Well, what a week it has been! It started with a sad and happy event - taking of pigs to Farnborough, their final journey. Due to the incredible amount of rain over the Winter their pen has been pretty mucky but you know what they say,  Happy as a pig in…Well they have been pretty happy and grown quite large courtesy of Avocados, Melons, Pineapples and Bananas from Cheesemans, our fruit and vegetable supplier. The softer and smellier the better as far as the pigs are concerned. Anyway, they were of such a size that there was no question of coercion on the part of Rob and I, it had to be by patience and cunning which, it would seem, he and I possess in equal measure. After twenty minutes of the aforementioned, all the not so little porcine chaps were in the trailer and ready to head off, brilliant!

They came back to Lightwater courtesy of George Aurthur and co and showed to be very good quality. The Saddlebacks had a bit too much backfat at 25mm but the crosses were good at under 20mm, so the pork on the menus will be tasty, Chobham chaps. See if you can detect the fruit flavour in them.

You may have noticed that Threshers shops all over the place have closed down and some are struggling to re-open. Chris at Lightwater has renamed his shop Lightwater Wines and we are helping him with a supply of some of our better wines. I took about twenty different wines up to him during the week and he has reported strong sales, which is really good news. Lightwater needs a good independent wine shop, not that there is anything wrong with Budgens but their wines aren’t really gustatorarily challenging if you know what I mean. Why don’t you pop in and see him and give him your support as he gets started on his own?

Aren’t computers and computer systems amazing? Well, they are when they work! Our PDQ machine failed spectacularly on Thursday afternoon and Barclays told us that they couldn’t get us another one until Monday. MONDAY! Back to the old fashioned paper slips and all that palava for a weekend. Vicky was so incensed that she called them and managed to get another one on Saturday which was really fantastic but... it only lasted about two hours before that one failed too. Bliss! Now it will be tomorrow, Tuesday, before they get another one to us and we’ll see how long that lasts. Hey ho! Apologies if any of you have been affected while we sort all this out.

Finally, I have to tell you that my wife, the boss, is possibly losing it. She said to me on Saturday morning that she was going to the dry cleaners to take her trousers down. I asked her if she thought the dry cleaner would appreciate such a move and she just didn’t get it. Finally, when the penny dropped she laughed her socks off. Must be signs of the Winter coming to an end has affected her! Wonderful things, women.

See you at The Inn soon for a glass of wine, pint or something, Cheers!

Gerry Price