No broken bones, no flat tyres, no getting lost, no power cuts, no ghosts, axe murders or even flashers in the woods.
We've basically just had a jolly nice time relaxing (including a few dips in the hot tub, which was a bit of a luxury) and enjoying lots of girl talk (men, periods, shopping, willies, etc).
And that's literally about it.
To recap for those who missed Monday's blog, I've spent the last five days on a lovely luxury log cabin retreat in the middle of a forest by the North York Moors, with absolutely no mobile phone reception or internet access, hence the total lack of blogging. I was with my two best friends Christina and Christine (yes - it is handy that they're both called Chris!) and Christina is currently pregnant with twins, so the emphasis has very much been on rest, relaxation and eating for three (which obviously Christine and I have cheerfully taken part in too!).
We did manage to avoid the supermarkets, however, even though we got off to a bit of a bumpy start. I did a bit of research online before we left and found a really brilliant-looking farm shop just a couple of miles from our destination. Usually when I go away with the Chrises we tend to stop off at a supermarket on route, so I spent the journey smugly telling them not to worry - I'd found a fantastic farm shop with a huge choice, I'd done loads of research online, bla bla bla, and promising that they'd love it.
So imagine my disappointment when we pulled up to discover it was closed on Mondays. Yep, totally schoolboy error - I'd researched everything but the opening hours.
As we pulled away I could see Chris'n'Chris eyeing each other dubiously. We'd got no fresh food in the car and were running out of daylight. Christina, in particularly, seemed to be fighting an internal battle between being the supportive best friend cheering on my attempts to avoid supermarkets, or pulling rank as the expectant mum and demanding nutrition for the twins!
"Come on," I said brightly. "We're in the countryside. There must be another farm shop around here somewhere."
 |
| The twins enjoy their first farm shop inside Christina's tummy |
Luckily I was right and we found Cedarbarn Farm Shop and Cafe in Pickering, just five miles from where we were staying. A lot of its produce comes straight from its 200 acre farm, which produces beef and lamb from its own cattle and sheep, as well as fruit and vegetables.
Unfortunately we couldn't hang around for too long as we were rushing to hit a specific check-in time at the cabin by that point, but we did manage to stock up on eggs, veggies, bread, cheese and sausages to get us through the week.
To be honest though, it would have been quite difficult to have shopped at a supermarket even if we'd wanted too - we drove for miles and miles through the Yorkshire Dales without seeing any sign of the megastores that seem to have blighted most other parts of the country.
The only supermarket chain in evidence was Co-Operative Food, which seemed to have a little outlet in most of the larger villages we passed. But for the most part the girls cheerfully supported my drive to shop local and we popped into various greengrocers and general stores as we pottered about sightseeing.
So I'm back home now, with a chocolate pressie for Neil from of one of the little independent chocolate shops that we visited, and the cupboards are looking empty so we'll no doubt be doing plenty of local shopping this weekend.
Oh, and in true "here's one I made earlier" style (wrote it last week!) those in Derby can check out the second in my series of local food features in today's Derby Telegraph!
 |
| Cedar Barn Farm Shop |
No comments:
Post a Comment