At the ice cream parlour

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Have just tasted the best ice cream made by Brymor, http://www.brymordairy.co.uk/, a Yorkshire Dales farm/firm which they serve up at their farm and ice cream parlour a few miles out of Masham (and a good place to visit whether it is scorching or like today, pouring with rain). Before choosing flavours we went into the barn to pet their cute chestnut-coloured Gurnsey calves(see pic), avoiding their long scratchy tongues while reading info about the life of a milking cow. It doesn’t look that good a career (you grow up, give birth, lose your baby, get woken for milking at 5am for the next 360 days, then have a semi break for six weeks, give birth and the whole cycle starts again…) and yet cows always seem to be content lying around their fields chewing the cud (which of course releases tonnes of methane one of the gases responsible for changing our climate).

Brymor makes posh ice cream cakes and giant knickerbocker glories but the girls behind the counter seemed just as happy to serve up single flavour scoops in waffle cones (we picked chocoholic, vanilla with almond toffee, summer fruits, fudge). I didn’t like to point it out to my children as they enjoyed their ice cream, but in one of the freezers surrounding the parlour was an area devoted to veal products. But it’s a conversation that better be had soon.