At last, the rain has come and the winds abated somewhat leaving us with ominous black clouds and showers punctuated with fantastic bright sunshine.  Lots of drama, clarity and colour for the artists and photographers out there and walks in the woods have never been better.  My own newly planted trees are happy and I’ve even risked planting a few more with more rain and showers forecast for the rest of the week.

So, what’s happening in the shop?  New products include free range organic eggs and, at last, fresh wholesome bread which will make its first appearance on Friday, 20th May.   Our first loaves will be an Organic White and an Omega Seeded loaf.  From here we plan to extend the range according to what you, the customer, wants - spelt, rye, brown, tomato & herb, mixed seed … you decide.  These breads will be made using Sunflours (Yorkshire based farm and mill) flour which is all UK sourced - no flour enhancers, unecessary additives or flavourings.  Bread how it used to be, bread how it should be.  If you want to try some bread that hasn’t been messed with, is baked locally and comes to us fresh every Friday please call in.  Ordered bread can be frozen for collection at your convenience.

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Thank you  to all of you who came up into Settle and tried a veggie burger on the Royal Wedding day.  Our BBQ was a great success and sales of the frozen burgers has now trebled.  That was the first chance some of you had to try the new bread – no complaints that I heard, just compliments!  Ah, William and Kate (and guests) should have sat down with one of our burgers, not roast beef and Yorkshire puddings!

Scaffolding going down

 I know I did a February newsletter, but have no idea what happened to March ….. so I write this with April almost done and feeling a little exhausted by the events of Easter and preparations for the BBQ to celebrate  tomorrow’s Royal Wedding.  There seem to be so many holidays all at once, and we here at Wholesome Bee (choose to) work most of them. Easter was busy, lots of tourists in Settle enjoying the glorious sunshine, and the dry weather meant I even managed to get a little bit of painting done at the shop. 

So what HAS happened this month!?  Well, we got as much work completed on 6 Duke Street as we could, which included repairing the roof to make it watertight.  This was no mean feat as the whole roof had to come off, rotten timbers replaced, then the slates put back on, replacing any damaged ones.  Dry-rot in two corners of the building was worrying, though the architect is confident that it will  go of its accord now the leaky roof and gutters have been fixed.    We will now wait for planning permission before we  proceed any further.

Now into our seventh month of trading in The Shambles shop things are beginning to slot into place a little more.  Beverley joined us last month and works Wednesdays.  She and Nigel have four lovely children and  recently moved to Settle from Clapham.  Beverley is a great addition to our team and has a good basic knowledge of homoeopathy.  Marylin and Chris are our two willing volunteers who help out on Fridays to get the main Suma order priced and put away – we couldn’t manage without them!   Sue continues to keep everything running smoothly and we all really appreciate her cool head and calming words when things get fraught.  Have a look at the granola recipe that Sue has added and feel free to ask any questions for special dietary requirements as Sue can help with this.  As well as doing my days in the shop I  go up to Hawes early every Thursday morning to meet Bluebell Organics for fresh fruit and veg - some of you now realise that late Thursday mornings are the best time to collect your fresh produce!   Hawes is a good meeting point as we also get our cheese from The Ribblesdale Cheese Company up there and catch up with news of Iona’s latest cheese ventures.  As I write this we eagerly await some new  blue cheeses which are almost ready.  The Yorkshire honey is proving a great success too, and comes from Snape, near Bedale a little further up the Dales.  Then there is Lynn from Sunflours, who I met up there today to collect a handsome range of their fantastic  flours, many of which are organic, and some milled on their farm at Grewelthorpe.  Their flour really  is superb and even I seem to be able to turn out some quite acceptable bread!

We are continually striving to find good local produce.  Growing with Grace are now regularly supplying us with their mixed salad leaves, fresh spinach, chard and asparagus (to name but a few) with own-crops from their greenhouses increasing every week now.  We are also happy to be a collecting point for their veggie box scheme, so anyone wanting one, just let them know and it can be collected from us.

I think that is quite enough news for now.  Enjoy the weather while it lasts … this could be summer.

Best Wishes

Kath

Join us if you can as Settle celebrates the Royal Wedding.  Shire horses from Thwaites Brewery will be in the market place at 12 noon, bouncy castles, balloon race, entertainments and a general party atmosphere will help us all remember this special day.

Wholesome Bee will have a modest BBQ serving vegetarian burgers and organic squash from 11 a.m. and the shop will be open as normal, 9 am to 6 pm

Hope to see you there!

11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. We will have local homeopath Jo Rhodes in the shop as part of our programme of events.

Jo will answer questions and give advice on homeopathy, particularly relating to first aid and hay fever remedies.

Call in to find out more, all are welcome and the advice on offer is free!

For those who didn’t know, work has started on the new Wholesome Bee premises at 6 Duke Street, the old Anderson Slater antiques shop.

It looked in bad nick when we bought it, but crikey does it look worse now!  Work has started on the outside with lads picking and then re-pointing the walls in Commercial yard using the old-fashioned lime mortar.  We hope to start re-roofing this week too, replacing the laths and putting back the old original grey slates.  We are really keen to keep the integrity of the whole building, which has a listed building status. On the basis that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, we look to the future with crossed fingers and lots of optimism!  The main contractor did ask if I was OK for finance as we looked at the scale of the project we had undertaken.  “Its OK” I replied, “The bank is just the other side of that wall!”.

We aim to relocate end September but there is a deal of work to do and we apologise for any inconvenience to pedestrians and our neighbours whilst we are at the ‘breaking eggs’ stage.  The building was beginning to fall down and the roof was definitely unsafe – we ask for your patience.