Shop staff

JENNY THORNHILL

Now that summer is over, we sadly find ourselves saying goodbye to some of our shop staff, Izzy, Maddy and Katharina, who have been with us throughout what will always be referred to as the COVID period.

Izzy came to us in February, originally only for a short fill in time of literally a month or so before heading off to Nepal but just as she was about to depart, countries started closing borders and as for so many, plans had to change. We were delighted to keep Izzy with us in the shop, particularly as we soon became super busy and needed more staff than usual to keep the shop functioning and she rose to every challenge, always smiling, calm and willing to do whatever was thrown her way. It wasn’t the gap year Izzy had in mind, but it’ll certainly be one she won’t forget. Now Izzy is off to Oxford to study medicine and ringing in her ears will be us (well, probably mainly me)!  saying “Tell them how good food is vital to good health, you can teach them a thing or two about the importance of diet!”

Izzy, we wish you well, we’ll miss you whizzing up on your bike each day and HUGE thanks for being such a key part of the shop team. Here’s hoping you’ll be back in the holidays, studies permitting of course.

Maddy started pretty much as the first wave of panic buying hit, no sooner had she filled a shelf than it needed filling again. Looking back, it felt like a really crazy, mad period; we struggled to keep up with orders, stocking up, juggling between suppliers, but keep up we did. Poor Maddy had more than her fair share of shelf-filling and queue management as it was impossible to find the space and calmness needed to start training her to use the tills which adds a nice variety to the jobs. But she carried on without complaint and then finally when it was possible to start her on the tills she really came into her own. She took to it easily with a nice, calm manner.

My regret, Maddy, is that we never managed your farm tour walk which I take everyone on. It was always either far, far too busy, far too hot or raining or…anyway we never managed it. I have contemplated doing a video tour for you to watch at Uni but as we usually spend at least an hour walking and talking on the tour I thought that would be a bit much, so the only thing for it is you have to come back to the shop in the holidays and we’ll do it then, I promise!

Now for Katharina. Katharina has been with us on and off for three years, interspersed between ski seasons, college and film editing in London. The quiet, shy Katharina that first joined us has become a strong, confident, very capable and valuable member of the shop team. So, when Katharina was unable to continue with her ‘proper’ job due to COVID, we welcomed her back with open arms. Everyone enjoys working with Kat, she can do pretty much everything asked of her without much explanation. Common sense in bucket fulls! There is always work here for her, she slots in again effortlessly every time. 

But despite losing these three we have an amazing team of people still here, all of whom play a vital part in the life of the shop. 

Now we just have to get our heads around Christmas…