Tuesday dawned sunny bright but cold, but it was colder in Bakewell than here! Went to Chesterfield with one of the cleaners with a long shopping list and we went to Bookers and Dunelm and came back with lots of bits! Chris had popped down to the farm and mentioned the stag and apparently Joanna had seen it on Sunday in the field behind us so I must keep an eye out for it. Spoke to my sister in the evening who has just had a break in Barcelona, lucky her. Wednesday was a lot cloudier but still dry and mild. One cottage out of our Derbyshire cottages with one back in so one cleaner up today. A busy morning with lots of calls and some bookings for next year. A chance to put up some new curtains in the vacated cottage. After lunch spent some time on accounts and new guests arrived just after 3pm. They have been here before. About 4pm a car arrived with some people looking for accommodation from tonight but I was not able to help. Saw a balloon later in the afternoon which had take off from Bakewell. There have been plenty of balloon sightings In the last few days and another set of guests said they had seen a Hercules fly along Lathkill Dale. This evening was a WI outing instead of our normal meeting and we had an evening booked at the Original Bakewell Pudding Parlour. Too make up numbers other halves were ale to come so Chris and I picked up Joanna. Andrew did not come as he was still milking. They are also in the middle of a spate of calving and Joanna said they have had a good run of heifer births – good news for them including a set of heifer twins which is unusual. They are running out of room in the nursery pens! Our evening at the Pudding Parlour included a meal but first of all we were able to make our own Bakewell Pudding. First we had to flatten our pastry ring to make sure there were no air bubbles. Then we added a small dollop of jam and a generous spoonful of the pudding mixture. We still were not told the secret ingredient but having assemble our puddings they cooked whilst we eat our meals which was very tasty. We then were able to see the results of our handy work. Chris’s was better than mine as I had put a little too much filling in and it had overflowed! Guess you can see which is mine!