It is the 1st of December and at last, I can put pen to paper again, November seemed to go on forever.
The Herriot Flavours Award winners are announced this week, Berry's has made the finals in two categories, the Best Breakfast and the Best Farm Shop, which is very exciting.
The new menu holders holding our events lists, as well as the take away, breakfast offers, and lunch menus have certainly caught everyone's attention as the Pensioners' Christmas Lunch is nearly a sell out on 22nd December, or it could be Niamh's eye catching black board advert.
The last Friday of the month event is gathering momentum with the Game & Wine evening going down a storm. We had five delicious courses of different game with Will from Firth and co wines advising us on which wines should accompany which game. Only one lady asked when the bingo was going to start! We also had a camera crew filming the event for a documentary about life and what people get up to in the Dales, obviously the last Friday of the month everyone is at Berry's!
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The next last Friday of the month event will be the Folk night with a pie and pea supper on the 27th January. There has been a great deal of interest shown in this evening and it's something to look forward to after the Christmas Festivities are over and the January Blues set in.
The Christmas decorations have finally been located behind a mountain of paper bags, so Amanda is on the case and grappling with Christmas trees and lights. Tim is planning a very sparkly drive into Berry's with our 3 miles of lights, always check the amount of noughts of the length of Christmas lights!
Amanda has also put together some beautiful Christmas Hampers, these can be ordered with what ever you would like.
After the first frost everyone is tucking into hay in the fields, apart from Rolo who is happy blowing hot air on the frost and ice and eating the grass underneath.
I have a new friend in the sheep feeding area, a very tame Jackdaw. He happily finishes all the food left in the corners of the trough, although I am not sure why he is not with all his family. 
The goats are happy with their little shelter, an upturned water trough, BlackAdder lurking in the shadows, he can nearly stand on his back legs with out falling over. He needs to come to terms with the fact he will never be bigger then any one else in the Berry's team, apart from Flopsey and maybe his mother!
The youngest Highland calf, Blondie, is wonderfully tame. She has her horns, unlike her two older sisters. It will be all fun and games when the horns grow and she realises she has an 'edge' on the others!
It seems such a waste to be cracking the ice from the troughs on my own, I remember so enjoying it as a child and smashing all the puddles too. However I did catch this nice reflection on the Berry's team trough.
The calves are enjoying their first winter in the barns, as long as they don't have to get in the bath!
One of the calves is happier free range.
To look forward, Farm Tours are back in the Christmas Holidays. We will be doing one around 2pm every day from 27th December until 1st January inclusive. Do ring Berry's if you would like to organise a Farm Tour at another date or time as we may be able to arrange one for you, particularly if the party is over 5 people.
The team will be wearing their favourite Christmas jumpers on Friday 16th December, come and support in the name of raising funds for charity.
Don't forget we are open Christmas Eve, 10am until 2pm and then we are open Boxing Day as usual, so let us do the cooking and have a rest!
Merry Christmas from everyone here at Berry's, we hope to see you in the new year.