cows in the front field

I had been waiting for Thursday 25 September at our Bolehill Farm cottages near Bakewell (see link) for a long time.  It was the day of our WI trip to the Thornton’s Chocolate factory at Somercotes.  We collected Joanna and drove over to the factory which was built on the old Swanick colliery.  After a short video about the history of Thornton’s we had the health and safety check and locked up all our belongings (except purses) and were split into smaller groups to be kitted out.  We had already been informed in advance not to wear jewellery, including watches, only a plain wedding band could be worn, no make-up, perfumes or nail varnish.  Men, there were a few husbands, had to wear facial masks for beards and we all had to wear hair nets, overalls and safety shoes.  Sorry we couldn’t take photos of us kitted up.  We had also been advised that there was a lot a walking and up to 500 stairs to negotiate on the tour!  First stop was where they were doing the hollow chocolates and in this case snow dogs for Christmas.  From here we moved to toffees then centres then enrobing – or in other words covering the centres.  We were able to a lot of the processes in most cases and the scale of the machines involved is quite impressive.   Most processes are now automated but some processes like caramel making are still quite labour intensive.  A brief pause at a tasting station, where we were able to try some chocolates straight of the production line (yum), then we went up to packaging where we watched the boxes of mixed chocolates being made up as well as more time consuming smaller or individual chocolate boxes.  After the tour we dis robed and were taken to the staff shop where we could buy goodies at a discounted price.  We were also given a goody bag.  By now it was past lunchtime but we drove over to the MacArthur Glen outlet centre a couple of miles away where we had a light lunch at the Thornton’s shop.  No need to buy chocolates!  Time for a walk around some of the shops before getting Joanna back for milking.  Although still mild it had been a drizzly afternoon but the months rainfall is still very low.  Sorry no pictures of the day but here’s one anyway.