The Real Milk Company - A New Way to Get Milk

Since my son has started his Stagecoach classes in Southwell, we have been driving through the beautiful Nottingham countryside on a regular basis. For the first time a few weeks ago, I saw a sign at the side of the road for The Real Milk Company.

A little investigation when I got home lead to finding out about a wonderful new venture just a few miles from my doorstep that would change my milk buying forever.

In a small wooden shed at the end of the farm drive is a milk vending machine, with steam coming out of it like some magical tardis, it delivers to you fresh whole milk that tastes exactly like milk should. I know lots of people drink semi-skimmed or skimmed so this may not be for them but we only drink whole milk, it's great for cereal and for hot chocolate and the odd latte I have these days.

Anyway, back to the vending machine. First of all you choose how much milk you want, you can get 1 litre or 2 litre plastic bottles, they even do a 1 litre glass bottle, which you can wash at home and bring back next time.

You then pop your money into the machine, your bottle in the machine under the spout and press the button, the milk then comes out and fills the bottle with the requisite amount.

Once you have finished you close the little door and a puff of steam comes out to clean the machine, ready for the next customer, and indeed there were plenty of customers, in fact two people visited whilst we were there, walking to get there milk. It sent me back to the day of the milk man, when milk was delivered to your door and was fresh.

If you are local to Nottingham then I suggest you seek out this wonderful little farm, you get to go and visit a beautiful slice of countryside support a local farmer and business.

How about a visit to Rufford Abbey and a little stop off on the way back, or in June this year as part of Open Farm Sunday The Real Milk Company will be opening their doors to show you the farm and what they have to offer. We will be heading up there to see the cows on the farm and to buy some milk of course, as well as heading to some of the other local farms as part of this wonderful day out. We've been for the past few years  it is such a great day out and a glimpse§ into an important part of our farming heritage and lives in this country.

Milk from the farm is £1 for a litre and £2 for 2 litres.

An Autumn Walk at Rufford Abbey

My son school has a two week half term break in October and as for the first few days of it there was such terrible weather, once it cleared up on the Wednesday, we decided to head out in the morning to Rufford Abbey.

We have been there many times before, it is the perfect place to let of steam and whether its summer or winter it's a favourite for us.

Firstly, there was something we had expected to see, a community archaeology project were digging up part of the grass. This looked interesting, so we made the little detour to check it out, the volunteers had dug up old tiles, brick work and some pottery. If you look closely you can see a paw print on the tile in this picture.

The main reason I took the children to Rufford was because I wanted them to run and play in the leaves and I knew there would be plenty there. We looked at the leaves in the light to see their veins, so it was educational too.

A rather friendly goose trying to eat my wellies and some obligatory leaf finding.

The house looked beautiful eerily beautiful against the dark sky and surrounded by beautiful burning trees, autumn really is a beautiful season. There were some halloween treats about, including a witch in a tree, we also played on the park and dug in the sand.

After the park we went and found some more leaves to play in, we spent ages kicking and chucking leaves and then sadly it started to rain. But we got to see some wonderful colours and had a fabulous time. We didn't have to pay for any of the fun we had, well, expect a hot chocolate for me and a snack each for the kids.

So if you are looking for something to do this half term and are local to Nottingham I can highly recommend Rufford Abbey, they have a halloween trail during half term so perfect for getting into the halloween spirit