I thought I’d just close out my Yorkshire trip with one or two memorable moments from the week.
And those memorable moments are as diverse as the cheese we sampled at the Wensleydale factory!
In fact one of the memorable moments is the Wensleydale cheese factory. Nestling on the outskirts of the lovely little village of Hawes, the factory has a little tour, a restaurant, a café and a gift shop. A gift shop where you can buy just about anything from loose leaf tea and tea pots to fridge magnets and frozen ready meals; from posters and cuddly toys to handbags and hats!
Oh, and yes, it does have a cheese shop; a cheese shop which is packed full of many different types of Wensleydale from the regular to the more exotic. The shop is a self contained unit within the gift shop/restaurant complex and is kept at a quite chilling temperature. It is like a tour in its own right, with one way in and one way out and everybody following one route round the shop.
As you enter the shop you are invited, no, encouraged to use the hand sanitiser before proceeding round the display of cheese. A display which is there to be sampled and sampled it most certainly is!
Until my little excursion round the shop, I hadn’t realised Wensleydale came in so many variants – smoked; oak smoked; blue; smoked blue; with ginger; with lemon; with pineapple; with caramelised red onion; with other bits I can’t recall now; very buttery and the regular stuff!
The actual tour of the factory wasn’t much, but did include a chance to watch the whole cheese making process, and I would recommend a visit. Even if you just pay for the tour and go directly to the cheese shop – you won’t be disappointed! 🙂
Another memorable moment was the little stroll around our ‘home’ village on their market day. The village itself only had a handful of shops – a butcher with superb sausages; a couple of outdoor clothing stores (that’s clothes for people who do outdoor activities rather than a store which is outdoors); a newsagent; an old style sweet shop (which we may have visited once or twice!) and a shop selling fireplaces. Plus a few more, but I want to get to the point.
So, back to the market. I was expecting big things from this market, especially as there was a sign on the road side – “Market Day No Parking 6am – 6pm”. This is obviously a major event. I didn’t know whether this was a weekly or monthly event, but to suspend the parking there for 12 hours surely meant it was going to be special.
How special? Well, it consisted of precisely three stalls – a greengrocer; a general ‘store’ and a sweet ‘shop’ which in no way rivalled the village shop!
Other memorable moments include the stunning scenery all around – the likes of Malham Tarn and Cove, Ingleborough, the White Scar Caves and the Ingleton Waterfall Walk. The trip to Morecambe where we were given a private viewing of the theatre which closed in 1977 before visiting the memorial to the fabulous Eric was also a highlight.
This trip was also educational – I learned the real reason sheep have a massive stain of coloured dye near their tail ends! Lucky ram!
And of course, my memorable moments wouldn’t be complete with out mention of She Who Must Be Obeyed!
Whilst we were enjoying our first full day walking round the waterfalls, She Who Must Be Obeyed suddenly exclaimed “I haven’t found anything I’ve forgotten yet!” Now, whilst we all realised what she meant, none of us were talking about whether we had packed everything we needed for the week nor had any of stated that we had forgotten something.
The house we were staying in, whilst comfortable and clean, had a low shower. This meant that I had to stoop slightly to get my hair wet. The shower wasn’t a cubicle, but was built over the bath and had a tiled shelf like ledge. Nursey suggested I sat on the ledge to shower, and that I could place a flannel on the tiles to keep myself from getting chilled!
She Who Must Be Obeyed took it upon herself to launch a series of verbal attacks on me (maybe she has been reading this blog!), starting by saying I would need more than one flannel! Then, on seeing a sheep dip, she suggested I used it as I would easily fit into it and that I would come out smelling lovely.
My nickname for the rest of the week – two flannels!
I guess I had it coming. 😉
Better Offer? 
November 15, 2010 at 5:59 pm
I have to admit to a certain hesitation in awarding the usual 5 stars for this, because I am totally bemused why anyone can spend so much time waxing lyrical about Wensledale and Yorkshire when you obviously went over the border into Lancs where the cheese is of an infinitely better quality and the village markets positively gargantuan, you also paid homage to an albeit excellent entertainer, but one who sadly became an honourory southerner, Luton I believe of all places!!! Maybe he wanted to be nearer to little Ern!!! Get out of that, you can’t can you??????????????
November 15, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Surely you awarded me 5 stars for stating that my trip across the border was a highlight of my week!
I will just have to have another break only this time make it Lancashire to try their cheese, and just hope no one asks me “what do you think of it so far?”