale machine.

It always amazes me just how quickly the flocks of geese home in on the newly combined fields, a few small family groups soon become large, sociable flocks honking loudly to one another as they come into land, an amazing sight as the evenings start to draw in, these large birds just skimming over the barn roofs, altering their pitch and air speed as they glide down onto the stubble.

Harvest also brings with it insects. Some are OK others are not so. Thunder bugs, great clouds of them swirl about your head, crawling everywhere on your person when you venture outside, wasps - certainly this is their month - don't they just seen to be all over this summer, haven't found any nests apart from the one that was smashed when the muck spreaders were here, but they just seem to love mr moo's, must be the ice cream? Have you noticed the ladybirds yet? These little red & black bugs seem to be enjoying the coast, just keep munching away on green fly and other pests please, l noticed this morning that they were all over one of the rubbish bins, a black bin covered in moving red dots!

No, don't believe it, have a few moments of doing nothing time & the dogs start woofing, someone at the door, who needs a door bell when Gordon & Lucypiglet let rip with volleys of deep barks every time a stranger approaches their door. I was going to write how busy Haz and Jen have been, well you know that, the car park that's been full most days as well, then there was an article in The Guardian newspaper plus the added excitement of the approaching Bank Holiday closely followed by the BBC filming scenes for a new adaptation of Winifred Holby's South Riding. So not a lot happening really.

The above photo is of Haz and Jen plus calf. They are posing, holding tubs of ice cream for a publicity shot, if you live in Yorkshire you may well see this pinned at point of sale in the ice cream display freezers belonging to Tesco.

Today

2010-08-03T14:34:00.000+01:00

Today has been mad, no l correct that, ridiculous. OK, so it is august, yes the schools are on holiday. yes the roads are rammed pack full of holiday traffic all looking to go somewhere for the day, no, no l am not moaning about the stay-cationers, l am not actually moaning at all, merely stating that today has just been one of those days when things go wrong, pear-shaped, shit hitting the fan type..

It all began to hiccup last friday in fact, one of freezer vans was following a tractor and trailer on the road than runs across the Beverley Westwood, an open common found on the York side of the town and home to the racecourse, golf club and several small herds of beef cattle. A popular place to stroll, indulge in strenuous exercise or walk the dog, not really the place to partake in agressive football target practice using bullocks as The Target or so you would think? Well think again, herd of about 15 beasts average weight about 900kg, bored lads with football looking for something to do. Imagine then, if you will, the cars slowing down, speed limit 40mph, as the small herd slowly walk across the road, a group of French visitors admiring the quaint English countryside when, WHAM WHAM, footballs whiz through the air, THWACK THWACK footballs hits the head of one of the animals as it slowly meanders along. In a matter of seconds, the creature had spun around on sixpence, leapt about, well 3 or 4 feet into the air, coming to land, crump onto the bonnet of the Mr Moo van. Moo crashes into Moo. Moo van = right off Moo Animal galloped off, boys raced away hotly pursued by one very angry farmer.

So there we have it, one van down and that was last week. This morning, no today at lunch time the replacement, C/O NFU Mutual Insurance, freezer van arrived. It was late. We needed it yesterday. All today's orders were ready to go, ASDA stores in Hull together with Hull Truck Theatre then the original van to ASDA York, stress levels rising, do you get the picture? We asked that the freezer be turned on so that we could do a quick turnaround, no luck temperature was at +2, today was feeling more akin to the film Ground Hog Day? Eventually, at last, finally, thankfully the van's temperature had dropped to be usuable, the ice cream loaded on board and within the last few minutes was able to head of with its cargo!

Well, l suppose no real damage has been done, except to our van, life continues, the ice cream has gone out on delivery and l have added three photos from yesterday, one of the Beach Huts from Shanty Town on the cliff top here at Withow, round bales in Colley's Field and one of our Red Polls.

Mid Summer on the Coast

2010-07-17T10:55:00.000+01:00

Today the weather forecast is dry with the odd shower if we are unlucky, this past week, on one hand we have been lucky, the weather has been unsettled, which in lay man's terms means wet & windy. Don't get me wrong, we desperately need the rain, the grass fields are looking to be droughting out badly but then on the other hand the hot, & l mean hot, dry weather of the past month have been wonderful ice cream weather bringing in the punters. Don't we just love the English weather?

As it is a while since my last blog, can l say, what is it with not being able to upload photos from my pc, this business of web albums is a real pain in the butt, talk about time consuming and low broadband speed....... So, l am writing before the pics up load & having a brain with the capacity of diving of on any tangent at any moment what l am typing will probably have very little to do with the photos. At least the spell checker works.

Firstly, Harry &the Brandesburton YFC Team completed this years 50 mile Mega Hike in 23 hours, on what turned out to be a very hot Saturday in late June, 59 teams started whilst only 36 finished. A slight problem for them was that the course took place along parts of the Pennine Way, steep ascents and the like, the bulk of their training had taken place in the flat lands which are Holderness, but they did it with only one member have truly nasty blisters. They raised over £1500.00 which is pretty good going l think well done you lot for doing the walk and the back up team with Hermie the Hymer getting a special mention for being such a uselful back up bus!

This summer we have had about 40 heifers roaming the stewardship grasses, free range so to speak, all well behaved bar 3. These are new comers, from a farm near Bedale, and were completely wild. I say were as they have now gone back to Harpham in disgrace as they did nothing but break every electric fence, knock over as many wooden fence posts as possible on the farm then proceeded to wrap themselves up in the wire or race up to the [fenced] footpath at full speed snorting, bouncing and behaving in a general ASBO style fashion. The fields seem a much more relaxed place to be now, the dogs especially can root around without having to feel that they need to keep their tails clamped firmly between their legs.

So, news from the walk & the farm is suitably updated, so, how's the ice cream & Mr Moo's doing? In the ice cream parlour, our new crop of Moo Team Members are settling in nicely, having quickly picked up the art of the perfect Cowpat or making that superbly frothy cappuccino or quickly clearing & cleaning tables before the next batch of customers arrive looking for a seat. As Captain Cook says 'we have a real good team on for this year!'. We mustn't forget either the hard work put in by Mr Moo and his wholesale & delivery team, speeding up & down the coast delivering ice cream and meeting with new customers, Mr Moo A boards are appearing all over & l have heard a rumor that there is a facebook exercise to attempt photograph Mr Moo's ice cream in as many places as possible.

So finally, l come to the last paragraph, the summing up is it or something like that. It is wonderful or even F.A.B. to have a Proper Summer, sunshine, temperatures in the 80s, blue skies, sun burn which in turn it is great for business that so many people are not traveling into the Euro zone for their holidays; we are almost fully booked for all of July on the Caravan Club CL site, many visitors being first time caravaners. Lets hope that this week's blip in the weather is just that, a blip and in a few days time the weather is back to 'temperatures above average for this time of year'.

Here come the day trippers

2010-04-13T20:19:00.000+01:00

April: At last the sun has come out, the grass is growing & the sky is blue whilst Easter has come & gone like a politician chasing a floating voter. I think therefore, it is fairly safe to say, the 'Season' is upon us. The season that sees empty country roads reduced to a snaking crawl of nose to tail traffic, the season that finds all roads lead to the coast, the season that sees our ice cream vans trundling up and down the Yorkshire Coast restocking beach side kiosks, farm shops, gardens & tourist attractions.

Yes, we have survived Easter, the Caravan Club 5 pitch certified site was, well to be blunt about it, more akin to a swamp than beautifully manicured lawns. Thanks to the pretty aweful winter weather consisting of snow & rain, the ground was, & up until just now, been well & truly water-logged. The forecast for the Bank Holiday was, as is so often the case, broadcasting heavy rain. Did we get this? No. I do get so very angry when l hear the BBC weatherman telling us that 'this weekend the weather is not going to be good........' and then we get sunshine. We got sunshine for the Easter break. Caravans who had parked on the winter hard standing pitches fearing the worse,were able to move onto the gravel trackway in the rally field.

So what about the ice cream parlour? Well, it was MANIC, so very, very busy. All the staff managed really well. Coffees, ice cream sundaes, cakes & lunches being served with not to long a wait for the customers. We have remained busy all through last week, customer numbers being similar to those of August. We were not alone in being hyper-busy, our customers based along the coast have had a similar experience, Hippy Shake at Whitby sold out of ice cream as did the Beach Hut in Sandsend. This is unheard of at this time of year. Sunday we had the car park filled with the rumble of 32 Mazda MX5, c/o the Yorkshire Ridings MX5 Club.

So as l come to my closing paragraph, what happens next & where are we heading to? Well for a start,Tesco [Yorkshire] have had their first delivery of our more unusual flavours which, according to the data, are flying out as fast as the stuff goes into the freezer, so that's pretty encouraging news, must be doing something right, whilst on the farm we are trying to fit in fencing so that the heifers, which are coming over from the farm at Harpham, wont go for a leaisurely stroll along the cliff top! So have l forgotten anything? Hmn, the new investment is a very large white board sat beside me, on which all this week's deliveries are written up on in bright red plus things that are happening or need chasing up or what time is tea.And so on that note, l can hear the kettle boiling away on the aga so had better go and pour some hot water into the tea pot and pass around some cups of Yorkshire Tea.

Nest boxes and lawn mowers

2010-03-18T10:57:00.007Z

I am still coughing away here, brain still feels as though it is stuffed to the gunnels with dense cotton wool, not that l am totally spaced out mind you, just a tadge 'woolly'.

The weather is still improving, such a relief after the coldest winter for 30 years, the daffodils are a last emerging into flower, we might even have to get the lawn mower out to give the Caravan Club site a quick whiz over carefully avoiding the wet bits & boggy bottoms! The hard winter has taken its toil on many of the pot plants on the terrace, the standard lavenders and date palms seem to be well and truly dead, they are no more with no sign of greenness anywhere, shame about that but l will have to look out for some more 'exotic' plants once the fear of late frosts have gone, we are pretty fortunate as we have a garden center outlet, who are also one of our customers, that have a large selection of tropical looking but totally hardy plants. Strange but the olive tree has taken no harm at all.

The woodland planting has in its turn suffered too from the low temperatures & winter blizzards together with those prolonged rabbit attacks resulting in replacing the dead saplings with slightly large plants. Last year, we had to put extra long rabbit guards on all the trees as the rabbits were stripping the bark above the plastic. This year, we have rather a lot of bird boxes to put up around the farm, plus a couple of owl boxes, though the barn owl in the back cow shed seems to be managing OK in the eaves!

The ice cream parlour is now open 7 days a week; orders for ice cream are starting to come in rather nicely from our wholesale customers as the tourists start to emerge after the long winter; the caravan parks are once again open and the coastal resorts are becoming busier with day trippers, or as they say in Yorkshire they have 'comfur-day', together with the early holiday makers taking advantage of the spring weather with its blue skies and sunshine.

Mid March

2010-03-13T11:12:00.007Z

Thank goodness for St David say l, December, January & February were just full of snow, frost and a decide lack of sunshine, then, pow, St David's Day - the sun comes out, ok it's not warm but the daylight hours are lengthening and the sun has emerged after being submerged in a smog of dismal greyness. What l suppose is even more remarkable is that the sun has continued to shine for most of this month. The birds are singing away, the thrush perched on the highest branch of a tree just outside our bedroom window, sparrows moving into nest boxes designed for blue tits and the ducks - The ducks come every spring, taking up residency in the CL field. Every morning they waddle across the car park to the bird feeders which hang from the sycamores next to mr moo's, they check the ground looking for any scraps missed by the chaffinches or blackbirds then after a quick snooze toddle back again to their own special corner which gives them a good vantage point to wag their tail feathers or quack for the attention of passing walkers.

The farm is slowly coming to life, with this winter's wet holes frequented by wildfowl, beginning to recede as the water table lowers. The winter wheat on the cliff top looks a little sick brown and stunted, thanks to those continual easterlies that blew in from the Arctic laced with salt Talking about easterlies, the cliff too has suffered from the harsh on-shore wave action, the pounding of the clay or Skipsea Till to give it its correct name, has turned it into a brown sludgy slurry before being washed away by the action of the sea. This year, as a rough guess, about 2 metres have gone whilst over the past years, since l have lived here we must have lost about half the Cliff Top field to coastal erosion?

So now it is a case of releasing the handbrake as we move forward towards Easter, the ice cream team are already filling the freezers with stock, the car park has been fitted with a new drain to prevent the large puddle that settles in for winter, the grass on the CL site is drying nicely so could be a goer for Easter, and the rabbits are already breeding, well like rabbits what more could you ask for?

Harry Foreman is fundraising for MedEquip4Kids - JustGiving

2010-02-15T15:49:00.002Z

Harry Foreman is fundraising for MedEquip4Kids - JustGiving

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Brandesburton Young Farmers Club are taking part in the 2010 Mega Hike. This is a 50 mile hike which has to be completed in a time scale of 24 hours. Team Brandesburton consisits of 4 walkers and 2 support crew. The walk will be taking place inthe Penines on the weekend of 26th & 27th June 2010. The charity is Med Equip 4 Kids. You can follow the team's progress & training on Facebook.

Please accept my apolgies Mrs S

2010-02-10T12:04:00.009Z

Oh l am sorry Mrs S, your email was sat in my 'inbox' waiting for me when l got home. No. no, no l haven't stopped in my attempts to fill the Internet with bad spelling, punctuation & grammar, it's just that we have been busy at this end.

Thanks to the panto season, ice cream orders for the little pots were amazing, Hull Truck Theatre doing particularly well, closely followed by both Bridlington & Scarborough Spas. Farm shops too were pretty busy with our total stock of Christmas pudding flavoured ice cream being sold out by mid-December with the Cointreau & orange coming in a close second! So you see, no time to hit the keyboard and then in January, time just flew, Harry was skiing with Young Farmers in Val Thorens and we were thinking, 'need a holiday' & 'must get away'.............

Get away we most certainly did. After a lot of trawling the Internet for 'late holiday deals' then reading reports on Trip Advisor we found ourselves sat in the GP's surgery at Leven waiting to have our bodies stuffed full of injections. Well, you don't need jabs to go to Bridlington but you do if you are heading down Africa way, south of the Equator, across Sudan & Ethiopia to Kenya.

After a 24hour delay, thanks to our flight being canceled due to a 'medivac' and spending the first night of our holiday in a Manchester Hotel, we finally hit Mombasa in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The streets of Mombasa were strangely deserted as we speed through, heading for the 'notorious' Likoni ferry and the road south that would take us to Galu Beach, just south of Diani & our Hotel.

Arriving in the dark at about 4.30am local time, we were greeted by ice cold towels and a fresh fruit punch by happy smiling staff who seemed to think nothing of us arriving so late or early depending on which way you look at it.

So this, l suppose, set the scene. The hotel, backing onto Galu beach, was amazing, the staff happy & chatty, the weather hot & sunny, the sea warm and azure blue, who could ask for more!

Before we left, l had done some research on the National Parks and safaris. Being keen followers of anything coming out of the BBC's Natural History unit and as we were actually in East Africa, a safari should feature somewhere on our itinerary. Before leaving home l had contacted several local safari companies, the choice being once again being based on reviews on Trip Advisor. No easy choice l can tell you as none have prices posted on their web sites, and you need to pick any over night accommodation that you require, OK, you have a list so a case of deciding tent or walls.

At the end of the day, we plumped for a two day safari encompassing Tsavo East & West, staying overnight at the Severin Safari Camp in Tsavo West. We booked the trip with our new best friend, Julius C.K. Nzumbi & his company, Julius Safaris. All l can say is AMAZING! The drive to the park was a safari in itself; so much to see along the way, houses, villages, the local inhabitants, then the parks.

The scenery in Tsavo East is flat, a bit like Holderness with out the drainage dykes, and animals, elephants and more elephants, giraffe, gazelle, zebra, our driver/guide making sure our cameras missed nothing that moved! Lunch was spent at Voi safari lodge, sited high up on a bluff overlooking the Savannah below, peppered with water holes around which families of elephants relaxed.

It is a long way, believe me, a lot of driving and if you are a poor traveler take a large packet of travel sickness pills with you for you haven't finished the day's game drives yet! From Tsavo East we drove across to Tsavo West via the Man-eaters bridge. A railway bridge built by the British in the late 19thC, plagued by 2 man eating lions who devoured a great many Indian workers before being shot by Col. Paterson who lay in wait with his guns. Sorry, Mrs S, l seem to absorb trivia.

The landscape, here in Tsavo West, is truly awesome. Loved it. Volcanic hills, rugged rocks, black lava flows, dramatic landscapes, few tourists. Loved it, loved it, loved it. We decided to give the Rhino sanctuary a miss as it was now 4pm & poor old Mr Moo was having a seriously bad reaction to Malerone [the anti malaria tablets] plus l had forgotten the Qwells, was in need of a cup of tea and a cold towel. As we drove to Severin, the landscape continued to enthrall, totally mind blowing! The camp, my god, we were met by a real Masai complete with pointy stick! Never had an iced Tusker tasted so good as we sat in comfy sofas watching the giraffe grazing the acacia trees just metres from the lodge! And it got better. As the sun set the frogs began singing in stereo, hippos emerged from their water holes with an amazing grace for such a bulky creature. Once the light had failed we had to press the 'escort button' to bring an armed guard to take us to super; no fences between us and the wildlife you see, the animals, in this case the hippos with wind were only yards away & very dangerous! Amazing, truly amazing. The food in the middle of the bush was mouthwatering delicious, the tent was, and l do NOT camp, was unlike any tent l have seen, fabulous. So there we were, in the bush sleeping in tents serenaded by hippos and frogs whilst in the morning we were woken by the songs from the finches and weaver birds. We staid till 8.30, leaving reluctantly to head back down the Mombasa highway, an exciting drive through Mombasa itself to the Likoni ferry, then back to base where once again we were welcomed by those oh so cool towels & fruit punch. I could see myself getting used to this life l can tell you!

So, we are back now, the flight was almost on time, the UK weather cold & snowy. I have replied to my emails, caught up with the accounts and Harry & Jenny, who incidentally are adorning the freezer cabinets in Tesco, attended the Meet the Buyer session at the Yorkshire Showground. So what are my thought of the holiday now? Amazing, the locals are happy, polite and friendly, the country is full of so much to see, will we go back? Yes, not the same hotel as all inclusives are not, if l am really honest, our cup of tea, but l have spotted on the Internet several small hotels in the Diani region that have now been 'bookmarked' for future reference and no l am not putting up a link for those!

So, l hope, Mrs S, you will forgive me for not having written for such a while and look forward to seeing you soon!

Only a few days left

2009-12-17T09:37:00.004Z

I hadn't realised that it was over a month ago that l last hit the New Post button on Blogger. It's been busy. Usually, this time of year we have time to slow down, relax, put our feet up. This year, well no. The Shop has been steady away, which is normal, but the wholesale has been busy. Our theatre customers & farm shops have been very busy, in fact, we are all but sold out of the Christmas pudding flavour! That's good.

The schools break up this Friday for Christmas, so we will remain open this Monday & Tuesday, closing for the Christmas holidays on 23rd, reopening on the following Tuesday, closing again, just for the day on New Years Day. We have had notices up to let customers know for the past month, but l expect someone will try to get in on Boxing Day! Hey Ho!

The sheep:- well what about them? These lot of fluffy anarchist seem to do nothing but escape, they make Shaun the Sheep look like an amateur! Under electric fences, barging at gates, squeezing through tight spaces that no sheep should attempt to squeeze! The Great Escapees these little lot! It started with just one sheep, Hilda, she with the wall eye; she was out, all alone, walking the farm walk. Two days later, there was Hilda and friend walking along the path. By the end of the week she was calmly munching away with a dozen compatriots. Yes, we kept checking the electric fence; we caught her last week, walking under the galvanized gate, pushing it high on its hinges as she went! We have moved the soggy baggages into new pasture, and yes they have escaped, well only Hilda & Maud so far, who l have caught 3 times trimming the short grass in the caravan park!

So, this is it, Christmas. Time fly's by when your having fun. Have sort of got into the pre-Christmas thing following a 'moving into new house' visit to Sallyschateau in Carcassonne, ice rinks and ferris wheels, penguins and polar bears NOT forgetting the tres chic elderly lady who wore huge sunglasses at night whilst on top of her head, perched at a jaunty angle, a jet black fedora.

Happy Christmas!

Christmas food & Harry

2009-11-17T13:27:00.008Z

It's strange isn't it how once Halloween is over and done with, the shops decided that its 'time for Christmas'. Our farm shop & garden centre customers have been transformed into Santa's Magical Wonderland, all twinkly lights, ho ho ho's & scrumptious looking hampers, overflowing with the epicurean delights that are Christmas.

I am one who feels Christmas is at Christmas not 6 weeks before, but, we have to prepare and make those festive flavours that plump out our order books at this time of the year. Yes, ice cream is an all year round delicacy, so this year we are making Christmas pudding, cranberry & redcurrant, marzipan and cointreau & orange flavoured ice cream. So far, the Christmas pud & the cranberry are the favourites with our customers. I have noticed that many of the food magazines are featuring Christmas pud ice cream in their festive menus. Good choice!

Returning my previous blog, Harry was amazed at all the responses, he doesn't feel as though he is any different to anyone else, such modesty. Someone asked how we had managed to get Harry motivated, how much push and shove had we given him. The truth is, in fact, we did very little, no not being cruel or neglectful, but explaining that a] this was the problem, b] this is how you can learn to cope and adapt to dyslexia & finally c] we can't make you do this but everything is in place ready for you to try. I know that computer games are slammed by so many 'experts' but we have found playing them in Harry's case, really jumped started his reading and comprehension, because he HAD to read & HAD to understand the on-screen instruction, oh and then there are the benefits to the hand eye co-ordination. He tried. He tried so hard, A's for effort, not so good for exams but you can't win all the time now can you? It's hard with exam results, your friends tell you how well their offspring are doing at school, 'little Freddy has got straight A's', it's normal, parents boast. You just have to let go, ignore little Freddy's results, and smile. Everything is a bonus, you know how much effort it takes to get a D grade, for Harry, he has been spared the pressure of getting good grades in readiness for university, he was able to enjoy his teens.

Well, there you are then, a quick little bit of extra concerning Harry, who has been busy making mango sorbet today. Just don't give up or let them give up, but what ever you do, don't take the fun out of learning by pushing, it's a bit like schooling a young horse, you don't want to present it to a fence beyond it's current ability and over face it, putting it off for ever.

dyslexic child

2009-11-04T13:29:00.005Z

Today, as usual l am sat in the dining room cum office, catching up on the accounts. As is always the case, l am daydreaming, my excuse for wasting time. I am emailing, chatting on skype, listening to the wireless. I have in front of me, on the floor 6 large piles of A4, bills paid, bills to pay, bank downloads, remittance advices, VAT print outs, it looks very organized. it should be all filed away in the colorful collection of folders shoved onto the shelves. They are not and l am just getting ready to hole punch.................

The internet is wonderful. I can sit here, listening to the wireless and the current item on the Jeremy Vine show on radio 2 is continuing the theme on the best childrens bedtime stories, the choice is down to the final 8 titles.

As a child, in fact even now, l am what you could call a 'book gobbler'. I read, l read obsessively. I have favourite authors and pre-order their new titles. I have books everywhere. On book shelves, next to my bed, in the bathroom, in the spare bedrooms, any flat surface you will find books. Paperbacks, hardbacks staked precariously in large, wobbly piles. Farmer suggests that it might be an idea to open a used book stall in the garage. I don't think so.

I am side tracked, l was going to mention my favourite childhood reads but, well never mind my brain is off on a different tangent. When Harry was born, l would read all about hungry caterpillars and fierce bad mice and wondering hedgehogs. As he got older would buy stories for him to read and enjoy. He preferred story tapes and would be able to recite all the Roald Dahl stories word perfect. By the time he reach 6, his reading was pretty bad, a real struggle, a chore more akin to pulling teeth than something of pleasure. Needless to say, l was concerned. A visit to the village school and discussion with teachers did not exactly allay my worries. To me, and as there is dyslexia in the family, Harry was showing the classic signs.

We moved school, Harry traveling up to Scarborough everyday and within his 1st week at the new school he had been booked for assessment with the Dyslexic Institute. Dyslexic, Harry was dyslexic, high IQ but disorganized, dancing words & letters chasing each other across the pages, the world seen as a multi-layered 3D adventure. For the duration of his school years, he attended the Dyslexic Institute. He learned to touch type, to organise his time, to learn how to manage his pictorial world in the flat real world.

Harry, is now 21. He runs the ice cream production side of the business. His spelling is still truly unique and he still sorts out problems using the 'picture in the head technique'. He has found a balance, he still hates reams of text, but just gets on with it; he plans out his day so he knows where he is and doesn't get lost. Pretty amazing really, well done Harry, your hard work has paid off!

The picture is totally unrelated to this blog, but it is of the beach.

half term is almost over

2009-10-29T14:15:00.006Z

Here we are then, closing days of October 2009, half term nearly at an end but, the weather, so very un-Octoberish. Temperatures in the high teens. No frosts or early snow, just blue skies and sunshine. Hells teeth l am not complaining. Mr Moo's has had a good week with visitors, both regulars and newbies paying us a visit, coming for that special treat or for top up on ice cream, any guilt about those calories being erased by a gentle walk down to the beach along the farm walk.

It has been a pretty good summer for our wholesale customers too as holiday makers indulge in this year's trend of 'staycation'. In fact, Hippy Shake in Whitby is looking forward to a major ghoulish weekend, serving up such delicately named flavours as 'blood n guts' and 'bramble stoker'. Whitby, to the uninitiated is not only home to the most exquisite fish & chips but also to Dracula who can been seen most days stalking through the town followed by his acolytes, dressed to impress in layers of black & grey wearing the most incredible gothic footwear that looks more like surgical boots than jimmy choo!

So, there you go. A busy week for everyone, here on the coast. Families enjoying quality time together, a walk along the sea front combined with a bucket & spade day, something simple & fun. Memories are made of this, it may not be the Mediterranean, but the weather has been glorious and the English pound buys so very much more than the Euro!

PS: the first picture is of the new fish restaurant in Leeds, Nash's on Merrion Street.

Blue plastic bags

2009-10-20T17:46:00.008+01:00

Today, right at this very minute l am cross, very cross, blurdey MAD to tell the truth. Why oh why do people in cars view the countryside as a free for all rubbish dump? We know from the detritus strewn along the grass verge that it takes from the local MacDonald's to here to eat a Big Mac meal, we have tesco carrier bags stuffed full of picnic waste, carefully tied and then hurled from passing car windows. Why?

So, by this evening, after having attended a nervous persons all time nightmare in the form of an HSE meeting, that l saw a white van. l was enjoying the final leg of the farm walk, dogs walking smartly to heel at this point. This was not any white van but a YEDL one, well, actually a contractor to YEDL. It was pulled in casually just alongside the roadside gate with its back doors pulled wide open, a man rustling about in the back. Nothing suspicious about that, perhaps someone was having a pee or bird spotting? Then l saw it, or rather HIM. He was carrying a blue carrier bag, carefully tied at the top to prevent anything 'spilling 'out in the back of his van. Then, with the skill of a Driffield rugby club player, tossed the bag with amazing accuracy into the hedge bottom in the corner of the footpath.

Well, l am a bit of a rottweiler when roused and l was roused! Marching across with Gordon & Lucy-Piglet in tow, l shouted into the back of the van. He must have had a hearing problem as there was no answer. Bang bang, l rapped on the door. A face appeared looking not exactly pleased. 'What the hell are you doing' l thundered? 'Take your flipping rubbish home with you!' l continued, my voice becoming more 'Cheltenham' by the minute.

He looked even more angry; me a mere woman telling him off? Poor deluded fellow must have thought l was really stupid, he told me this was work things for tomorrow which he would collect in the morning. Farmer drove past in the JCB. ' That's the farmer', l said, not at all sure that this guy was going to back down. l continued, 'rubbish does not biodegrade in hedge bottoms and dustmen do not walk along footpaths collecting trash, l have to do that!'. I stood there, glaring at him. Lucy-Piglet looking fierce. The prat tried again, ' I am coming back tomorrow to fix the electricity pole'. Aha thinks l, that pole there by the bunker belongs to US and is not connected to the mains. My remark was oh so casual, ' & will that be to bring more rubbish to join that bag over there?'.

He gave up. Leapt over the gate [ impressive] collected the rubbish bag, threw it in the back of the van. I stood on guard just in case he chucked it back when my back was turned and waited purposefully until he drove of.

Farmer, when l told him about the YEDL contract man, asked had l got the van number. Ergh men.

Sir Jimmy and a large ship

2009-10-16T16:58:00.006+01:00

So we were delivering ice cream to Cobble Landing this lunch time, when Stu casually mentions in passing that The Queen Mary was sailing close in to Filey at about 1'ish. Quick check of multi-coloured Swatch watch which reads 12.45 followed by hard stare out to sea, 'it's going to be more like 3', replied the amusement arcade chap from next door. The slight crowd thronging the sea front at Filey might be in for a wait.

No such wait in the bracing sea air for us, mon brave. Onward with deliveries, mustn't keep the customer waiting. In Scarborough, Farmer parked up on North Marine Drive with the van window facing North Bay & then scuttled purposefully off to meet with a possible new customer. The cars casually drove along Marine Drive, pedestrians ambled passed as the tide came in, their dogs held firm on leads whilst the waves roared up the beach and then crashed down on the sea walls.

From the first picture, you can see the weather was bright and cheerful although out to sea, to the north, there was a squall bustling towards the land. By about half part two, the roadside car parking began to fill. People emerged clutching binoculars and cameras. wearing woolly hats rammed down hard on their heads. The squall got ever closer, the waves even larger. The weather clamped down, visibility at a minimum.

Suddenly there she was, bow emerging from behind the castle headland. Traffic stopped, people braved the sea spray and rain, cameras flashed as automatic flashes went off. The ship's passengers flashed back in unison. Then, slowly the Queen Mary turned, once past the Sea Life Centre, to head back out to sea, disappearing into the gloom that had by now completely enveloped North Sea.

The last time a large cruise liner came THIS close was a few years back, when local resident, Sir Jimmy Saville Fixed It for himself to embark locally via fishing boat. This time our local celebrity was going to join the cruise in Edinburgh this evening and so had asked Cunard to Fix It for the inhabitants of Scarborough to receive a right royal sail past!

Ideas & days out

2009-10-14T10:42:00.008+01:00

From now on in, the ice cream parlour and wholesale becomes a lot less manic, it gives us a well earned break but also, more importantly, a chance to forward plan for the next 12 months.

This summer we ran an competition for our customers to design a new flavour to grace our pots, the response was immense and we are still sifting through the entries looking for that winning entry.

Other interesting things that happen during the Autumn and winter months are 'days out,' or to be more correct, an 'afternoon away''. While most people have days out during the summer months, we have to wait until things quieten down before we can hit the road and visit the many wonderful sights that are to be found here in Yorkshire.

Photos: Fountains Abbey, near Ripon.

Timewasting

2009-10-09T10:09:00.007+01:00

This week l don't seem able to settle down and concentrate, l fidget and waffle about, drink coffee, walk the dog, sweep up the leaves and open the shop but l just can't sit down in the office, open up the accounts software program and get cracking on invoices, bills, statements and bank reconciliations. The mind is not engaged. The computer is turned on, the pages from ebay open, emails shoot back & forth but, as the business returns to the seasonal norm perhaps l too am slowing down or am l getting ready to either hibernate or fly south for the winter?

The geese stream across the sky & l watch. Where would l go? I think l might like to visit India and travel around in an elderly car taking in the sights and sounds and smells. Staying overnight in glittering palaces, sipping gin & tonic as the sun sets behind the Himalayas. Riding through the tea plantations as dawn breaks.

Oh hell, you daft bat, stop it. Pull yourself together. You must ring up that customer who hasn't paid for 8 weeks and give them what for................!

The Big Birthdays

2009-09-29T17:24:00.009+01:00

1959 & 1988 heralded the arrival of the 2 reprobates who live here; Haz celebrated his 21st in August without too much fuss whilst Farmer has got to the grand old of 50 without loosing his hair and having an almost full set of teeth. A celebration of some description had been discussed months back but as with most things once the Summer Season arrives, everything else bar business flies very rapidly out of the window. Anyway l did remember to organise birthday presents for the 'lads', a couple of circuits at high speed driving ariel atom cars on the race track at Elvington near York. The date booked was for last Sunday.

As the departure date loomed ever closer for our annual sojourn to Corfu, the 'Party Planner Action Plan' kicked into operation. So that week prior to heading off for 7 days of grilled sardines and king prawn saganaki, the local butcher's hog roast contraption was hired, a friend's marquee was booked [avalon marques] plus twinkly lights as an 'extra' thanks to Lucy-Piglet's over protective attention providing ventilation to the posterior and of course the disco music chappy. Not a lot of fuss we had said, you know friends, family all pretty laid back.............

Ok, so it is great to GO AWAY, but, oh dear me, the return to reality. Mail to sort, bills to chase up not to mention the washing and those mosquito bites. I was more or less organised, l did know what l HAD to do and how go about everything in the party planner modus operandii guise. So Friday saw me speeding, as if you can from Beverley to Kingswood Shopping Centre [Hull], tracking down items from my every growing list; balloons - black & white, garden flares x 5, helium x 2, cellophane x ++ metres, tissue paper x black +++, and finally liquid refreshment - wine: red / white, larger, cider, bitter. Easy l hear your say? Well no actually, l spent most of the day hunting for the items to cross of the list. I tell you, my feet were killing me by the time l got home!

Writing this, l really think that l must have had a brain malfunction. Myself & Lora basically, on the Sunday morning, got the tent decorated and then a pile of 'stuff' ready to transport into the shop at closing time. Yes, we were open until 5.00pm. Balloons, flowers replaced menus and salt & pepper pots whilst Yorkshire curd tart was replaced in the cake cabinet by bottles of wine. Outside, the patio tables were to be illuminated by candles whilst the herb border by tea lights suspended in jam jars. I think l might have overdone the candle thing..

The sun set, the Disco Man & Butcher arrived baring sound systems and roast pig, the candles were lit and our car park began to fill with cars as our guests began to arrive. Gosh, were we lucky with the weather. The evening was balmy and mild with little breeze to stir the leaves of the trees that over look the terrace. People mingled and chatted, friends caught up on news and gossip. The younger ones sat outside under the stars munching roast pork with sage & onion stuffing topped off with home-made Bramley apple sauce. As the evening progressed and the air temperature dropped people drifted into the tent to dance to some sort of music, which although not to my taste, seemed to go down rather well.

I would be lying if l said that l wasn't knackered, it has been hectic, but l think we might have just pulled it off. The idea was to keep it simple, it was. No ties, no presents, no plates, people relaxed and happy. The Hazz's friends all behaved pretty well and exhibiting none of the drunken yobbishness that we read about in the Daily Mail. So that's it then, no more Big Do's for at least another 10 years..................

Late September

2009-09-26T11:20:00.005+01:00

Just when you think that the warmth of the summer months has gone, you are surprised by a last blast of the sun's warmth, although the nights are now drawing in and the evenings cooler, the days feel warm and balmy. The Indian Summer. September, which last year was wet and dank topped by the global down turn, has been replaced this year with a warm & very, very dry September

Already the skies and stubble fields are proving welcome resting stations for the flocks of pink footed geese that noisily swoop low over head, making their final approach into wind to roost over night on the Cliff Top field which as yet has not been cultivated and thanks to the combine misfunction seems to have plenty of wheat left on the ground.

The hedgerows too seem to be enjoying a bumper harvest, along the farm walk the rowans are positively groaning under the weight of their glossy berries, hips & haws make up the contingent of the brilliants reds whilst the blackberries & elderberries tempt in the small flocks of birds with their juicy, sweet fruit. Thistles that we left for the wildlife are now awash with frothy white seed heads providing a welcome snack bar for the gold finches which provide a flash of bright colour as they flit from plant to plant. The hedgerows seem to be at their noisiest what with the twittering and chirping of the frantically feeding bird. The countryside is at its peak, a mad flurry of fruit & seeds, falling leaves and migrating birds, a rush before the slowing down of life in the approaching winter months.

So where has Summer gone then?

2009-09-21T12:24:00.007+01:00

Phew, that was jolly fast, not my car doing 100mph, but the summer. it really has been a full on one, what with the stay-cations and fine August. Now, as l sit here in the office, stuffing remittance advices into envelopes whilst trying to locate the stamps, l actually have time to write something!

Certainly we have had a pretty busy time, not just in the ice cream parlour but also with the caravan site AND of course the wholesale side of the business too. Harry & Jenny were kept on their toes making ice cream five days a week whilst deliveries were flying out up & down the coast and inland to the West Riding. In fact we were having to nip up as far north as Whitby twice a week! And now? Well things are slowing down, the parlour is still busy on a weekend but weekdays are pleasantly copeable, affording time to do big chats to customers and generally enjoying life! I wonder how the winter months will do?

So, back to work then, l am refreshed after a week once again in Corfu, coming back on Friday. Villa was lovely, food was aMazing the Eucalyptus in Agg Steff is the favourite at the moment, with Taverna Agni coming a close second though there did seem to be rather a lot of Russians about with their, um, companions lolling around Agni in various stages of undress. Poor FIL didn't know where to look, though it would appear Harry most certainly did!

Anyway, just a brief scribble as you can see, but no doubt more will appear here over the coming weeks as l spend less time playing accounts and more times surfing ebay and planing next year's Corfiot holiday, must check flights................

an apology

2009-07-27T14:21:00.003+01:00

Ok sorry, no blog for +vly months, SORRY BEEN BUSY. actually very very VERY busy, the East Yorkshire Coast is obviously THE place to be this summer, miles of empty sandy beach, fab food, glorious scenery and wonderful people.

Quickly doing the catch up thingy, l have 15 minutes before heading off up the coast to Whitby delivering ice cream: -

June = went to Fornalux, Mallorca, made loads of ice cream survived half term.
July - what's left of it;
visited last ever Royal Show which was very much the dead donkey
met up with fellow country bloggers at Great Yorkshire Show
avoided the traffic grid lock that was Driffield Show
changed my car to an audi TT roadster
did a spot on the local, never heard radio
delivering ice cream everywhere
look to be in need of a major service and plenty of botox plus a serious
face lift OR a month in an exotic spa somewhere.

As you can see, my sense of humour is still there somewhere amongst the waffle cones and escaping heifers who now have the company of a little brown bull, a red poll l think is the correct breed?

Must go speak later.................

panic stations

2009-05-27T15:15:00.004+01:00

Ok, so we are now half way through the week of 'no school' that is Spring Bank Holiday or what was in my day, Whit Week. I feel as though l have aged 5o years and don't look much better either, there l was thinking that l was a Boden Mum. No, l am just a slave to the general public, making lunches, pouring coffees, clearing tables. Oh well it beats helping to calve a cow at 3 in the morning or having to miss a christening because the herdsman is off sick.

It has been amazingly busy this week; last week we made no ice cream, instead moving a large blast freezer, which is now accessible through a new freezer door from the production room. The space it has created is brilliant, we now have room for all the equipment, including the pot filler & metal detector. The team today are making up for lost time and are busy making 4.7ltr tubs of royal bourbon vanilla and our natural mint choc chip, closely watched through the viewing window by small children. We have had so many new customers come to visit this holiday, families, grandparents, teens all ages in fact; the footpath has been well and truly walked and ice cream cones and lattes munched or sipped with gusto. To be fair, up and down the coast, traders are reporting that is is seriously busy with people re-discovering the joys of the English seaside holiday. Virtually all our coastal customers have run out of ice cream and orders are being processed at the moment, ready for delivery. Many of our cafe customers have commented on how busy we actually are, for example we have seating for 80 inside, and all seats were taken for the 2 hours of lunch time service, l think that about 90 lunches were prepared and a huge amount of cappuccinos, lattes, milkshakes and smoothies served, times like this you could do with a larger, 4 headed barista machine!

To relax after a full on day in the ice cream parlour is a stroll down to the beach with the dogs - no one about, the beach empty just a few common terns diving for sand eels as the tide creeps up the beach. And how to set up for the day? Well, the last few mornings have seen perfectly blue skies, the sea flat as a mill pond, no one about, the dogs have the beach to themselves, sand martins swooping low over the cliffs , oyster catchers screaming at the dogs, and the batteries quickly recharge, if only l could bottle it..........

Well behaved dogs & children

2009-05-19T12:40:00.006+01:00

Half term is approaching fast now, caravaners are arriving so it's a case of keeping the grass cut as soon as a van moves off whilst this bank holiday weekend sees the CL site full as well as the Rally Field. Lets hope they all behave, keeping dogs on leads and children under control. It is so very annoying when dogs are left to their own devices running about pooping au natural, strange because when you mention the signs both on the CL site and on the footpath 'dogs on leads' you are told that 'my dog is well behaved'. There have been several dogs gone AWOL over the past weeks, the temptation of a plethora of rabbits and the elusive sent of roe deer. is just too much for a pet more used to the scent of tarmac. So much for well behaved mutes, then, there are the children who are seem to be left to their own devices, much akin to the doggy one, hells teeth, this is a working farm, animals, tractors, bales DANGER! Perhaps l have missed something, l was brought up to always finish a meal before commencing on the pudding.

Being on the coast we have a interesting collection of coastal wartime defenses, one of which has been restored by a group of enthusiasts. The bunker was de-commissioned about 20 years ago and was maned by the Royal Observer Corps, the task being to watch for & identify incoming enemy aircraft and then during the Cold War years to monitor the 'flash'. The site is fully nuclear proof, but very small, in fact mind numbingly small. Strangely, the direct line to Whitehall was above ground supported by wooden telegraph posts.

Good news for our attempt to reduce carbon footprint, we have had our planning application upheld and can now go ahead with the installation of a wind turbine, with the aim of producing 40% of our electrical requirements.

Finally, what is going on in Parliament? Can someone please explain why MPs feel that the law does not apply to them? Perhaps it is time that Brown and his bunch of crooks started to behave like 'statesmen' and went to the country, but there again these money grabbing, weasel featured creatures who wouldn't know the meaning of truth if it hit them on the head, are not statesmen.

Rain

2009-05-16T10:46:00.006+01:00

Over the past few weeks, the ground has become dryer and dryer, cracking in a most dramatic fashion, large fissures appearing welcoming the unsuspecting beetle. Crops have been looking a bit stressed, oil seed rape especially suffering after such a bad drilling season last autumn. Beginning of the week, BBC weather showed a final glimmer of sunshine before rain hit the north east at the week end. This last chance of ideal silage weather erupted in a frenzy of cutting, turning and clamping in an effort to cut that all so important crop whose nutrition content is at its highest. The clouds scurried across just as the last load was wrapped and storred. It can now rain, soft rain gentlely soaking into the dry soil, slicking down the dirt.

So how are the cows doing - big changes have taken place, our animals have moved 6 miles away to a neighbour's farm who is now in the final process of setting up his own dairy bottling the farm's supply of milk: the brand name is St Quintin's. So, from now on we are collecting both milk and cream from Lowthorpe on a weekly basis, pasturising on a Monday, then making ice cream tuesday to thursday. Keep it local says l, previously we had been buying in cream from Dairy Farmers of Britain, now our cows are helping to produce both the cream & milk.

This week has also seen a rush in inquiries from new customers, ice cream samples have been taken Whitby, Leeds, Northallerton and York. Whilst first deliveries have been taken to Whitby Pavillion and the wonderful sounding farm shop, Hares Leap.

Finally, for any visitors next week, Haz & Jen are not making ice cream until the folowing week as we are doing a major move of freezers, freeing up space in the production room.

Mid May

2009-05-11T13:43:00.003+01:00

Time is racing away from me. Snow and low temperatures have been replaced by May blossom flowering and the count down to first cut silage. So much has been happening over the intervening weeks that my keyboard has a problem in keeping up with the bad spelling and punctuation! Joke.

Perhaps the major update to the farm is the transferring of cows to Lowthorpe; here some more dairy farmers are going full throttle into the added value theme, not cheese or ice cream but bottling the farm's milk for their new brand St Quintin's Creamery, sorry no web site yet, so it makes more sense for us to collect both cream and milk from one spot. Our cows seem to have settled in nicely, after time spent in quarantine, whilst rather a large number of glamorous heifers and matronly dry cows have moved to the seaside for the summer! These girls are really showbiz celebs, every time they spot walkers perambulating along the permissive footpath, they race across the field, leaping, bouncing and doing handstands in a hope that they might win a place on Britain's Got Talent!

Now that summer is more or less on our door steps, we are once again opening 7 days a week, taking advantage of the noticeable increase in visitors to the Yorkshire coast. Over the Easter break, all holiday cottages and caravan sites in this part of the world were full, and this looks to be repeated over the coming bank holidays. A return to the traditonal summer holiday - buckets and spades, macks and brollys? Lets hope that the weather doesn't let us down, l have noticed that the oak is out before the ash so does that mean we will just get a splash? Oh, l do hope so, there is nothing more sole destroying than wearing wellington boots in August!

Sorry no photos, my camera has met with a rather nasty accident.

Planning ahead

2009-03-28T10:59:00.011Z

The weather forecast for the past few days has been dire, but here the sun has remained shining and the sky blue, OK we have had the odd little shower but nothing like forecast, our own little micro climate perhaps?

With the clocks changing tomorrow and the start of a new month on Wednesday, we revert to our Summer Opening hours; open daily from 10.00am until 5.00pm. Already the season seems to be starting early and in all seriousness looking at the increase in footfall, l am in need of a seasonal, part-time cake baker / cook, Jenny our secret weapon, is now back in the ice cream production room four days a week with Harry making loads of Mr Moo's wonderful ice cream so is now unable to produce such exquisite, delectable delights as florentine slice, flapjacks whilst her bakewell tart is just to die for. Perhaps l could clone her?

PS, who has been on maternity leave returns to the fold at the beginning of May, I just hope that Dan-the-Man, returning from Leeds Uni for the Easter Holidays, has been doing lots of stamina building exercises in preparation for the lunch time onslaught! I think in a previous life he must have been a fighter pilot, always calm no matter how stressful it gets in the kitchen!

This season we have added some new ice cream sundae creations to go along with the Cowpat & Mega Moo, we are intending to hold the sundae prices the same as last year, what with the credit crunch and all that. Interestingly, we have noticed a strong upturn in sales of ice cream cones, especially the more luxurious ones, you know, the chocolate dipped waffle cones as well as the dipped cones dunked in chocolate sprinkles. Wonder if that will be the trend for the coming summer?

Always one to be aware of the new trends, Mr Moo has become a tweet, being part of the strange phenomena that is twitter. It is slightly weird, but then don't we live in a strange world anyway?

Free advert

2009-03-25T17:39:00.007Z

Spring, tra-la. It seems to be on its way, after so much snow and frost, blue skies, wall to wall sunshine and a rise in air temperature seems to be tempting out the new leaves of the hawthorn and the flowering of blackthorn bushes. Even the wet holes seem to be less wet. Spring, Spring, Spring.

Ice cream production is now getting back into full swing, with many of our coastal customers reporting a noticeable increase in visitors numbers already this year, all good stuff. Certainly the 5 pitch caravan club site is fully booked now for all this years Bank Holidays, every day we are getting people inquiring as to Easter availability.

Last week, we had a slight stroke of luck resulting in a bit of free publicity, Chris Berry, a Yorkshire based journalist, rang on the off chance of coming and doing a bit of a story on us for the Yorkshire Post's weekend issue, to appear in the Country Week supplement. Luckily, the team was making ice cream, so Chris was all geared up in full protective clothing, white hat and coat plus a most becoming blue hair net with a sliver stripe running down the middle! The following photo session had the team grinning expertly at the camera. I too was unfortunately captured on film, looking all 'calm' and 'relaxed' leaning on a gate whilst my fingers were being sucked off by one of the heifers! Saturday's article.

The weekend was extremely busy with us completely selling out of Jenny's famous caramel shortbread!

Mad March

2009-03-17T17:16:00.008Z

What glorious weather we are having at the moment, sunshine, blue skies and dare l say it, mild temperatures, wonderful. After my last bit of blogging concerning the vanishing lumps of concrete and reinforcing of sea defenses, it is with some relief that l can happily note that all activities in this direction have ceased. Nothing has moved in the past week.

The marked change in weather has seen an upturn in visitor numbers to the coast as families seem to be taking advantage of good value family days out. Who needs to spend hours waiting in airports when it is so very easy to drive to wonderful coastal areas where a walk on the beach or an hour or two spent rock pooling costs nothing, mind you an ice cream usually makes a nice little treat that doesn't break the bank! It is fascinating really, that the newspapers and politicians are full of grim news, yet people seem to be rediscovering perhaps, the more simple things in life, you don't need to be constantly spending on this latest gadget or that even better more desirable thingummy bob to enjoy yourself. Fresh air, a seaside promenade and a bag of chips soaked in lashings of vinegar, who could ask for more?

Now with the all too rapid approach of Easter, we are trying to finish off those last minute maintenance tasks, weeding the herb patch that surrounds the terraced area, stuffing the planters to overflowing with brightly coloured spring bedding, washing the interior walls and repainting plus all the other normal everyday tasks that just keep the place running more or less smoothly for most of the time. This Sunday is Mother's Day, usually a busy one for us, and for this year's Mother's Sundae we are looking at a little something based around meringue, fresh fruits, ice cream, cream and chocolate, should go down nicely l think!

Distruction at Withow Gap

2009-03-09T17:42:00.006Z

This morning should have been a lovely one, the sun was shining, clear blue skies that in this part of the world seem to go on for ever until disappearing into the distant horizon. Dogs frolicking about, chasing rabbits and searching out for anything dead that might just prove to be one more delicious Scooby snack.
This week the tides are out during the morning, right out past the old rusting supports from some pre-war jetty, miles of pristine sand, interrupted only by the concrete tank traps and pill boxes left insitu since WWII. The tank traps, slowly being eroded by the action of the North Sea, are gradually being colonised by barnacles, mussels and seaweed, sometimes totally exposed by the action of the sea, other times covered by sand. These important 20th Century bits of modern archaeology have proved a really useful asset to protect the SSSI, which is Withow Gap, from rapid coastal erosion it has also provided a good anchorage point to prevent the currents removing sand from this stretch of beach, perhaps though for several generations of children, these concrete outposts have been an impromptu table or chair for that high summer picnic.

It was therefore with some sense of outrage, and thank the gods l had my camera with me, that today the large concrete lumps have been wrenched from their resting place of 60 years, torn from the beach and dragged off a mile up the beach to Ulrome where someone, [who l have no idea], although someone mentioned 'environment agency ' & another a' caravan park owner' was taking these 'unwanted' and 'free rocks' to reinforce their cliff base to prevent or slow down erosion further up the bay. I believe that this may well be an illegal operation and most certainly is plain wanton vandalism!

Task: take ice cream to Oslo

2009-03-03T17:14:00.008Z

For 2 days now l have waited for the hedge planters to re-appear. They have done so at 17.00 this evening. It will be dark soon and there are a final 50 shrubs to plant plus the fencing, [sheep netting with two rows of barbed wire on top attached to wooden stakes], 3 wooden gates, 2 owl boxes AND those small bird boxes. Perhaps l am just dim, tomorrow would have been fine. farmer hastily drew a map of where the final shrubs were to go, leaving me idiot proof instructions of the exact siting of the dratted plants.

Farmer is away. He left Monday at the crack of dawn heading for Oslo via Humberside / Amsterdam to a Trade exhibition that is being held in the British Embassy. So not only did he have to get himself actually there, despite me having checked him in online, but also 14 500ml tubs of ice cream in a variety of mouth watering flavours. So we have had fun for the past week, testing how long ice cream will stay frozen in an electric freezer container that will only be plugged in on the hour's drive to the airport from here! I will not mention the word stress or mad in this post!

The traveler has rung twice, first to say he had arrived in Schipol and again on his arrival in Oslo where, incidentally there was 2 feet of freshly fallen snow. oh, and he rang this morning asking me to email a price list as he couldn't find his copy. He returns tomorrow so that means l have no car and Harry has brought home an 09 Golf TDI courtesy car which has the full works, leather seats climate control, this goes back to the VW Garage in Hull tomorrow, and it smells Wonderful, l had almost forgotten what a brand new car smelt like. So that leaves me in a bit of a pickle. The Regional Food Group are doing a network / meet the buyer at Bishop Burton College tomorrow evening and l am down to attend, but it's too far to walk, there is no bus or train and Harry is chairing the Young Farmers meeting tomorrow evening, so you see my problem. Life is such fun.

?? Spring

2009-02-27T10:47:00.009Z

Time to move the Egyptian bit down the page and behave in a more serious and business-like manner as befits a country dweller in deepest darkest east Yorkshire. Oh my LOL, must be the vast improvement in the weather, no rain for several weeks now, the temperature has risen by at least 10 degrees, the mud is drying up and the large winter lakes are starting to recede. Spring MUST be on its way.

At last, things are starting to pick up along the coast, half term saw a busy week for us with many new customers coming through the doors, enjoying the farm walk to the sea plus a good calorific burst of yummyness! I think this has been the busiest February half term for a while. I know that many of our customers up and down this part of the coast are expecting a good year as the portents seem to predict an influx of English visitors opting for the traditional seaside holiday as opposed to holidaying abroad and being at the mercy of the valueless pound. I do hope they are right!

This time of year always seems to be manic, new customers to visit, maintenance, development of new flavours plus as an added bonus tree planting. The farm has the bulk of its acreage put down to the Countryside Stewardship scheme,[ is that grammatically correct?] and also we have planted over 2000 trees under the woodland grant scheme, anyway another 2000 trees and shrubs have gone in this week plus additional bird boxes and owl houses, so, in about 100 years time there should be wonderful broadleaved woodland surrounding the farm, that is provided the sea hasn't reached the back door! Ever the optimist you see.

New flavours of ice cream for this coming season are - cookies and cream and peach shortcake. And for those readers of this badly spelt and grammatically incorrect jotting based here in Yorkshire, you should be able to find a selection of 4 of our 500ml flavours in your local Tesco. well that is the theory.

As a little something for anyone in search of a change of life style can l recommend this rural gem?

Mistlehall Farm

Egypt - Luxor and Back

2009-02-16T14:42:00.016Z

the Nile @ dusk

Holidays come and go, you look forward to them, struggle though the airport and then after a what seems like no time at all, you are back home faced with bags of dirty washing. is it really worth it? Yeap, it sure is, can't LIVE without my holidays, keeps me sane! In our line of work, holidays tend to be taken in January and again in September, the January break normally being a case of where do the special offer long haul flights go followed by a scramble around Trip Adviser for the out of the ordinary accommodation, normally some thing along the B & B lines whilst in September we do pre-book.

Aswan

This year, after dying from flu over Christmas and discovering that the cheap flights might be cheap but the accommodation in US$ zone was not, it became clear that a rehash on destination was required pretty damn fast! Where was cheap then? Egypt. I have always said that 'if' l did a trip down the Nile then it would be with Bales in a dahabiya, traveling in style. This 'style' does not go with 'credit crunch', whilst teletext does! After much searching and cross referencing we narrowed the choice down to a £300 deal ex-Manchester, cruising down the Nile from Luxor or ancient Thebes to Aswan and back. At this price we were prepared to rough it for a week, and certainly the revues on Trip Adviser were not exactly raving, things like 'this boat most certainly isn't 5*' and 'All they [the locals] want are tips'........... What had we let ourselves in for?

Temple of Horus, Edfu

The plane landed safely at Luxor in the middle of a power cut, money was handed over for visas, transfers picked up and we were taken to our boat, well actually the wrong boat, the one WE were taken to had loads of marble and Waterford glass chandeliers, very QE2! Good start! An hour later the correct boat was found and our expectations were as expected, this boat was more North Sea Ferries than The White Star Line, pretty basic but spotlessly clean. We could only wait in anticipation! During the evening the boat started to fill with another 10 English travelers, who indecently were really good company - the rest of the passengers were french & Russian, of them l will say no more, bar that they would help themselves to pudding before mains? What about the food? Not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but wholesome and bland, International cuisine because not all nationalities like spicy food!

waiting for the lock @ Esna

Well, enough of the boat, we had come to overload on temples & tombs, which we most certainly did! I had booked the Maxi trip package back in the UK, which covered the main highlights, the temples of Edfu & kom Ombo, at Aswan Philae temple, whilst in Luxor the big ones - Valley of the Kings, Medinet Habu, Luxor & Karnak.

Art work on the pylons @ medinet habu depicting Osiris

The sights were truly awesome, l have always been an avid fan of programs like Time Team & anything to do with archaeology and here we were right, slap bang in the middle of one of the largest archaeological sites in the world. The tour package provided us with a guide who led us through the crowds to gawp at the huge lumps of stone whose every surface was carved with hieroglyphics, wall paintings and rock carvings of the gods and pharaohs.

the pylons @ Phillae

Best sites - edfu virtually intact and gives you a pretty good idea of the layout of the temples which are all built along the same lines, Valley of the kings - you get to visit 3 tombs in with your ticket, the colours inside the tombs are the first thing that strike you, they are so vivid, blues and golds, the the pictures, totally awesome, they could have been painted yesterday instead of over 2500 years ago, Ramses IV's tomb had frescoes of the pharaoh wearing a linen kilt, the art work was fabulous! Madinet Habu - a gem, often missed out on tours with people heading for the Ramessium, whilst karnak is, well amazing, despite the fact that restoration work is going on, with the aim to rebuild? The site is truly huge but you can wander to the perimeter and explore without the presence of too many tourists! Luxor temple, another interesting place, with hieroglyphs of Alexander the Great dressed as the Pharaoh.

queen Hatsheput temple

Things l did find interesting was that good old Emperor Hadrian, him of the Wall, had left an impressive entrance gate at philae temple, early Christians had plastered over the inner sanctuary at Luxor temple then painted christian saints over the top, the Greeks ruled over Egypt before the roman occupation, the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Most of the temples and tombs have been defaced by the early Christians who objected to the false idols so chipped out the faces of gods and pharaohs.

The not so goods - queen Hatsheput's temple is over restored and although looks good from a distance isn't, philae temple - this was moved due to the flooding from Aswan dam,good that it has been saved but it doesn't 'feel' right, you will be taken to perfume, alabaster and papyrus factories by your guide, well we didn't because we said we didn't want to go! We were a bit concerned with the plans in place to totally restore Karnak temple, the government, so we were told, are buying up land and properties between karnak & Luxor Temples with the aim of excavating and once again linking up the 2 temples.

valley of the kings new dig KV 64

karnak temple

Egypt itself is a fascinating country, we had previously visited the Gulf or Aqabar several years ago, but the Nile did feel more of an exotic destination. We personally had no problems with the locals constantly trying to sell you some trinket or other, we just said 'no' and emptied our pockets turning them inside out. We traveled around Aswan and Luxor again not having any major problem, shop keepers do call out trying to get you to buy and l guess you would''t really be able to window shop, now some people did find this hassling a real problem and vowed never to return as they felt that the place was full of people trying to 'rip them off'.

luxor temple - one of the sons of Ramses II

One point l would recommend, if you are thinking of traveling down the Nile, do your research thoroughly. read up on the boat, you get what you pay for, read up on the temples as it helps you to understand more about what you are actually seeing, take you digital camera as you WILL take loads of photos, for those extra trips not included in your 'tour' you can book at a fraction of the price in many of the travel shops in Luxor, & finally... watch what you eat and if you are female dress sensibly, loose linen clothing keeps you cool deters any unwanted advances by the local men!!

early morning hot air balloons over the west bank @ Luxor

Finally, sorry if this is boring but l was asked for an Egyptian blog!

Dogs, Holidays and caramel shortcake

2009-02-14T14:10:00.008Z

The dogs are howling outside the back dog just begging to go walkies, down to the beach, it's not that they HAVE to go out right at this precise moment, it is that they know l am in the office and a mere hurling themselves at the back door possibly isn't gaining my attention quickly enough. " OK you horrid lot, l WILL be out in a moment but first...."!

My dogs are a bit like me really, loud and unruly though l do not have a penchant for eating well rotten raw rabbit, l leave that to dear Gordon, such a wonderful dog all looks and no brains, the canine version of a male bimbo l guess. Now Lucy-Piglet is more like, well an utter nutter really. She has had 3 close shaves with the grim reaper and is still here to terrify scrap men and any other suspicious looking characters found lurking around the farm. The pair are well trained, they see wellies and coats plus the reaching up for dog leads as the red light to get ready to erupt out of the veranda door and leap down the drive, heading for the farm track hoping to terrify some poor unsuspecting animal to death.

This weekend sees the start of half term, here in the East Riding, so Jenny , our demon baker, is busy in the kitchen, so far we have plenty of florentine slices, crispy doodles and a mammoth bake of caramel shortcake which l reckon must be our biggest seller, we just seem to be constantly making it! Next week, as it's half term, Jenny & Harry will be making ice cream, loads of chocolate and frudge brownie flavour. Fun!

It's amazing, every year we seem to suddenly get into over drive mode about now, new customers making inquires, plans for the coming year and all that, so we should be all fighting fit after our mid winter breaks last month. Farmer and l managed to sneak a quick week sightseeing down the Nile, overloading on all thing Egyptian and ancient whilst Hazz spent 10 days in Nakiski, Alberta, skiing c/o Travis, KT & the team. So, we are now, de-jetlagged & raring to go...................

Dratted weather.

2009-02-05T18:10:00.010Z

I am not exactly obsessed with the weather, but being married to a farmer l know many people who are. They watch the TV weather forecast with an irritating regularity, today's weather is........... Well it certainly isn't warm and sunny or even springlike, it is wet. Wet as in precipitation and windy as in storm force 12. I understand other parts of the UK are having snow. the news broadcast show pictures of children frolicking in the white stuff, adults wearing skis being towed along by a neighbour's car, schools being closed, the news reporter urging us to stay at home........... Hello, we have no snow, and l repeat this time VERY LOUDLY we have NO snow.

What we do have is yet more rain. I drove through to Driffield this afternoon, in the rain, and every field has glistening lakes spreading across the farm land, rain falling on icy waterlogged fields. Now, if the temperature seriously dropped we could perhaps have some fun ice skating around the fields or up and down the drainage dykes. Was it in Tom's Midnight Garden that the children skating along the fens? Good book that.

In between showers, Harry and myself, with dogs in tow, have manged to get down to the cliff top,walking is a little tiring as you have to walk with your back bent at a 45' angle leaning into the wind whilst the dogs have wrinkly ears similar to Winnie the Pooh's & Piglet in the illustration showing them hunting for the woozle, we haven't, however actually gone down onto the beach. Normally it is a gentle hop down into Withow Gap and then off you go, this week it looks to be more like a large leap onto a piles of rocks, pebbles and concrete that have been hurled up against the cliff base, as for the sand - there is none, not a solitary grain - all washed away, so last year the beach was on a level with the lowest point of the cliff say 10 foot, this year we are looking at a drop down of 15 foot. the beach just looks like a bomb site, literally. Plenty of waves for those ultra keen surfers looking for that special rip curl or whatever they call it.

So then, there it is never a dull moment so far as the weather is concerned, we all love to moan and groan about it but, just think, if we had glorious sunshine with blue skies everyday we would loose one of the most important topics in English conversation, 'What's the weather doing where you are today then?'.

January

2009-01-26T11:01:00.006Z

January is about over, finished, done and lets see what February is going to offer. Certainly this winter has been a really wet one. Fields have remained waterlogged, in some cases since before harvest. The neighbouring fields have sprouted a new collection of lakes and springs. The drains are working over time, but the soil is just so waterlogged. Walking through the fields or along the footpath is a squelchy affair, the dogs are permanently muddy up to their arm pits with the only creatures seeming to appreciate these new wetlands are the wild fowl and waders!

I suppose this is how it's going to be, the Environment Agency in their undoubted wisdom have decided that in order to save Hull from further flooding, that they are going to turn off the pumps from Leven to Beeford, along the course of the river Hull, allowing the adjacent farm land to flood, the whole landscape from Leven Carrs to Barmston Drain will become marsh land; farms and houses in the lowest areas being allowed to flood. I needn't say that there is a major surge of people power. The troops are being rallied. Meetings being held in village halls, letters written to the press, TV crews covering the news, plus support from the east Riding Council and local MP. Will the Agency change its mind? They say not...........

Brandesburton and North Frodingham Flood Action Group

Pantomimes and christmas cards

2008-12-16T18:19:00.012Z

Cold and wet or dry and frosty, this winter's weather seems to be all over the place. Frosts are fine, albeit cold around the old ears, but the wet, dark, dank and gloomy days and on top of all that we have the news. What can l say about that. Personally l think that a few fat cat heads need to roll and fast or else l will start to get my knives sharpened & the tumbrels out. As is so often the case, the governments, greed, unscrupulous & unregulated multi-nationals can bring the economies to a skidding halt. Oh l could spit nails at these speculators and hedge fund managers; send them here l will have them digging dykes, cleaning out calf pens and planting trees in bare feet and sack cloth the only bonus being a cup of Yorkshire Tea in a paper cup.

Running my own business, l have got to look forward to the future, next year and the following. What will happen to the rural economy and more importantly the tourist industry here on the east coast? Logic tells me that with the pound in free fall against all major currencies, the Brits will holiday here in the UK. I mean to say, where else do you have such wonderful and diverse scenery? Rugged coastline, magnificent mountains, wild moorland, historic cities and romantic ruins? Well, we can but hope now that shopping is no longer the 'in thing'.

With the coming of Christmas heralds the return of the good old pantomime and Christmas shows. This year sees Paul Daniels and Debbie Maggee at Bridlington. I am amazed at just how much ice cream gets eaten during the intervals, do people not have tea before they come out? H & J must have made about 20,000 of the little blighters [pots] in the past week, enough hopefully to take us to after Christmas - fingers crossed that is. Before you ask, traditional vanilla is the flavour of choice! On top of all this, we have finally passed our S.A.L.S.A. accreditation, and no this is not a dance from Strictly Come Dancing, but an in depth audit covering all aspects of the production process. Nothing like being busy at this time of year. it does however, have a knock on effect and, all l can say is thank goodness for Betty's by Post and H ordering the last bronze free range turkey from a neighbouring farm, so at least we will have turkey and we will have Christmas pudding with creamee dreamee vanilla to follow!

Perhaps l ought to say at this late point in the proceedings - l haven't written any cards yet - l have white address labels though ............................

Talks and Waffle

2008-11-28T12:50:00.011Z

This week has been a fairly interesting one for the dying embers of November, as previously noted we had snow, a good 6 inches of the fluffy stuff AND we had customers, braving ice roads and snow drifts just to fulfill the craving for ice cream! Wonderful!

Last night saw me speaking in front of a group of farmers as part of the Fresh Start initiative. The meeting was held at Bishop Burton College and l was the third speaker of the evening. Up to date, all the talks l have given have been fairly informal, usually at food shows, the WI or local young farmers clubs, format being rather jolly with some bits of waffle followed by samples. 'Do you do PowerPoint' the organizer asked, 'er no but l can,' was my reply. So last night there l was clutching my memory stick containing all sorts of file back ups plus my slide show! People who know me are aware that l do enjoy a bit of a giggle, so my presentation was set up to keep the audience entertained, well that at least was the theory.

The previous speaker, Philip Halhead from Norbreck Genetics was pretty good, covering many aspects of marketing that l had hoped to include in my spiel. It was really interesting to see another farm branding and marketing their product in a similar way to ourselves, despite the fact that the goods were poles apart, so to speak! Things like brand, price, customer service, using the media were all flagged up by the speaker.

I was last to take the floor, only woman in front of a bunch of about 50 farmers, which included our bank manager, [it was he who had invited me to speak incidentally]. My plan of attack had been to briefly discuss how and why we had turned the core business from dairy farming to ice cream manufacture and to make sure that no one fell asleep during my 15 minutes of fame, had mr moo in person shooting onto the screen from all directions as each slide made its entry. It certainly made the audience laugh, where was the little bugger coming from next, and boy did they remember our product!

Enthusiasm and brand image - l think l put that across?

Snowy Saturday

2008-11-22T15:43:00.006Z

Whilst shoppers head to the towns and cities in search of the 20% off major brands, us lot here on the east of England have snow. Swirling snow storms. Large dark clouds bringing substantial qualities of the white stuff obliterating the view from here across the bay to Flamborough Head. Dramatic of what?

It is pretty damn amazing considering the weather that people are out and about. Staff levels have been what you could call minimal, but despite the slippery roads, we have had the car park half full of cars and 4WD as people come out for an ice cream, lunch, hot chocolate [with of course marshmallows AND cream], followed by a very bracing walk down to an incredibly rough sea with their dogs. Yeap, the sea sure is rough, large rollers coming in off the North Sea, the tide is up and thanks to the wave action the mud cliffs are crumbling and being washed away!

I often wonder if eating ice cream in the cold weather is akin to eating a real hot curry in the heat. Do you feel less cold with something chilly in your tum?

We have a couple of new flavours being tested on our customers, chilli and chocolate, plum and cinnamon, Christmas pudding and a new batch of walnut and fig [as seen in the last issue of Yorkshire Life]. Feedback so far has been pretty good, especially the chilli & chocolate! Tubs of ice cream are starting top fly out now in readiness for Christmas, the alcoholic ones seem to flavour of the month so far, best seller being drunken cherry [amarena cherry with a generous helping of kirsch].

I often recieve emails from people asking where they can buy mr moo's from, well, if you live in South Yorkshire you could well be in luck as Tesco stock a selection of 4 flavours in 500ml tubs, whilst Asda in yellow belly land,south of the Humber stock a similar range. I hasten to add that both supermarkets market our product under the Local Producers label. Enjoy.

November

2008-11-11T10:31:00.009Z

November is my least favourite month, short days, darkness, wind and rain, brrrr. Here on the coast it is a time of bracing walks, well wrapped up in scarf, hat and gloves and of course not forgetting the 'only' footwear for the winter, the good old wellington boot, either the flowery variety, the mega expensive Dubarry model or the good old black gumboot for those who wish to make a statement.

The Ice cream Parlour has now returned to winter opening hours, we are closed on Mondays & Tuesdays, open from 11 till 4 from Wednesday through to Friday then open 10 till 5 during the weekend. We find that during the winter months, visitor numbers drop off along the coast, with people heading to the shopping malls were it feels like summer every day! Saying that, we do pick up trade from weekend visitors staying in one of the many holiday cottages in this part of the world. Being less busy now, we have said goodbye, for the time being, to our seasonal staff, TF/KT flew back out to Calgary and the Rockies two weeks ago, in readiness for the coming snowboard season in Nakiski, snow l hear is already falling and Hz is hoping to fly out sometime in the new year. Should be fun.

This winter l have been 'volunteered' for a new post, Advisory Committee member for Brandesburton Young Farmers Club, and l can safely say l have been suitably impressed by the new club officers. As l type, they are busy organizing this season's dinner dance which is to be held in January, a change of venue, moving from Far Grange Park to the newly refurbished Bridlington Spa and, which is truly awesome, causing a bit of excitement amongst the ' old farmer' network!

It seems funny really to be involved in Young Farmers again as l used to be a pretty keen member xyz years ago, holding club posts in both Corse & Tewkesbury clubs. Our drama efforts were pretty dire l seem to recall, but always a real laugh. One year the criteria was 'Variety Show' and us girls did a pretty lousy impression of Pan's People to a Cliff Richard song - we did get a mention from the judge and we were adequately covered in all the right places! Such fun......

October

2008-10-08T11:56:00.005+01:00

September has now gone, faded away like sea roke in a storm, so sails are now set for the coming winter and we begin the 'l don't know what to expect' scenario. The news re -economy is bleak, will it be as bad as they say and will we all need to open accounts at the bottom of the garden? Who knows all we can do is make a stab in the dark and try to be prepared.

From the end of the month we reduce our opening hours to 5 days a week, 11 -4 Wednesday to Friday and 10 - 5 weekends, winter also fits in nicely with our staffing levels, our uni students have returned to a life of drink and parties so we are left with our 2.5 regular staff. The half is one of the the team on maternity leave.

On the farm today tractors are flying about everywhere, ploughing, the ground has been like soggy blotting paper, farmer like headless chicken flapping around waiting to get on the land, well now he is and the ground is still wet, the drains don't seem to be able to cope with the amount of water. Sheep farmer opposite is having fun getting stuck with his plough, leaving large wet holes untouched! Who in their right mind would want to farm? Then there are the sheep, three of the beasts escaped yesterday, evading sheep fencing and netting to promenade along the footpath, so the dogs had to become sheep dogs whilst l walked the ewes back up the path and through the gate. Now that was funny, gun dogs looking fierce.

The coast at this time of the year is rather special, the light changes and the sea becomes a dark grey, ships sit out in the bay on sea anchors, at night a mass of blazing lights. The beach shifts during the autumn tides, sand and shingle being pushed up and down the shoreline, one day pristine sand the next pebbles, always different, sky, sea and sand.

PS: This guy came into today, walking around Britain's coast in aid of charity, this is more about him and his journey Colin's Epic Trip.

Holidays on Yorkshire's East Coast

2008-09-22T15:53:00.012+01:00

Today it's raining. Outside it is dark and gloomy, chilly and wet. Autumn is here, winter not far away. it's strange really, sat inside out of the weather, how people react to sunshine. Outside it's gloomy, the press are full of the encroaching doom and gloom and yet, when the sun shines out people come, driving across to the coast from the cities and towns of the West Riding, ignoring the words of warning and high petrol prices to what l can only assume is to cheer themselves up from the depressing and morbid news columns that journalist hurl at us with what appears to be positive glee! A bracing walk along the promenade at Filey or a voluptuous ice cream sundae is all it takes to put one's life into prospective.

This year has been really weird. We did not know what to expect, what with the credit crunch or recession, if we believed every word written then we would have shut shop and headed off to the sun to become deck chair attendants, the press drifted of course again, OK so people haven't traveled abroad en-mass they appear to have holidayed, here, in the UK. In fact trippers and holidaymakers are still about in the dying embers of september. Back to my point about the weather. As soon as the sun pokes it's head out from behind the cloud, people leap into their cars or onto their bicycles and head out for a good day beside the sea. This past weekend is a good example. Filey, Bridlington and Whitby were absolutely choker block. Car parks were full to bursting, the beaches at Filey were being enjoyed as people walked along the pristine sands, The steps leading to the Abbey in Whitby were as full as a sunday in august!

It's really great to see people enjoying the local landscapes, although it is nice to travel and to visit far flung places, the English landscape is truly spectacular, where else in a short space of time, can you drive through coastal plains of Holderness, soft rolling landscapes of the Yorkshire wolds, to the high heather clad grouse moors peppered with ruined abbeys and moorland crosses of the North Yorkshire Moors.

It is this aspect of Yorkshire l have always found fascinating, the ever changing landscapes, coming as l do from the forests of west Gloucestershire, don't get me wrong, l am a tree person, but l also love the wide open skies and vast vistas that seem to be so common up here in the north. l would also probably add that this part of the world has been, thankfully, avoided by the London based travel journalist, it is some where just off the A1 en route to the new Cornwall, Northumberland. A region of Britain that has not appeared in TV programs, well there is Heartbeat and All Creatures Great and Small [which, incidentally was filmed in the Yorkshire Dales despite the books being set in Thirsk and on the North Yorks Moors,] glossy magazines have not extolled the virtues of holidaying on the east Coast or Yorkshire Wolds, we have got away lightly so far, except that is, for the last two publication of a monthly magazine extolling the virtues of living in the countryside, a countryside that doesn't have mud, the sort that stains wellingtons and creeps up along the inside of jeans, of earthy smells and of tractors that clog up the roads, a countryside where families decorate their homes with flowery fabrics and and bunches of dried herbs artistically hung from beams whilst Boden clothes are casually slung over worn and artistically mismatched furniture carefully painted in the latest Farrow & Ball colour scheme. Anyway, this magazine has discovered us, this area. The article inform its readers that there are wonderful pubs in this area, that have creative menus using the best of the locally produced ingredients, from lamb to free range pork, vegetables and dairy produce. The countryside has also been 'discovered', our rolling hills, narrow dales, deserted villages and slightly faded statley homes.

However there is still one place that is un-charted, omitted from the southern journalist's list of places to visit; the east Yorkshire coast.......

XL and all that stuff

2008-09-17T13:00:00.007+01:00

Just over a week ago, l was scanning through the business pages of one of the daily broadsheets, not really taking in what was written, when an article caught my eye, the headlines read, 'XL Leisure Group enters refunding talks'. I re-read the article twice just to make sure l my eyes were not deceiving me.

I think my heart stopped beating for a moment or two, thoughts of the Zoom fiasco flashed in front of my eyes. At times of crisis, l guess the internet is an excellent source of information so there l was, googling XL.com trying to find out more. For the next 2 days nothing, no news absolutely nowt.

The problem, you see, was that l had booked tickets with XL flying out of East Midlands to Corfu in the next 4 days. Would the company find a backer or would it fold? As the departure date crept ever closer, still no news. Press releases had stated that a decision would be reached at the end of the week.......... nothing. No news is good news? I don't think so, l had a gut feeling that the company was as they say, going to go 'tits up'.

Being self-employed, holidays are few and far between, eagerly anticipated, a case of escaping from the daily routine to relax and re-charge before going hell for leather again. For the past few years, after the the schools have gone back and the season is starting to return to its normal pace, we have departed en-mass to Corfu for a week's r & r. No different this year except, XL.

A hurriedly arranged crisis meeting was called around the breakfast table, topics discussed included what if there is no plane on monday and what do we do if we couldn't get back? The boys were fine , they were flying out of Birmingham with Monarch, it was just us & the in-laws.

After rather a large intake of breath, it was decided, unanimously l might add, to re-book flights with another carrier. Call us mad, but what option was there, could we really take the risk of loosing out on the long awaited holiday?

So there you have it. Seats were booked through First Choice.

The holiday was wonderful. The sun shone, the sea was deliciously warm, the temperature lolled around in the high 30'C and the villa was a dream. The boys swam and raced around in motor boats, we ate at waterside tavernas and drank copious amounts of retsina, the stress from the past 12 months was starting to drift off into the ether.

So what was happening to XL we wondered? Had we been plain daft in changing flights? Texts, followed by eagerly read news reports, care of the BBC web pages, told us otherwise. Groups of XL flight only travelers huddled around their suitcases on monday at Corfu airport waiting for a seat to, well anywhere, really brought home to us that the days of cheap airline seats are gone for the time being.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance

2008-08-29T13:29:00.004+01:00

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

2008-08-18T15:45:00.003+01:00

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!

a footpath is just that - a footpath

2008-06-19T16:36:00.004+01:00

Having lived here for the past 25 years, one of the pleasures has been walking along the field boundaries, down to the sea at Withow gap. So it was that to complement Mr Moo's and the planting of over 2000 native tree species, we set up and have established a 'permissive footpath' [to avoid any confusion this is not a public footpath], with grant aid from DEFRA. The easy walk slowly meanders through the saplings of oak, field maple and rowan, hugging the field boundaries, leading on past WW1 and 2 concrete bunkers once maned by the home guard and the Royal Observer Corps, then sweeping down into what was once a shallow, kettlehole lake resplendent in olden times with its own beaver dam and finally ending down on the beach.

This year, after the wet winter, and as the soil becomes less fertile due to the restricted use of fertilizers, the stewardship grassland has seen a sudden burst of colour as the wild flowers begin to become re-established after years of mono culture in the form of that good old silage mix, rye grass. Buttercups, common vetch, white clover and some sort of trefoil are making a comeback. Sky lark numbers have increased, the barn owls seem to appreciate the short clipped grass of the trail, roe deer hide in the long grass. Oh l feel a 'Bill Oddie' moment coming on.

So it is with some annoyance that a local 'chav' family have decided that the footpath makes a wonderful race track for their clapped out motor bikes. The buggers have stretched the barbed wire alongside the kissing gate. Hubby has already tackled these rural yobs. l have been adding broken fence posts and concrete slabs in an effort to halt the blighter's fun or to at least puncture the tyres. The only real way to stop the prats, is to replace the 6 feet of fence with 2 strands of barbed wire and rabbit netting. Perhaps some caltrops might be the answer..

Freedom of Speech

2008-06-16T16:26:00.005+01:00

So at last we have a politician who is thinking and behaving like a Statesman, a politician who appears to believe in something other than his or her safe seat at the next election. An MP who is prepared to stand up for what he believes to be right and asks to be judged by the electorate on the issue. Boy, from slimy, ditch water politics to stand up and be counted politics and all in the same week as the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta what could be happening in the totally apathetic political sphere here in England?

Well l refer to the almost local MP, David Davies who has resigned his seat in protest to the passing, by what can only call dubious and mucky means, of the bill to extend the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days.

So there we are then, something very dear to my heart, the erosion of both freedom of speech and civil liberties all in the name of protecting us, the British citizen, against the terrorist. Bah blurdey humbug say I! We as a nation, have fought long and hard to establish and protect our civil liberties and freedom of speech, even executing a misguided fool of a King who believed in the Divine Right of Kings en route to the establishment of modern democracy. Are we now to see our rights and freedoms being slowly diminished by a bunch of blundering buffoons who just happen to be 'in power' at the moment with the excuse of security of the nation?

I am not a real big fan of Tony Robinson, but there has been however on Channel 4 a series on law and order, or is it crimes and punishment, anyway the episode from 15th June was in fact concerned with freedom of speech and made fascinating viewing shedding new light on what is fast becoming a 'police' state.

So there we have it briefly, no ice cream, no photos just my thoughts on a topic that is important to everyone today. We shouldn't just lie back and blithely ignore bills that pass through parliament, they effect us all and if l want to protest in front of parliament this should not be deemed illegal, if l want to take photos in the new shopping mall in Hull l should be able to without being threatened by security thugs and finally if l choose not to have an ID card my wishes should be respected, and finally finally check out this web site.

June, where did May go?

2008-06-10T17:03:00.005+01:00

warning: this blog does not contain reference to the credit crunch, price of food, fuel or Gordon Brown.

Has anyone seen May? I seem to have misplaced it somewhere. It was the start of the month, then, wham bamm, it's now June, the 10th to be exact. Is this what happens as one ages [gracefully of course]? By heck doesn't time fly, they say. I think l could say more, but being a polite sort of oldie l won't embarrass myself more than necessary and most definately wont bore you with what muddyboots did and what muddyboots did next. If the truth were know, l can't exactly remember......................It was truly awesome [TF's words] to meet fellow blogger @themill, last month and explore the rugged dramatic shoreline of Northumbria, castles, sandy beaches and strange restaurants in tree houses. Time away from base, wonderful, but then came half term bringing with it the chaos and rush and rattle and pandemonium; no peace - no calm - nothing but crowds and holiday-makers, bunged up roads and, well it's no fun working whilst everyone else is out enjoying themselves is it? Oh, l seem to have done a bit of filling in the blanks. Sorry about that bit, l must be in a state of denial. The customer is always right, the customer is always right, the custome..............

Well at least there's nothing wrong with my very dodgey sense of humour. Or is there?

So, the sun has come out the temperature is in the low 20's which is seemingly bringing with it the annual red skin syndrome as pasty white limbs are exposed to the air for the first time this year together with 'mygodyoureallyshouldntwearthatinpublic'.

May Day May Day

2008-05-02T15:36:00.010+01:00

So it is now May, and it is the second bank holiday weekend of the year. Compared to the last one, easter, the weather looks as though it WILL BE better. At this very moment in time, the sky is, nearly blue, the air temperature is nearly warm and the grass caravan site is nearly dry.

We are expecting to be busy. Not only is the CL site full, but we also have a caravan rally as well. I have marched about this morning with the Rally Marshals pointing out the 'wet holes' and roping off the boggy bit on the CL Site which is right across pitch number 4. hopefully, fingers crossed, the latecomers on the CL site will wait until morning to be sited. I wish.

Yesterday was my day off - Hubby and l took deliveries into Leeds and Harrogate. Two new customers, Shaky Jakes in Headingley and Indulge Deli Bar in Harrogate. Although l had no time to shop till l dropped in Harrogate, l did manage a quick nip into Betty's for some Yorkshire Fat Rascals and cauliflowers dainty-cake-thingies.

On the farm, the heifers are now out enjoying the spring grass, the hedges and trees are bursting into leaf, everywhere is becoming a blaze of brilliant, vibrant green, whilst Gordon has rediscovered his spring time habit of eating dandelion flowers! The swallows have re-established and are repairing their nest in the barns whilst the bats and flitting about at dusk. As for rabbits..........yes they are everywhere and the cat, for the majority of the time is marching about clutching an unfortunate baby bunny between her teeth! So all in all, our visitors should have plenty to see whilst walking along the farm walk to the beach.

1 x dandelion-eating dog

1 x cat eating baby rabbits

swallows and oil seed rape

2008-04-21T14:51:00.005+01:00

At last, we have blue sky and a look of Spring about the place. For the past few weeks, the weather has been, well, chilly. Cold easterlies blowing off the North Sea. Grey, rain sodden clouds, snow flurries, hail, gales, need l say more? So, it was with some relief that on peering out from behind the curtains this morning, the sky was blue, the birds were singing, well it is April after all.

At last, a morning dog walk without the need for woolly hats and scarves! Today's perambulation took us through the oil seed rape field which at last is showing signs of bursting forth into a blaze of gaudy day-glow yellow [and the accompanying sneezes]. Up until fairly recently, l have only associated rape seed oil as a means of frying food, you find plastic bottles of the stuff, next to the vegetable oils, well, last year at a 'Meet the Buyer' event l learnt otherwise. It can be cold pressed, rather like olive oil, and is rather moorish, a cross between olive and a nut oil, not as heavy as olive oil though. Look out for the stuff! Well, as l was wading, waist deep along the tram lines, low and behold on glancing skyward, which one does at regular intervals just in case something interesting is crashing towards you, there, swooping and diving above the golden flowers was about, oh I'd say about a dozen swallows, the first of the season. Wonderful sight! More have been flying in as the day has progressed, returning to their favourite nesting spots, in the barns and sheds on the farm.

So, Spring is on its way, the leaves are starting to burst forth, nest boxes are being claimed and you can now find our ice cream in both tesco and ASDA in select parts of Yorkshire.

Staff - leaving and coming

2008-04-08T18:18:00.008+01:00

Life has now calmed down, somewhat. The schools have gone back which means that Peace and Calm returns to just about everywhere, supermarket queues, shops and of course Mr Moo's. Bliss!

This week sees the start of a new seasonal part-timer and the final week of our friendly Iranian, MK, who leaves to become a truck driver or something like that as mentioned in an earlier posting.

The joys of employing people and trying to find suitable candidates for seasonal work, is not exactly an easy task. Living in a rural area does bring the major problem of just finding people who want to work. Most of the work around here is seasonal and the majority, [especially in the seaside towns], of jobs are taken by Eastern Europeans, who are happy to work for the summer season and then return home, locals who are in the Job Market, tend to look further afield to say Hull, York or Leeds, leaving local businesses with the option of the long term unemployed sent in via the Job Centre.

Our solution is to use University students who are home for the summer; the only spanner in the works is the August Bank Holiday. Leeds Fest, the music festival, which entices staff away with the promise of warm beer, class C drugs and music. So it is after much brain wrenching and cogitating, we have decided that this year we really can't take on staff who intent to be up, up and away over what will be our busiest weekend of the year. Sorry chaps!

Lets hope for a good batch of trainee summer staff, the criteria is, bright, articulate, CLEAN and to have at least some smattering of common sense!

Finally, l am waving my Free Tibet flag!

Calories and nesting boxes

2008-04-02T12:39:00.010+01:00

It is amazing that no matter what the weather is doing and no matter how cold or miserable it is outside, people like to eat ice cream. Cones, ice cream sodas or sundaes, it makes not one iota of difference, they just need ice cream. I wonder why? Is it a treat, a feel good little something that helps lift the gloom of a manky day? Or is it a case or 'sod the diet, let me at those calories'. What ever the reason, if it makes people happy then, blow the diet or health police!

We are now in the final throws of the school Easter holidays, so are seeing an influx of small people being taken out for the day by grandparents. It is an interesting point that most children are better behaved when out with Gran than with parents. l am not saying that all family groups are badly behaved, but that some are. Nothing is worse than little johnny racing around pretending to be a transformer whilst parents sit sipping coffee.

So here we are then. April. Sun shinning, light westerly breeze, dare l say it, a slight rise in air temperature? The grass has not really started moving [growing] yet, looks like a late turn out? The bird boxes have all got new residents, blue tits and house sparrows, there are a couple of pairs of oyster catchers on the hill top fields, staking out territory. These are noisy birds, shrieking when disturbed. At this time of year, we have to restrict the dogs from certain areas as these are prime nesting sites for things like mallard and waders.

Living here, on the coast, we are a bit limited as to which direction to head for on days out. Fortunately for us, there is plenty of dramatic scenery within an hour's drive. To the north, and probablely first choice, [except on weekends], is Whitby. The most leisurely route is through Forge Valley, then the twisty turny road up to Silpho, on via Hackness, hitting the main Scarborough to Whitby road just south of Boggle Hole, across the moors, past Hawsker until the ruined abbey of St Hilda's stands out on the skyline, where land meets sea, looking to all and sundry like the bleached ribs of some long dead whale.

Whitby is a little bit of all sorts. There are a scattering of amusement arcades, a plethora of fish and chip restaurants, long sweeping piers taking you out into the north sea, historic lanes and alleyways, ruined abbeys, ancient churches, 199 steps plus the Grand Turk moored alongside the quay. All to much!

l have been tagged.............

2008-03-29T17:51:00.004Z

With a word of 'thanks' to fellow blogger, Pondside, who has tagged me for 7 facts about myself.......... so here are some very boring trivia items about me!

************************

Rules are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

********************

l flew solo in a cessna 150 on my 17th birthday
l am very competitive, and competed against Mark Phillips in my youth
l do NOT like my Christian name
l don't tolerate fools gladly and have absolutely NO time whatsoever for jumped up idiots
l always say what l think
l snapped my anterior cruciate ligament and tore my cartilage at the same time whilst 'skiing' down a black run - they have been repaired by the way
l don't like babies

Sorry to bore you but it is all Pondside's fault!!

So my seven victims are:

Laurie
Mutterings and meanderings
gwen
pig in the kitchen
milkmaid
around my kitchen table
yorkshire pudding
the other side of me

Please read once and destroy!

About time too, l might add!

2008-03-26T13:41:00.010Z

Well about flippin' time too, l have a spare moment to float around in cyberland. Looking at my last posting date, l am am shocked at just how absent l have been. We have had Easter, albeit a wintry wonderland sort of easter, well to my mind, what can you expect when easter is propelled into March with no thought for day trippers or caravaners north of the Humber!

I feebly raise my hand and say l have been busy; we have manged to flog the stuff to a major multiple, now that has been an experience to put it mildly, the details of which l will not post up here! We have learnt over the past few years that early spring sees a trail of potential new customers heading this way looking for new products to sell, so this summer you will find mr moo's at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield. Phew, enjoy!

Easter? Well, what can l say..........yes it snowed and it was cold and it was very windy. Fortunately, the caravan parks were full over the bank holiday weekend so weekend visitors were about, it was the day trippers who stayed at home, put off, no doubt, by the dire weather warnings coming out of the Met Office! We did NOT have 10cm of snow l might add, just a brief dusting!

Our newest member of staff has just started [see photo right] and seems to be enjoying herself, always smiling as you can see. MK however is off, having passed his LGV he will be striding off into the sunset as a lorry, sorry truck driver, when he finds a job that is! The 'new' machinery is churning out a really super smooth creamy ice cream and the new flavours, crunchie cookie especially and the rhubarb and ginger are proving to be winners!

So what's next then? l have made the discovery that l have been blogging for about a year now, sad, starting out on the Country Living Site and then growing up into the proper world of blog, l have 'met' many new friends in the 'computer world' from all over the world [are there really that many sad gits out there?] and have not been shut down for inflammatory remarks! well there is time l suppose!

Here's to the next 12 months!

Spring and large mixes

2008-02-26T15:32:00.007Z

Well l feel it is time to once again, hit the keyboard and start to write.

Yes, busy week yet again. Yesterday saw myself and Hazza attending the Regional Food group's Meet the Producer event held at Escrick, near York. I think that about 2000 invites had been sent out and 150 buyers were expected? So there we were, with our packaging, info, inclusion samples, but with no real ice cream!

Oh, what a nightmare.......... someone, and will mention no names.... forgot about the freezer, you need a FREEZER to take SAMPLES to show and hand out to potential customers! Did we feel pratts? My goodness most definitely! How do you sell ice cream to potential new clients when all you have is a selection of brightly coloured pots? Well, folks, you talk, you gesticulate, you draw upon your imagination to describe the delicious, rich creamy ice cream bursting with pure natural flavours, an ice cream that contains real dairy cream & fresh whole milk producing a dense, wholesome ice cream that you just can't get enough of! An ice cream that sends celebrity chefs into raptures and leaves everyone beaming wildly clamoring for more!

On the way home, my son & l, discussed the afternoon's work and came to the conclusion that we were better off without the ice cream. Customers knew exactly what they were in fact looking for, a good strong brand image plus a top quality, bespoke 15% butterfat ice cream made locally using top class ingredients. We took away with us one definite order plus several strong leads! Not bad for mere dairy farmers who some people believe have no industry knowledge, make poor ice cream, are uncomfortable in a retail environment and have little or no brand exposure etc. Pie in the sky Matey!

Some people, l ask you! Well, time rolls on, end of February in fact, Easter just around the corner, the CL site is fully booked, the large caravan sites have re-opened and day trippers are starting to head out to the coast. The new machinery has already been press ganged into work, the pasturiser has just belched out its first batch of creamy base mix all ready for tomorrow.

All is well, so far, in Mr Moo's mad mad world!

Back to School

2008-02-18T10:34:00.008Z

Yippee, back to normal, half term in the East Riding has come and gone, shooting past like a ship in the dark. Normally a this time of year, trade is what you would call steady,[ but, when is anything 'normal ' anymore?]. We have been really busy, more akin to say August? Well, l tell a smallish fib, it is not only us who have been busy, all along the coast, floods of people, sensiblely dressed, gloves, hats scarves etc, have been descending on the Yorkshire Coast en mass. Take Bridlington, for example, grid locked on the past two Sundays! No parking spaces to be had anywhere. Pirate Bill doing trips around the Bay. Ice cream sales taking an early upturn.

The weather has been superb. Brilliant blue skies and glorious sunshine with hard crisp frosts at night, for the whole week, well except Thursday when sea fret rolled in off the North Sea, keeping everyone at home. Customers have been enjoying the footpath, though we are having problems with a family with quad bikes that seem to think that chasing up and down a 'footpath', knocking people hither and thither is great fun. Unfortunately, you see, the fence has been damaged and broken due to the high tide crashing over the cliff top, sending fence posts into orbit. The wet weather, until now, has meant that we have been unable to get down in the JCB to repair the damage, replacing fence posts and wire. Today is the day to rectify the break!

This week we are taking a break from ice cream production due to upgrade our machinery, stainless steel pipes seem to be strewn everywhere! Cables, plastic wrapping, oh the place looks a mess.

Did l mention the new flavour? Well, it's rhubarb and ginger, and is going down a storm, with both ice cream scoop sales & wholesale customers [and me] enjoying the new treat

So what else? Still attacking the old paperwork, hope to meet a certain Mr G Ramsey at the opening of the new, revamped ...Bridlington Spa Theatre........... WOW!

Ice cream, glorious ice cream

2008-01-28T11:11:00.000Z

Every year at the end of January, ice cream manufacturers from the huge multinational to the small artisan producer, pack their bags and head off for the the ice cream show to end all ice cream shows, the Big One, the International Artisan Ice Cream, Patisserie & Confectionery Exhibition held in Rimini.

l must just say that we have only been once before and don't attend every year, but this year whilst Management stays put, the lads have braved the roadworks on the A1, scrabbled for seats on the Ryanair flight to Forli all in the name of ice cream!

The Italians, as well as designing wonderful shoes & handbags, are also thought to be the world leaders in ice cream. Every street has its own gelato selling a mouth watering array of brightly coloured*** & wonderfully decorated ices & sorbets. So then it's hardly surprising that the main exhibition for all thinks ice creamy is held in Italy.

All the main flavour suppliers will be there as will be stands displaying nothing but glassware, for ice cream sundaes, fixtures and fitting, to make your ice cream parlour look the bes knees, cones, machinery, packaging. Everything you can think of do do with ice cream will be there!

Ice cream recipes are very interesting, you can make a batch using nothing more than water or milk. a 'ready mix' powder and loads of added air. Here we use gallons of fresh milk, double cream, very little added air [our ice cream feels heavy compared to cheaper ice cream] & definitely do not use anything artificial, we prefer to use locally grown fruits wherever possible but failing that we do buy in flavours, things like chocolate & amerana cherry for example.

So l am looking forward to hearing all about the Ice Cream Trip on the Boys return and l really hope that the range of natural flavours has been increased!
The Italians do like to add plenty of E120 & E110!***

today's weather forecast................

2008-01-24T11:46:00.000Z

Why is it here, in England that we seem to be so obsessed with the weather? Certainly being married to a farmer you seem to be more weather orientated. Its a bit like, when you go out for a drive, farmer looks over the hedges and passes comments on the straightness of the tram lines. Same with the weather, here, in this household we don't just watch 1 weather forecast we watch, well l personally don't, several... sky, BBC news 24 etc etc. We even have homemade weather stations here on farm!

All this technology seem far removed from the folk law of times gone past. I remember one year's young farmers rally, the main exhibit competition title was 'old wives tales', ours club's was, 'make hay whilst the sun shines', another club had used the legend, 'if the cows are laid down then it is going to rain'.

Then there is global warming. Do we really think this is happening and if it is, can we really save the human race buy a mere change of light bulbs? The earth will survive what every happens, we are the ones who will become extinct going the same way as dinosaurs! The next generation of life in 20 million years time will be digging up our fossilized remains & wondering what happened to us! But there again is this heating up of the planet just a regular occurrence, something that has happened time & time again, followed by the big freeze?

Right then, is all this flooding, the second time in 6 months, to do with a change in the weather patterns? Who knows, but exporting all our industrial pollution to India & China in return for cheap consumer goods seems to give the impression of, well it's not in my back yard so why should l worry, but then don't put up wind farms near me please as they are an eyesore but l am doing my bit as l fill my 4wd with bio diesel and fit all my lights with the low energy, mercury filled light bulbs.......

A Relaxing January?

2008-01-21T12:56:00.000Z

Halfway through January. Time passes so fast, is the planet spinning faster on its axis? So here we are then, 21st January 2008. Busy busy busy.

In previous years, January has been the sedate month, a time to recharge those batteries, sit front of the fire sipping sloe gin & watching those good old repeats on the telly. Bliss. This year?

Bang! It has been non-stop since the New Year. Hence no blogs. Don't mention the word 'paperwork' or 'external audit'. Shussssh!

To produce food, you have to be passed by the local council's Environmental Health Officer, who gives you a very thorough going over & inspects your HACCP plan with an electron microscope. This is good. It protect you, the general public from bogus or substandard food and protect us into the bargain. However, we have a new customer coming on board who is raising the bar to an even higher notch. This is good. But to actually climb over the high bar we need to put new measures in place. It all takes some doing but we are getting closer to the gold medal standard, so to speak. It just takes time. So no January holiday this year! I think having achieved SALSA certified standard makes up for it. How sad is that? A certification as opposed to 10 nights somewhere near the equator?

Now swiftly moving away from our luscious, homemade ice cream to caravans. The Caravan Club certified site is, l am pleased to say, fully booked for Easter. We also have a caravan rally at the same time. Nothing like gluttons for punishment eh? Lets hope that, despite Easter being early, the grass pitches will be dry enough to use, if not, it's a case of hard standing only!

Oh by the way, did l say it is still raining up here on Yorkshire's east coast?

Grandpa B's photos

2008-01-03T12:11:00.000Z

As is so often the case when l am meant to be playing accountant and supposed to be working hard & interpreting the figures on my quickbooks software, l find myself straying, sending out emails to friends, browsing the pages of Google for, well just about anything of interest to me. l will confess that this is no new phenomena, it is a part of me, easily distracted. School reports wrote ' she is always gazing out of the window, her mind on things miles away and paying no attention to the lesson in hand'.

Not much has changed, outside it is snowing, the wind howling down the chimneys, my feet encased in 2 pairs of socks & boots, and here l am, scanning Google and the word Newent. My family, you see, come from this small country town on the outskirts of the Forest of Dean. In fact they have lived & died here for some 200 years, their tombstones peppering the churchyard of St Mary's, their spirits walking the King's Shoot & the attics of the Red House.

Oh, as you can see, l have done it once more, gone off on a tangent. So here l was googling the ancestral town, when my grandfather's name popped up. On further investigation and clicking l was somewhat chuffed and needless to say surprised to see that my cousin, who lives in California, has been restoring and posting photographs that had been taken nearly 100 years ago by said grandfather. l will hasten to add that Grandpa B WAS a very keen amateur photographer as was his father & grandfather before him.

The picture of the two chaps and weather vane will make my Dad chuckle for you see his bedroom was directly opposite the church and the wonderful, gleaming golden cockerel. Being a country lad and the proud owner of a collection of firearms which he used to shoot anything that moved, the weather vane became a vital piece of target practice. Some years later, when the spire & vane were being repaired, it was discovered that the weather vane was full of bullet holes. 'Who dunnit' ran the headlines in the local newspaper. 'Perhaps it was the Home Guard using the cockerel for target practice' ran the story.

l don't think so!

ps: the last picture is view of the Red House / Post Office from church spire

ovens, sprouts & cold turkey

2007-12-27T11:21:00.001Z

Yippee, survived, Christmas has come [and gone]. Have fed the 5 thousand, or so it would seem. Sprouts, sprouts and yet more sprouts. What may l ask is so marvelous about them? The very thought of eating one of those small green mini-cabbage-wind-inducing-things makes me feel positively nauseous. I ought to have a medal for preparing that vegetable!

This year, we have replaced the old kitchen with a new, second hand, ebay version which came complete with ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES. l am now the proud owner of an electric oven. WOW. You see, being a proper farmer's wife l have cooked only using an aga. For non-aga aficionados, this means that your turkey needs to be cooked slowly, very slowly in fact, in the bottom oven over night, leaving you room to burn the roast veggies in the top oven, whilst trying not to loose to much heat from the hot plates, phew... well this year, l cooked the turkey in the... electric oven. Do you know it tasted ok, moist, juicy & not falling off the bones aga style?

The tiles surrounding the aga have been designed & hand painted by a very talented fellow blogger residing in France, and her web site can be visited by a mere click just here!

The entertaining bit is still going on, tonight SIL & husband are here for a spot of tea, beef in ginger wine with clementines being top of the menu this evening! Christmas presents for them this year was a doddle, so to speak. Donations to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Duly done!

So, what with mild weather, an unhealthy amount of food, which l am pleased to say has been sourced locally where possible, [smug grin], it has been a fairly quite Christmas; the dogs have enjoyed tasty gravy on their food, Lucy-Piglet has been taking all her medicine without too much fuss, plus the added bonus / bribe of 6 small feeds a day, actually l have turned this in to 3 feeds a day but don't tell the vets! Oh, and did l mention that the oesophagus stretching appears to have more or less cleared / improved her eating ability?

**Happy Christmas / Birthday [Boxing Day] / New Year to TF [ a Canadian] & KS [a local] in Australia! Enjoy the surf dude!**

noel

2007-12-12T12:30:00.001Z

l know that it is the month of December but l hadn't quite realized that Christmas was only 2 weeks away. Help, l am not organized. No cards written, no turkey ordered, no christmas puddings made.

The TV advertising is set to feeding frenzy point, trying to get the last ounce of 'suckerabilty' out of us,. You must but this toy or that, then these mince pies are so much better than those, plus have you got all your electrical things ordered? who in their right minds wants a blurdey dishwasher or washing machine for Christmas?

Oh well never mind, it will soon be Easter!

At least the temperature has dropped. Last night saw our first, white frost of the winter. Ice everywhere. It is at this time of year that wellingtons are not the ideal choice of foot wear unless you have at least 3 pairs of socks on! Gordon has discovered that ice & him just don't get on. You see, in the morning he LEAPS out, spinning about, bending this way and that, but on ice, well, he just ends up sliding across the farm drive, arms & legs akimbo! Poor dog. He thinks he is the ONLY dog. That he can have choice morsels and total attention. Wrong. Lucy-Piglet with any luck should be returning home on Saturday after her awfully big adventure.

Poor Gordon!

spring tides and missing cliffs

2007-12-06T09:44:00.002Z

The past few weeks have seen mammoth changes to the beach at Withow Gap. Normally at this time of year, sand on the upper beach is scrapped back revealing the smooth, slippery grey clay, however, this year we seem to have a reverse of all things normal. And so it is that now, in December, the sand has never been so high. Ten feet of vertical, peaty cliff have been buried under tons of fine sand. Now, today, instead of a scramble down into Withow Gap, clutching wildly for anything to stop you ending up slipping ignominiously in the peaty morass & looking to all intents and purposes as though you have been mud wrestling, it is a case of a gentle, elegant hop, down on to the soft sand, maintaining ones decorum! l feel quite sorry for the summer visitors, clad in light summer shoes totally unsuitable for mud paddling, blame the ancient lake god's!

The Sand Dumping might be good news for walkers but it does bring other problems, the drain is now blocked and water is back tracking up the dyke, causing the water table to rise in the low part of the field, turning it once more into the kettlehole lake of days gone past. Great for wading birds. Flocks of redshanks, lapwing & greenshanks plus loads of small waders prodding the peaty soil for a meal! So far that makes 2 interesting results of the high sandy bit, now for the down side.... each spring tide has seen the sea come up over the 'cliff' top strewing flotsam & jetsam ever where and of course hastening coastal erosion.

Finally, the dog. Lucy-Piglet. We have a positive diagnosis. It is a post esophageal stricture. L-P is currently residing at the Animal Health Trust clinic near Newmarket under going treatment and with any luck she will be back here in a week. Gordon is bereft

Dogs and fancy dress

2007-11-22T14:11:00.000Z

So today's Thursday. A dry but chilly one in fact; where do the days keep flying off to? Short days, long dark nights. Dank, dark & damp. Amazingly, we have had no rain for the past couple of days. It had been raining solidly since the weekend, water once more falling to the lowest point of resistance & accumulating in the boggy bottoms & field depressions. Not exactly the floods of june, more our typical winter weather pattern.

So on to the updates on the dog.

Well, she is still with us and has returned to her usual bouncy self, putting weight back on after her second close shave with the grim reaper. She is, l must hasten to add, not 100% fighting fit. The problem when she eats is still with us. Well l think in my last blog l briefly ran through the symptoms? The initial diagnosis based on these symptoms was a post operative esophageal stricture,however during the routine vet visit to the farm yesterday, & by observing L-P actually eating, [bar a definite diagnosis at a serious vet center], the problem could be damage to nerves that induce swallowing? On a more positive note, there is no urgency in getting a definite diagnosis. Will keep the blog updated as to any updates in this department & can report that at this moment the mutt in question is sitting at my feet burping! Delightful!

So we turn to things more frivolous. Relief you think, there is only so much of 'crook' dog that one can take!

Last friday saw the BBC Children in Need Appeal, which involves lots of people doing strange & wonderful things in order to raise money for the charity. So it was that this year we too have joined in the fun, serving our customers in a wacky selection of fancy dress! We had Noggin the Nog [or could it have been Brünnhilde] & superman, hippies & Ali G, Lady Pirates & Micky Mouse. All in all we raised a respectable sum of approximately £100. Now next year we will do a sponsored ice cream eating session!

reflection.

2007-11-12T15:06:00.000Z

l had no idea it was so long ago that l wrote my last blog. It isn't that l have been avoiding the blank screen, but stuff just seems to come at you from all angles...........

The dog, L=P is still not back to normal. She is having a major problem eating in bites. Food has to be pureed or else she behaves like a cat with a large fur ball rammed down her throat. the vets have taken x-rays, but have no idea the cause of her frothy vomiting each & every time she eats in a normal fashion. I always thought that horses were trouble, now it looks like dear old L-P is the cause of yet more wrinkles. hey ho!

So here we are November, Remembrance Sunday is out of the way so we seem to be in the count down to christmas, the mad rush to buy all things twinkly & tacky. The shops are playing, to gets us in the mood, carols & Christmas 'icky' pop. Out with the earplugs.

The shop is now quieter. We are closed Mondays & Tuesday from now on until easter, so that gives me a few days of normality. Lunch at lunch time for example, plus catching up with friends who feel that they have been deserted over the summer months. It's really hard to do nothing or very little after months of non-stop adrenaline overloads!

Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty to do. Meeting buyers, planning for next year, removing dust from the skirting. It's just so nice to be able to do what l want, within reason, without watching the clock or having to be smiley at all times.

'So here it is Merry Christmas everybody's having fun...................'

this was the week that was.......

2007-10-29T11:45:00.001Z

Oh hell, thank the gods that that one is OVER. FINI..... Dog dog dog... In my diminished world of sick dog, even the school half term dimmed by comparison to thrusting tablets down doggy throats & rushing sick doggy into vets! I am mentally devoid of coherent speech & recognized thought patterns. Give Me Strength........

Well, Lucy-Piglet has made a Full Recovery after what you just might call a 'close shave', well a very close one in fact! The stitches have come out this morning, so all l can say is thanks to the team at Garth Vets in Beeford and rabbits beware - she's back - be afraid, be very afraid!

Other things did happen last week, for example we were busy over half term week. Children seem to crawl out of the woodwork & take over the place, obviously enjoying the late summer weather [joke], scampering around having great fun! Just discovered today that the west yorkshire schools are on half term this week, 'nought like bein' prepared like'.

Other fun things, included our summer chap from Nova Scotia, leaving, returning home before a round the world trip which will no doubt include him indulging in any number of extreme sports. This guy does in real life what all the gameboy / xbox /nintendo surfing - snowboarding - skateboarding games allow the couch potato to do in the comfort of their living rooms! Awesome dude! Well, to celebrate his return or weep at his leaving, we held a party. A fancy dress party in fact. Boy were there some good costumes! There were zombies, fairies, cavemen, pirates plus the Vicar of Dibley thrown in for good measure!

Hopefully now, things WILL return to normal? Autumn mists, falling leaving and parties. I seem to be doing quite well on the party front at the moment. Three in a week no less. Two fancy dress & one black tie. Saturday night's effort involved loads of white make-up, absinthe, zombie's drool & something else made from red bull & black vodka? Hmm can't remember exactly.... not bad really it was quite an experience drinking absinthe in the company of one's son!! Hazza's excuse was The Green Fairy, so what was mine?

sick dog

2007-10-23T19:28:00.000+01:00

No blog for over a week, what's up then? Lucy-Piglet. Last Thursday she was off. Dull, listless depressed AND off her food. Sure sign that all is not well in Lucy-Piglet world. The vet felt sure that she was suffering from the non-puppyitis, having been on heat / season the previous week. So off we toddle home with what we thought was the non-pregnant dog fatigue syndrome.

Friday, she was ill, dull, listless, temperature of 104'. Back to the vets. OK, what do non-spayed bitches suffer from? Pyometra. Why have we not had her spayed? well she was booked in, was placed under anesthesia and reacted very badly indeed. This could have been that at 6 months old she broke her pelvis in 6 places which required pining? Well, to cut to the sharp end of the story, L-P had her hysterectomy there and then after first checking with the animal hospital in Doncaster who had done the Big Opp as to which anesthetic had been used there.

Last week's surgery went as well as can be expected, she reacted badly once again to the analgesic, but, the pyometra wasn't ruptured but, & here is the critical bit, there was fluid in her abdomen. It is this that has caused her return to the vets today with a raised temperature & nausea.

This evening, her temperature is back down, her tail is wagging and she has eaten a little, but, she is still feeling sick, apparently lots of lick lipping. She is on intravenous fluids & antibiotics to treat the pyometa & possible bacterial peritonitis.

Tomorrow, well that is another day isn't it? If she shows no sign of improvement, ie. she is worse then she will need to be transfered to an intensive animal hospital where she can be nursed round the clock.

I don't know how sick she really is. It's a case of wait and see isn't it? Hopefully she will respond to treatment and another positive is that she is a young dog, 4 years old. If not, well, lets look at that when it happens shall we...........

Have posted today's update in the comments section!

sneeezes & snow

2007-10-15T16:22:00.000+01:00

Ok. l am now ready for winter. My wood pile is stacked up & the central heating is just waiting to be turned up. Come on winter, l am ready for you! Slight problem though. The temperature here is 15'C. It feels mild & muggy. Germs abound. l am busy dying from my first cold of the season. My intake of single malt to which is added copious amount of lemon, honey & a wee bit of hot water has done nothing as yet to alleviate the symptoms. So here l sit with a nose to equal or surpass Rudolph's!

On a more serious note, this mild air is a slug's idea of heaven. What more could you ask for than warm, damp air & fields of juicy rape seedings just sitting there waiting to be eaten with gusto! Hence me saying come on winter it's not that l am a kill joy wanting the mild autumn to end, but it's just that all these bugs & slugs need a knock on the head, so to speak.

Winter can't be far off though, l note that Christmas adverts are appearing on the TV, what ever happened to waiting till after Bonfire Night before deluging the box with adverts for the latest must have gift / drink / supermarket food eh? And another thing, what happened to the good old All Hallows Eve & bobbing apples, why is it now trick or treating & everyone dress up in pumpkin suits?

Oh my god, l believe l am turning into a 'grumpy Old Woman', surely not........... l'm not old enough yet?

of rabbits & the north west passage

2007-10-08T14:17:00.000+01:00

It's October & it's mild. The last week has seen nothing but sunshine & blue skies, ok so it is a tadge over cast now, but cold it ain't. What is going on with the weather? Who's doing the messing about then? On this morning's Today program on radio 4, a chap was saying that in the arctic, the North West Passage had been clear of ice for the longest time in recorded history. Perhaps the fate of Franklin will be exposed, so to speak.

The un-typical weather has meant that during the weekends, people are out and about. The car park here was full for most of Sunday as people enjoyed that walk down to the sea. How many got down onto the beach l'm not sure as the sea has been over the cliff top once again at Withow Gap, scouring out all the pebbles from the dyke & bringing down a large chunk of peaty cliff-face.

We are starting to get large flocks of birds coming in now for the winter, yesterday a large skein of barnacle geese came swooping in over the hedge swearing violently at each other, or so it seem, as they jostled for final landing checks. last week, flows of human twitchers were out. A rare bird had been sighted so car loads of Bill Odies were to be seen scurrying about in search of this rare visitor!

Well, there is one animal that doesn't seem to have suffered at all this summer. The rabbit, or shall we say Oryctolagus cuniculus. We have been inundated by the pesky varmites. Hundred of those dear little fluffy bunnies EVERYWHERE.

Normally, we loose a good few through myxomatosis, but this year nothing bar the odd one. Even Gordon & Lucy-Piglet's efforts seem to be little more than a scraping across the surface. The amount of damage that they do is amazing. All our trees have the longest available plastic tubes around, even the hedge plants, in order to save them from those sharp teeth. To a rabbit nothing more delicious than a lovely, juicy, nibbleable sapling! We must have a breed of Super Rabbits, oh where are you the Anti Pesto Team?

apples and birthday parties

2007-10-01T14:53:00.000+01:00

Time is a passing, me thinks, the friends that l have kept in regular contact with since leaving school are, well getting to the 1/2 way stage in life... well how else can l put it without being lynched on my next visit to Cheltenham? The only plus point is that l am not there yet!

So this friday, after a very quick sort out, we hit the wonderful UK motorway systems and headed south. M62, M18, M1, M42, M5. Bingo, 31/2 hours later, with no significant slows or stops we hit Gloucestershire. My god, were there some horrendous tail backs on the M1 on friday afternoon, north bound from Sheffield right down to east midlands. l think l can safely say that we were heading in the right direction for once! The 'old banger', which is hubby's pride & joy, positively purred down the motorway!

The weekend, spent in a small hamlet just to the north of Bishops Cleeve was a real hoot. saturday morning helping the 'birthday girl' with the preparations for the evening's party, then as the sun emerged for what might possiblely have been only the second time in September, headed via my old stomping ground, up to Much Marcle in order to stock up on perry, from Westons cider mill. We did, l must confess do a wee bit of sampling, which included a rather girlee mix of cider & raspberry!

One of the things that really hits you is how the area has changed. In and around Cheltenham, so much building, identikit housing estates, grid lock, traffic - traffic - traffic. However, once you clear the river Severn at Haw Bridge the pace of life seems to draw breath, the road becomes notably quieter, fields emerge with livestock & grassland as opposed to the good old pony paddock. Really, l could see little change over the years. The house with the crenelated wall just before the t junction to Corse was still there. That was meant to have been removed due to contravening the planning regs over 30 years ago!

The return drive back through the rolling green countryside dotted with the odd cultivated field exposing the red soils, took us to Castle Fruit Farm where we stocked up on apples, pears & freshly pressed juice. Mmm yummy.

So how did that party go? Well, the wind dropped & the temperature rose. The guests arrived, as did the hog roast, and we all had fun!! Wine, real ale, food added to which was an hilarious song charting my friend's life to date to the tune of 'wild rover'. Next morning? Owwwuurrgggh!! Where was the paracetamol.

For classic car fans, the motor is..... a jag XJS 4lt 1994.

cold ears

2007-09-25T18:03:00.000+01:00

This evening's dog walk has left me with cold, tingling ears, a sure sign that autumn is here. It is one of the down sides to living so close to the sea. The sharp, salt laden wind was one of the first things that l noticed on moving north from Gloucestershire, apart from the strange language which l really struggled to understand. The banks of the River Severn were often breached during the winter months & the villages & hamlets around Gadbury, Pendock & Eldersfield often took on a supernatural appearence, but cold wind whistling around the ears? Not on your life!

So here we are then autumn. Summer neatly tucked away until next year, and boy what a summer it was, if you could call it that? It would be fairly accurate to say that the weather has impacted on the business this year, only the brave ventured out during the months of May through to July. Oh to have had shares in hunter wellingtons this summer! Well, at least we weren't flooded out & summer of a sort eventually arrived in August!

So what next? Foot and Mouth is still bubbling away down south & now we have blue tongue; the best bit of news was that of price fixing by the major multiples, we as farmers, & having been involved in price negotiations with dairy companies, have been always aware of the fact, though of course it must NEVER be mentioned in public!! I can even recall a board member of a Leeds based dairy company vehemently deny that this was ever the case, what did he call it? A cartel & this was illegal, he said.... need l say more?

So, l guess it's now time to turn on the central heating, chop the logs for the woodburner, set up the mouse traps to catch the little blighters as they move into their winter residence, and, perhaps, more importantly get out the woolly hat!

post holiday blues

2007-09-20T12:43:00.001+01:00

Why is it when you come back off holiday everything is, well, flat. OK, so the piles of dirty washing aren't exactly 'flat' but, your brain is kinda of, well, out of it.

Anyway, less of the maudlin, back from holiday mood & back to the prose, or whatever this selection of poor grammar & spelling is termed as. Really, l think l should have stayed put, hidden in the olive groves & refused point blank to return to the chilly, autumnal weather of the east Yorkshire coast. brrr.

Not even back a week & already starting to sneeze. Could it be all that re-circulated air pumped around the aircraft cabin? Airlines, especially the charter ones have a lot to answer for. Take the food. Well, l think they call it 'food'. To me, being served up a rubber, rectangle of burnt pasta is not something l would term along the lines of food. A frisby perhaps, but not food. Then there are those over priced small tins of pop.......... Next time, l will buy my £4.50 sandwich & £2.50 bottle of plain mineral water & eat something a bit more recognizable as food, if not great value for money.

Less of the moans & groans. OK. Great holiday. Did very little except read, sit in the sun, swim & of course eat loads of yummy nosh! N E Corfu is tourism on a low key. Do they call it Kensington on Sea? Small coves, olive strewn hilly bits then mountains, dotted with villages, hamlets & villas. What l did notice this year was how very dry the undergrowth is. Normally at this time of year, the purple flowers of the wild cyclamen are carpeting the olive groves. This year, nothing but dead grass. No rain you see, well, ok, we had some rain, but there has been no proper rain for months so together with the heat wave, that has hit the eastern Med, everything is very dry indeed.

the traveller returns

2007-09-17T14:33:00.001+01:00

It is amazing just how quickly a week can fly past. Time seemed to positively race past at a break neck speed. One minute your sitting on the suitcase trying to close the damm thing then the next you're sat up in the restaurant at corfu airport waiting to see if your departure flight is on time. Oh to be able to hit the rewind switch!

Corfu. Ah Corfu. Just wonderful. The place is truly magical. The scenery is outstanding, the locals are well, local, & the food...... fresh fish & seafood......freshly baked bread cooked in the local bakery.............. sublime as well as calorific.

This year we stayed lower down the slopes of the mountain, closer to the sea, within walking distance in fact. A gentle stroll down through the olive groves, peppered with the odd cypress tree, to the pebbly beaches of Agni and Yaliskari.

Warm, crystal clear waters temptingly inviting, snorkels & flippers at the ready, fish in abundance. The return trek, and at the start of the week it was a definite trek, back up the step pathway, up, up, up to the village and the dark red villa, with views across the countryside & narrow straights towards the barren slopes of Albania.

So now l'm back. The memories are the photos on the computer set to slide show. The washing has been done & summer clothes put away until next year. The accounts have been caught up with. The sun tan is, well, hmm, not completely faded. Corfu again next year then?

escape .......

2007-09-06T14:59:00.001+01:00

One of the things that really keeps you going during the busiest moments is the thought of the holiday booked for early September. After a busy summer is not the right time to trawl through the myriad of web sites offering tempting last minute breaks to here or there, so, for the past few years we have behaved in a sensible manner & booked the week's break well in advance. So tomorrow, the time has finally arrived. We are off. Returning to corfu once more.

I came to Corfu fairly late. I had fallen in love with the island after having read Gerrald Durrell's book, My Family and Other Animals whilst still at school. l have not been disappointed. To me, l can still catch a glimpse of the boy & his dog racing through the dark olives grows growing on the steep slopes that fall down into the azure blue of the crystal clear sea.

So, for the next 7 days, a whole week in fact, we will be deserting the Yorkshire coast & scanning, instead, the barren coastline of Albania from our terrace whilst gargling with ouzo & swatting wasps!

september..dog days

2007-09-04T10:30:00.000+01:00

Summer is over. The schools have gone back today, all those badly parked cars jammed outside the village schools gates again. Peace returns at last. The peace it would seem is in the form of an Indian summer, blue skies, wispy, high cirrus cloud, swirling & swooping swifts, the new seasons babies practicing their acrobatics before their long journey south for the winter. Skeins of geese are busy circling stubble fields in search of spilled grain.

Here, the land has returned to the brown earth of the ploughed & rotavated fields, waiting for the break crop of oil seed rape to be sown. Areas of grassland flooded in the june floods have now been re-seeded & it will be interesting to see if these new lays flourish with the addition of the nutrients from the flood water.

The ice cream parlour, after a more than hectic august, is now settling down to a more leisurely pace. August was certainly manic & as a rough guide, has been our busiest ever. All our visitors have been in excellent form, not a cross word, grumble or complaint. It has almost been as though with the weather being so crap in June & July, then with August being of a marked improvement, nothing was going to get in the way of their days out, so bring out the ice cream!

The farm walk has been enjoyed by old a young. Withow gap has been dammed & bridged by young construction engineers whilst the more imaginative have been making pebble boats & castles. Talking about castles we had one little boy come in with a vivid scar across his forehead. His day was made when one of the lads commented that 'he was a real wizard'!

a few hours off

2007-08-28T18:39:00.001+01:00

Several important things have happened in the past few days, bank holiday, animal movement restrictions lifted & the lads have returned from Leeds fest.

The holiday weekend was truly heaving. Everyone along this bit of coast has commented on the fact. People rushing to the seaside to take advantage of the sudden burst of summer. We were well and truly swamped by good humoured customers, l even manged to chat to some of them for longer than a minute, quite a feat l can tell you!

The lifting of the movement ban meant that we could at last releive home farm of the weaned baby heifers. 10 arrived to take up residence in their new quarters. The farm will be their home for the next 2 years, only leaving to calve down. Straw filled yards for the winter & pasture from spring until the first frosts of winter.

Then, finally the boys returned from the weekend rock concert held at Bramham Park near wetherby. That has meant that l have, at last, managed to have a few hours off & travel up to Scarborough Castle to deliver ice cream. Yes, how sad is that, time out & what do l do..... work!

The sea front was teaming with holiday makers, stuffing their faces with ices, kids riding the donkeys on the beach, children racing into the sea in their strange 'anti-sunburn suits', old folk staring down at the fishing boats in the harbour. Arh, the quintessential English seaside resort.

One thing l did do was take my camera & have manged at last to take a photo of Anne Bronte's grave [see right[. As you can see, the grave is maintained but at the bottom of the graveyard is a, wait for it, car park. Words fail me.

bank holiday approaches

2007-08-23T18:24:00.000+01:00

It's nearly the end of August. Where have the summer months gone, june & july. Have l blinked & missed them or has something more sinister been taking place?

I think l can safely say that this summer has been as total wash out, damp squib, non-starter. No warm sunshine, no blue skies & no hosepipe ban. Can this be England? Have we been sucked into a time vacum or vortex & returned to the good old damp summers of yesteryear? Has anyone seen the Doctor of late? Is he still in Cardiff? Ah well, no use in becoming a moan-a-holic, perhaps next year the weather will be better.........

Bank holidays drive me, as they say, nuts. Why does everything close down for 3 days? well not exactly everything. Why do people go do-lally buying food for the next Great Famine, piling shopping trolleys to overflowing with food that will, more than likely, end up in next week's rubbish collection? It is well & truly beyond me.

Look at the roads this evening, caravans. Caravans EVERYWHERE. All heading to the coast armed with their air conditioning, satellite TV, barbies, wind breaks.............. I will admit to having a 5 pitch CL site here, and well, we are full for this weekend Have been fully booked for months. The phone is still ringing, hopeful caravaner's looking for that all elusive pitch for the bank holiday.

So for the next few days we will be battening down the hatches & going into 'survival' mode, life rafts & may wests at the ready. Ice creams, cakes, coffees, food, cowpats, all will be made with a smile & taken to the customer's table with a flourish. No one will know that we may be tired, grumpy & our feet may be dropping off, we hide it well. Cheese........................