Banana and white Chocolate biscuits and what Friday brought ..

Well I didn't burn the biscuits, but when they came out of the Aga I thought do I leave them as they were a bit on the floppy side or bend them over like a sandwich. I chose the latter and took some outside this morning for us to enjoy in the sunshine. Some of them I took for the grandchildren so I am awaiting their comments ,it will be "please can we have some more "or "yuk".

 As the day went on the temperature rose, so did the thermometer got to a nice 100 degrees , which is 37.7 then it went silly but I forgot to take a photo and it got up to 42 degrees. I told my Dad he would have to stay inside until it cooled down. He said he had been in the greenhouse this morning and it was 120 degrees and in his bedroom which faces south it was 105. When I went over at teatime he was happily sitting in the shade of an ash tree with the hose pipe in his hand watering his vegetables. He doesn't believe casting a clout till May is out . Clout means his clothes and May ..now is that the month of May or when the May flower is out - that is the blossom on the blackthorn hedges .This goes on to give us sloes for our sloe gin in Autumn. So as it is the last days of May he took it upon himself to change into his summer underwear and  he just hopes there isn't going to be any more frosts .
I heard this morning that Peter Dodd was leaving Welcome to Yorkshire . It is a sad day indeed as I felt  he was the strongest cog in the wheel and goodness know what will happen now . Time will tell. Peter did so much during his time at Welcome to Yorkshire . Did you know he was the main stay in getting the Tour de France Le Tour to Yorkshire.  He was in charge of the W2Y part of Chelsea Flower Show. And was so involved with the La Vuelta Spanish bike race,Amanda his wife had to reorganise her birthday. So we wish Peter and his family all the best in whatever direction he takes. So I will raise my glass of violet gin and home made elderberry cordial ... ok so I like my drinks sweet and say

Thank you Peter and Good Luck

Gala Dinner at Castle Howard

After the VisitBritain conference on Friday we were invited to a Gala dinner. This was at our grandest of grand stately homes in the county, Castle Howard. Only 10 miles from us. I have visited the house on many an occasion and really like going when it is dressed for Christmas. This time we were very honoured to go to this Gala Dinner. Simon Howard was always a generous host to the tourism sector over the years. There was a canape reception followed by walking tour through state rooms to reach the Long Hall. Jack was as much impressed by the chateaubriand as he was with the beautiful paintings and portraits that adorn the walls. You can imagine how thrilled the foreign buyers were seeing such a house in all its glory. I loved the flowers that had been arrange by Kim Queen and were very British as one would expect in red,white and blue. Rachael Underwood had been working until very late to create a super evening -see the red ,white and blue colours lit up the Castle. Along corridors in each window candles in hurriance glasses lit the way. Peter Dodd gave an opening speech. As each course of food ended we welcomed another set of buyers to the table.So throughout the evening dined with Polish,Chinese,French and Belguim. The evening was ended by a display by ribbon actresses. My evening was complete when I handed around my calendars as guests boarded buses for their departure. A Danish journalist said he was very touched that a small business like myself had thought to do this and thought it very enterprising of me. And that it was good to see both large and small businesses working side by side to create this Yorkshire brand. Gary Verity might have been missing on this occasion as he was busy lambing.I am sure he would have been pleased with how Yorkshire pulled out the stops to make this a truly memorable night for people from across the globe. Gary we presume was teaching Mrs Verity to pull out the lambs.

Visit Britain

On Friday I had an away day .First it was to the Visit Britain conference at Yorks racecourse where we heard the statistics from Visit Britain -trends and visitors. Here we were treated to a lovely lunch overlooking the York racecourse where I met up with Katrina Gray from the Wold Cottage and other representives from around Yorkshires businesses . The welcome was made by Sally Blacombe the CEO for Visit Britain. Following Sally's very interesting and up beat speech David Edwards the Head of Research and forecasting spoke of Globals trends,inbound UK trends along with a summary of markey conditions. I loved listening to Holger Lenz -hello Love- who is a very witty speaker who clearly love England .He is the manager for Central and Southern Europe for Visit Britain . I spoke to him after his presentation as he was then rushing back to Germany and when I handed him my card I was very touched that he had heard of me -little old me from Ampleforth.One of his collegues had stayed here last year and spoke highly of me . We then listened to Robin Johnson who for the last 3 years has been Director China for Visit Britain -he too was rushng off as he had to look after Prince William the following day in China. After this was a tea break -delicious cakes by the way -before listening to speakers Jimmy Greene,Nick Hall. Our own Welcome toYorkshire Marketing and Sales Director Peter Dodd. A discussion was then led by Michelle Brown of Visit York . Lastly it was lovely to meet Jo Leslie and see Helen Smith and Craig Nattress who do so much to bring tourists to the area locally . Lots of name dropping here but as you can read it was a very interesting day in the office.