A weekend away from the farm, an interesting time talking to other cheese-makers, a short stay in Cardiff.
The trip started with a road-trip with the farm manager Andrew all the way to Dublin where i stayed at a bnb and then flew to Cardiff Friday morning.
It was straight to work upon arrival in Cardiff, to the "Cheese tent" within the Castle walls.
Day one (Friday) was the Trade day - to talk to prospective buyers, or those people representing restaurants, deli's, supermarkets etc. It was a relatively quiet day for me unfortunately with few reps tasting or asking questions, but I was told that the Trade day was always quiet.
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| Day One: Marion from Killeen (cutting her Award-winning goats cheese) talking to reps |
Friday night was the Annual Award Dinner where we all gathered to eat and to have the awards presented to the winners of each category. Ireland did well, taking prizes for Best Modern British, Best Goats Cheese, Best Flavoured Cheese and a few others!
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| Menu for the night |
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| Me and Siobhan from Ardsallagh Goats Cheese |
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| Veronica (Milleens Cheese), Tom the cheddar maker and Dick who makes Coolea cheese |
Day two (Saturday) was open to the public and was
much busier! There were crowds of people thronging through the tent sampling and talking and enjoying the general ambiance.
It did seem to me to be somewhat of a cheese-buffet for those going through, as you can see in the above picture. Our cheese did sell quite well on that day, and the people there loved hearing all the stories behind the cheeses. The rest of the crowd would just wander through with a drink in hand and enjoyed all the cheese samples on offer.
I really did enjoy meeting other cheese-makers, all hard-working, smart and most of them have a wonderful sense of humour.
Sunday morning I flew back to Dublin and spent the day wandering around the main streets of the city, enjoying the sights, doing a spot of shopping, while waiting for my ride back to the farm.
