Kilnsey Show

Yesterday was the annual Kilnsey Show. Set in the heart of the Yorkshre Dales, in the most picturesque setting, the crowds flocked in and enjoyed the best weather Kilnsey Show has has in years!! The last two shows have certainly resembled Glastonbury on a bad day !!!
The area of the show I was involved with was the REAL Village and our aims over the last 4 years have been to promote the importance of the rural hill farming communities and businesses there in and to promote local food. We had a marquee with over 33 stall selling the very best of Yorkshire Food courtesy of the Northern Dales Farmers Market. A second marquee promoted all kind of rural businesses from Petties Paws Kennels at Fewston to Yorkshire Water and we also once again supported a charity called ARC Addington, who we did the breakfast event for earlier this year.
A third marquee houses the cookery theatre and 5 demonstrations took place through the day featuring local chefs using food from the farmers market. They were from Coniston Hall Hotel, The Angel at Hetton, Rudding Park, The Bull at Broughton and Grassington House Hotel. The smells in there were absolutely wonderful and made your mouth water!!
The fourth marquee was the childrens area. This one buzzed all day with children making collages, colouring, decorating biscuits and making bread with award winning chef Andrew Wood. Andrew is based at York University and must be the most patient man I know. He educates and enthuses all the children and every session he did, which is about every 45 minutes, was fully booked from 9.30am to 5.3pm.
Chris Heseltine from Hesketh Farm Park at Bolton Abbey brought along guinea pigs and they spent the whole day being stroked by the children, they too were extremely patient and went home very tired!!
All in all it was a very long day but very rewarding and it goes without saying that after being there for for 12 hours we came home absolutely shattered!!