You can lead a horse to water...

This is Trooper, who brought Santa Claus to our local farm shop festive tasting day! I couldn't get a decent photo of him plus the old fashioned carriage he was pulling and preferred to put the horse before the cart for my blip ;o)

It was a great event - lots of free tasters, a chef doing live cooking demonstrations with produce from the farm, face painting, bell ringers, egg collecting, tractor rides and BBQ burgers and sausages, again from local produce. Oh, and Santa of course. I managed to buy a Christmas present, lovely jam & chutney in a little hessian bag - look at the cute festive jar covers here.

We shop there every week so it was great to see so many people supporting the event - the barn was mobbed and the till was ringing nicely which is good for all the suppliers. We've got a bit of a thing about buying locally now, trying very hard to avoid Tesco at all costs. And when you meet the people who raise the animals or cook the food, it makes it even nicer to support them - and eat extremely well at the same time!

After we'd done all our tasting and some shopping, we sat down for a freshly BBQd burger & sausage and had a mulled wine - feeling quite festive now!