I must say thank you to Mike Smales of Lyburn Cheese for passing me two complimentary tickets to the show otherwise I would have never gone to this amazing show. I set off at 10am on the 1st June with Amanda Broomfield and what lovely weather which certainly made for a picturesque journey. We arrived at the show at 11.45am and headed straight into the Show, there must have been 1000’s if not 100,000s of people there! Getting over this we walked straight past a programme & map stall (BIG MISTAKE!) thinking we didn’t need one; top tip if you have never been to the show pick up a map & programme as it will make your life a lot easier. We just wandered around without any aims but really just to look at cheese, having wandered through cows, horses, goats, alpacas, llamas, sheep, dogs & Range Rovers we eventually found the Cheese hall after three attempts!

Then we arrived in cheese heaven and I bumped into George Keen who makes exceptionally tasty cheddar and is again another passionate producer. They had Ilchester cheese there with a counter to buy their produce and the lovely Lady behind the counter with a bit of persuasion let me have a cheese bag. I then moved over to Godminster cheeses and spoke to Bethan who took the time to discuss her cheeses with me. She let myself & Amanda try the smoked cheddar (Smooth, strong, creamy, smoky and hard) which was lovely so we bought a piece, and we have already used this in a chicken, bean and tomato dish on Sunday night. After our visit to all the lovely cheese producers we decided to have a look at all the different cheeses on the table, and what a selection! They had everything from prepacked supermarket cheese to Parmigiano Reggiano! The top accolade 0f National Cheese Award Champion was: Wensleydale Creamery with a Double Gloucester and the Reserve Champion was: Belton Farms with a Cheshire Cheese. After gazing at all the lovely cheeses we decided to leave the cheese hall as we wanted to look more at the show but we would return at 5pm to collect some cheese from Lyburn. We spent the next few hours looking at all the different aspects of the show and getting a bit sunburnt. On the return at 5pm we had a small glance at all the cheeses again then decided to pick the Lyburn cheese up and head back home after a day packed full of cheeses.

All I can say is that this show was brilliant and I shall certainly go next year. I must thank all the cheese producers & sellers there for taking the time to be so hospitable to me. A lovely day was had by Amanda Broomfield & Myself and until the next show I shall be eating a big bit of cheese!