I must apologise that it’s been a while since my last update. To be honest the last few weeks have been the most stressful times that Ali and I have experienced since we took over the shop. The situation seems to change daily but we all seem to have settled into a new ‘normal’. The shop continues to be open each day. We have had to cut our opening hours to 9-3 Monday to Saturday as we are making an increased number of deliveries. Each day brings different challenges but I think that we have managed to adapt to all of them!
At the moment Ali and I are the only two members of staff working. There’s not a lot of space behind our cheese counter and so the only way to enforce social distancing guidelines was to ask our staff to stay at home. This does have the added benefit that if for any reason Ali and I cannot work we can call upon others to step into the breech.
Our free local delivery service has become very popular and we have also started offering a local shopping service for those in the village who are self-isolating and unable to get into the shop. We have been working with Greens (the butchers) and Garlands (the organic shop) in order to be able to deliver more items to those who need things. Pangbourne is such a great place that in times like these everyone is pulling together as best they can.
In the midst of all of this we decided to launch our new website! There’s been a complete overhaul and Jan (our wonderful resident artist) has been busy creating the fabulous drawings for it. For those that don’t know our mouse mascot goes by the name of Alastair and he now features throughout the site. There are new cheeses listed on there and new products. If there are items that aren’t listed on the website but you know we stock them do contact us as we can usually slot it into the box with the rest of your order!
Away from the shop we have just had a lovely couple of days of down time – although we’ve been doing so much work at home in the garden that I can’t wait to get back into the shop for a rest! I stupidly set myself a bit of a running challenge for 2020 but so far I’m managing to stay ahead of my target each week. Long may it continue.
I think that’s about all of our news at the moment. Please do stay home and stay safe.