South Africa 2025
We have had a fantastic 10 days away on safari in South Africa. Those of you who read my blog often will know that my dad is a huge inspiration to me (he reads these newsletters so I hope he’s not blushing too much right now…) We had the opportunity to spend some time with […]
Lumpy Skin Disease
We are currently unable to import any unpasteurised cheese from France and Italy due to an outbreak of Lumpy Skin Disease… But what is this blight upon our continental cheesy friends? Lumpy Skin Disease is caused by an infection in cattle or water buffalo. It is a virus that was first described in Zambia in […]
Tales Of American Cheese
We have just come back from a whirlwind trip to Sacramento. I think we spent more time flying than we did sleeping in our hotel room whilst we were there! We were in the capital of California for the American Cheese Society’s annual conference and it was incredible. I was speaking during the welcome session […]
Affineur of the Year
Gosh it feels like an age since I last sent out a newsletter, so I figured what better way to spend a wet, chilly, June afternoon in Pangbourne than writing about cheese! We have had a busy few weeks culminating in attending the Affineur of the Year finals on Tuesday. This competition is run by […]
Shropshire Wanderings
We spent last weekend in lovely Shropshire. My wonderful sister had given us a hotel stay as a wedding anniversary present (our 2 dogs were also invited) so we thought we’d head off to Oswestry in Shropshire and explore. Ali’s family are from Wem, which is north of Shrewsbury, east of Oswestry whereas I have […]
March 2025
I started this blog on Thursday when the sun was out and it really felt as though Spring was finally in the air… It may have clouded over since then but the temperature has definitely gone up a notch or two which is super lovely 🙂 Why is it that everyone has a bit of […]
February 2025
We always try and get away for a week at the end of January in order to recover from our hectic time in the shop. I suffer from Raynaud’s syndrome which means that my hands (in particular my fingers) turn white, then grey and go numb, more often than not it is accompanied by chilblains […]
CHRISTMAS 2024
We are about to start the busiest 10 days of our year so this afternoon has been my last chance to send out a quick newsletter. This year has totally flown by, it truly only seems like yesterday that we were seeing in the New Year and all of a sudden the fridges in the […]
December 2024
We are fast approaching our busiest couple of weeks of the year and things are already beginning to ramp up in the shop. I love December and Christmas in particular – it’s always a bit nerve-racking as I had to pre-order most of our cheese at least 2 months ago and at that point I […]
World Cheese Awards 2024
I’ve just come back from an amazingly couple of days at the World Cheese Awards. Regular readers of my newsletter will know that they were being hosted in Viseu, Portugal. I have to say that I didn’t get to do a lot of sightseeing despite going running everyday (it was very dark when I was […]