Opportunities like this one don't come around very often. When an article came out about our Muddy Marathon in Country Life, we got a phone call from one of the boys from RAF Leeming inviting us to come and look round the base and go to Happy Hour in their mess.

How could we refuse?!



We turned up in the afternoon and tried to get some cool pictures of the van and a jet together. Unfortunately, light was fading fast, so it was easier said than done! We then got to sit in one of the jets but, no, we didn't get to fly in one - apparently it costs thousands of pounds just to go up for a short amount of time and it sounds like everyone's sick when they do anyway!!



We then got to have a go in their simulator, which with our little knowledge meant that all the pilot (Emma) had to do was keep it straight, while the navigator (Lucy) sat in the back and watched us crash!



We had invited a few other girls along for the drinks bit that evening, which turned out to be really good fun and everyone got on really well. Lots of our female members complained that Yorkshire was too far away for them to get to, so we're hoping to hold a similar event further south next year!

It was easily the coldest day of the year when we spent the morning on a Yorkshire farm with fencing contractor, Wilf Standeven.



Wilf grew up in Yorkshire and after a brief stint in London was drawn back to the countryside, where he started working for another fencing contractor. After gaining valuable knowledge and expertise of the fencing industry, he felt there was room in the market for him as well and decided to go it alone, buying all the equipment and setting up his own company, Standeven Fencing, in 2006.


Emma and Wilf

The morning we were there, he was finishing off some electric fencing for a local beef farmer. Luckily for us, most of the hard work had been done, as the posts were already in the ground, and our job was just to help fix the wire to the posts and tighten it. We're not ashamed to say, we did some tea-drinking as well; Wilf seems to be immune to the cold, but even with two pairs of gloves on we could hardly feel our fingers!


Gloved up, but still feeling the cold

Electric fencing is just one of the things he does; he also puts up post and rail, wire stock and metal parkland fences, plus rabbit netting, cattle grids, gates and lots, lots more. For more information, call 07803 499584 or visit his website. There is obviously an abundance of entrepreneurial spirit in his household, as his wife Lizzie has just set up her own interior design company, Standeven Interiors!

Ample Bosom

When Sally and John Robinson were looking for new ways to diversify on their farm near Helmsley, North Yorkshire, Sally came up with the idea of selling bras and lingerie on the internet and, in 1999, she launched the wonderfully-named 'Ample Bosom'. It was certainly one of the more unusual farm diversification projects that we visited on this journey!



Initially, they tried to go down the more traditional B&B and holiday cottage route, but as her two sons got older she was looking for a new challenge. A local, technologically-minded friend was looking on the internet for a bra to get married in and when, as Sally puts it, all she could find was plastic or feathery ones with tassels on or holes in them, she turned to Sally knowing that she was looking for something new to do and suggested she started selling bras on the internet.

Having managed to get six suppliers on board, and with a loan from her local bank manager and an EEC diversification grant, she converted an old cow shed into an office, bought a mailing list and sent out her first paper catalogue in September 1999. A couple of months later and she was ready to launch her first website.

She had spotted a gap in the market for properly fitted, quality bras for normal women of all sizes and, recognising the importance of her repeat customers and how time-consuming bra shopping can be, she kept a history of people's orders so they could reorder the same or similar items without any fuss.

As the popularity of her service has grown, so have her premises, the number of suppliers and staff, and the range of bras and accessories she stocks. She now uses about 30 suppliers, stocks more than 177 different bra sizes and employs around a dozen members of staff, all of whom have to muck in wherever they are needed, whether that is packing in the warehouse or cleaning the holiday cottages. People buy her bras from all over the world and she has attracted an incredible amount of media attention, not only because she is a success story, but also because she is a farmer's wife who has thrived in an industry where many other more likely internet entrepreneurs have failed. This is testament to her hard work, determination and wonderful no-nonsense personality, and she is an inspiration to many.


Lucy, Sally and Emma

For more information, call 01439 798388 or visit the Ample Bosom website.

Watch Sally on Richard & Judy!