I hope you all had a great Easter. I certainly did with my family, getting out and about and, mostly, dodging the showers. Thankfully we seemed to avoid the worst of Storm Katie which hit other parts of the country so hard.
The highlight was attending with my wife Akshata the Easter Sunday service at Christ Church, Great Ayton. It was a beautiful, moving service led by the Rev Paul Peverell – or Rev Pev as he is popularly known in the village – and very well attended.
It was lovely to be a part of this vibrant church community for a short while and to hear about the great work its members are doing in the local area.
For my young daughters, a visit to the Big Sheep Little Cow Farm at Aiskew was one of the holiday high spots – apart from chocolate of course. The farm attraction is a firm Sunak family favourite and at this time of year hungry new-born lambs are guaranteed.
Krishna and Anoushka never fail to be thrilled to have the chance to feed a young lamb as it eagerly slurps from the bottle – and I confess I’m almost as keen.
There’s lots of other things to do at this excellent farm attraction and our guide Izzy Parkin looked after us wonderfully as she led us round, meeting the traditional farm animals and some of more exotic ones like the characterful Kune Kune pigs.
We also went searching for Easter eggs at Thorp Perrow Arboretum where there were some spectacular displays of daffodils and early magnolias and had some slightly messy fun at the Daisy Doodle Paint a Pot Parlour in Northallerton’s Garthway Arcade.
This is a new business, set up just a year ago by Michelle Peverley-Fox, and it’s going really well. Already she has been able to take on four staff to help her and having spent some time with my daughters painting ceramics I can see why it is proving so popular - and not just with children. It’s very therapeutic.
On a sadder note, I was very sorry to hear of the sudden death of Cllr Tony Hall just before Easter.
A long-serving North Yorkshire County, Hambleton District and town councillor, he was a stalwart champion of Northallerton and always looking to do the best for his community. If I walked down Northallerton High Street on a Saturday, I could almost always guarantee to bump into Tony and his lovely wife Janet. He was always about and looking out for the town.
I know he was keenly anticipating his year as chairman of Hambleton District Council and one initiative he was working on to mark his year in office was that of dementia awareness. I found out how big an issue it is when I recently visited the Alzheimer’s Society in the town. It was something we planned to work on together and my tribute to Tony will be to press ahead with that initiative later this year.