The Honeybuns Bee Hop is
almost upon us and we are all paddling away like ducks beneath the
surface to ensure all our Bee Hopper guests have a wonderous day. The
Bee Hop is a gorgeous, hidden gem of a festival. We welcome everyone
of all ages to a laid back festival experience with the minimum of
expense and kerfuffle. You just need to bring flipflops, a smile and
some spare change for all the gorgeous stalls and food on offer. Profits
are donated to local good causes.
Highlights this year include the return of
the uber talented jazz band, The Ladybirds, plus two lively sets
from the ever popular Boy Le Monti with their repetoire of ska and
reggae. There is also acoustic folk, African drumming and Matt's
band Buzz. Aside from a full day of live music there is a brand new
and beautiful covered art exhibiton space. We have invited artists
of all media to take part. The aim is to make their art accessible
and to make it easy and affordable for them to exhibit.
| Also new this year
is our Young Persons Sculpture project which has kindly been
funded by Chalk and Cheese. |
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This invloves children from 5-16 entering
the sculpture workshop competition on the day. They need to create
a sculpture from the recycled materials provided. The theme is the
natural world.
Our stall holders are as fabulous as ever
and they include: The Dorset Blue Soup Company, Dorset Farms - selling
exquisite hams, The Muddy Dog Handbag Company, The Honeybuns stall
where you can sample their brand new gluten free  savoury
and lots lots more.
 are
providing the vegetarian catering and there are gluten free options
as well. The ale tent will be full to bursting with liquid refreshments
including two brand new Bee Hop cocktails.
For families, there is a creche run by the
Holwell nursery plus games and races organised by the Dorset Doddlers
running group. The theory is, parents can potter, flop in deckchairs
and maybe have a boogey to the music whilst their littles ones are
under watchful supervision!
If you would like to know more about the
Bee Hop please visit www.honeybuns.co.uk/beehop.
Suncream if sunny and wellies would be a great idea if it is rainy.
Hope to see you there!
BumbleO news
| We are delighted that our savoury
retail trays are available online from The Local Food Company,
www.thelocalfoodcompany.co.uk. For more stockists please contact
the bakery direct on 01963 23597. Lots of our restaurant customers
have commented on how convenient the catering trays of are.
In a busy commercial kitchen with lots of dishes being prepped
side by side it is really tricky to be able produce safe gluten
free food without the worry of cross contamination. |
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With catering
trays they can just be popped straight into a pre heated oven et
Voila! Yummylicious gluten free savoury eats in 15 minutes! Our
BumbleO launch party went with a swing and we served our new savoury
cut up into little canape style squares. We are already planning
the second which
will include roasted mushrooms, garlic and lots of other good things.
We will be launching this in 2008.
We took our ’s
to the Waitrose Leckford Festival in April and were delighted to sell
them all on the first day, it was just a pity we did not have any
more stock.
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BIG
Questionnaire
We are really keen to find out from our precious customers how we
are doing.
Please look out for our BIG questionnaires which will be popped into
our boxes of cake for the attention of "The Manager/Proprietor".
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It would be wonderful if you could fill
one in and return it or, better still, reply via our website www.honeybuns.co.uk/feedback.
We appreciate fully how busy everyone is. If you can just fill in sections
particularly relevant to you and your business than this would be wonderfully
helpful. All respondants will be entered into a draw for a groovesome
Honeybuns hamper.
Honeybuns' desire is to make you happy. We need to listen to you to accompolish
this simple aim .
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We have now achieved our
dream of creating a proper recycling zone on the farm.
There are specific bins for all our
recyclable foils, rigid plastics, plastic film, cardboard,
paper and glass.
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We have researched the pros and cons
of foil baking trays versus cardboard ones and we are going to
move over to using cardboard trays shortly. We were concerned about
our friends at the Poole Adult Supported Education Team not being
able to come and collect them as part of their work in the community.
Ironically, they will have to suspend this service in the near
future so we do not feel we are letting them down too badly. The
new cardboard trays are compostable and we are also phasing in
fully degradable film so we'll be supa dupa green.
| We're
continuing on with our mission to plant more deciduous trees
to create a fine pair of "lungs" around the farm.
We need to plant some oaks in the autumn to accompany the horse
chestnut trees which were planted this Spring. The conservation
mix hedging planted by Matt is now a proper berry bearing hedge. |
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We saw lots of finches feasting on the
hips and haws last autumn and we're waiting for it to get just
a bit thicker and we then should get some nesting activity. Around
the bakery and farm yard we've got several nesting bluetits, starlings
and the elusive and very pretty goldcrest.
Glastonbury
We are detoxing like
mad in readiness for our annual pilgrimage to Glastonbury
. We're keeping things simple and running our usual cute
cafe with cakes and beverages. We are one of the only cafes
on site to provide not just proper chairs but cushions, flowers
and newspapers too! If you are going please do look out for
us. We're opposite the jazz lounge in "C" market
and we'll be flying our Bee banner proud and high. Feel free
to use us as a meeting point and we do not mind how long
people take to drink their coffees and eat their cakes...it'll
all be very relaxed!
There'll be 6 of the current Honeybuns team and 2 Honeybunnies from our
Guildford days joining us too and we're all really looking to project
Glasto.
Helen Hollex who we are sponsoring
in the form of cakes and T shirts is gearing up with her cycle
training. She is due to cycle across India in a bid to raise as
much money as possible for women's health charities in the UK .
It is an awesome challenge and we wish Helen all the very best.
Please see www.actionforcharity.co.uk for
more details.
We are delighted to
now be supplying BBs Coffee and Muffin stores in Ireland .
Trish and Rosie from our office will be going over to DUBLIN
to do some instore tastings this June. We do as many tastings
as we can. If this is of interest to you please do give us
a call. If we can't be there in person we'll send you some
promotional "Nibble Trays”.
Trish is very excited about the pending trip. |
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Matt, Trish and I had a great time when we
visited our Irish wholesaler back in February. We partook of all
of the usual delights: a bus tour, pints of Guinness and Dublin Bay
prawns with garlicy mayonnaise and soda bread. We've had great feedback
so far on our cakes and we're looking forward to many more fun filled
trips over there!
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We thought you might
like to have an update on Diesel or more often called Diesey.
He is bearing up well despite his advancing years. For an ally
he is doing well as he is now 11 years old.
He gets the odd bit of grief from the arthritis in his back legs
but other than that he is a very happy little man.
We give him a full dousing with the hose pipe every day as soon as
the weather warms up. |
Honeybuns running team is
taking shape.
Matt's pa, John Goss-custard is joining us as well as two of our
old Honeybun buddies from our Guildford days - Malcolm and Rakel.
My training has been a little bit flakey of late and I need to take
my running shoes with me to Glastonbury . The perimeter fence is
quite long so I'll need to peg it around there each morning to offset
the partying! |
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Forthcoming Events 2007
Friday 22nd June,
Mole Valley Farmers, Tasting event
Sunday, 1st July, Tasting at "Bramble
and Sage" near Yeovil Tel:01963 220120
Sat. 7th July, Leigh Flower
Festival, Small local event
Sat 21st July, Bee Hop - Gorgeous
music and arts festival held here at Naish Farm.
Sun 12th August, Milton Abbey Fun Day
Big fun run and fair. Quite likely to be busy.
Sat. 25th Aug, Oak Fair,
Really nice event held in the deer park at Kings Stag |
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