Well I can’t believe it’s March already and in less than two weeks we’ll be celebrating our one-year anniversary. Following the ups and downs of the last 12 months I’m very happy to find myself finally quite settled into this new, mad life.

(Almost) gone are the night sweats, the pre-lunch service panic and the super-late nights prepping into the wee small hours – and I am beginning to relax and enjoy it.

After closing for two weeks over Christmas I re-opened with trepidation; after all, this is a sleepy little village and quite a few voices of doom warned me of the deadly winter months ahead.

But instead we’ve been busy with all our lovely regulars sticking around despite the gloom of January and February, then last weekend the sun came out and it’s all hands on the ice cream deck again.

We’ve cleared up the outside space, moved the dog, Bo, to her fab new pen complete with sun deck (most spoilt Labrador in Weston-on-the-Green award) making more room on our little sun trap of a terrace for extra outside seating and on Sunday I was glad we hadn’t left it any later as every table was full of smiling families enjoying their ice creams.

Unfortunately, though, I’m supposed to have given up sugar for lent, and despite me explaining to Hattie that I HAVE to taste the ice cream, that it’s my professional duty, she still won’t even sprinkle chocolate on my cappuccino. Well, what am I supposed to do tomorrow when we make our new butterscotch popcorn flavour?

I can’t be expected to rely on someone else’s opinion, it’d be stupid, like a cook allergic to seafood making a crab risotto on Masterchef, and how many times have I raised my eyes to heaven at that ridiculous scenario!

During the recent terrible weather we suffered our first major power cut following that awful Friday night storm.

The deafening silence of a kitchen that’s home to seven fridges and freezers is not a sound I wish to hear again anytime soon.

The lack of noise shuddered through me like a nightmare almost simultaneously with the realisation that the light hadn’t come on at the flick of its switch.

Still, I coped a lot better than I would have done six months or so ago, and spent most of the day hanging on the phone to Southern Electric trying to get information, while apologising to customers who turned up in a steady stream curious to find the car park fairly deserted.

But thanks to the loan of a generator, and the fact that it was freezing outside, we didn’t lose too much stock but it was really disappointing not to be able to open on a Saturday – the power only coming back on in the late afternoon.

Still, there was hot water in the tank so we made the most of it and cleaned ovens in the dark while singing along to my trusty (battery operated) old Roberts radio. The following day made up for it and we did record covers.

So, given that it’s nearly a year and if you’ll humour me, I’d like to say how eternally grateful I am to my fantastic team of milk maids – you all know who you are – my family, friends, our brilliant suppliers and fabulous customers, but most of all to the Milk Shed family; what a team, and what a beast we’ve created. So roll on year two, and if we can apply all that we’ve learnt there’ll be no stopping us.

The Milkshed is in Northampton Road, Weston-on-the-Green.
Call 01869 351387 or see themilkshedstore.co.uk