FATSHEEP

The hills are alive with talented people making all sorts of arts, crafts and tasty goodies. And a lot of them line the shelves at The Fat Sheep giftshop, where the only proviso is that goods must be made in the Yorkshire Dales.

While we are browsing the shelves of The Fat Sheep a couple of their deliveries arrive. Not for them a huge wagon backing up with a warning horn beeping and an impatient driver with a wodge of dockets to be checked. No.

Dorothy Lewis from just down the road at Grinton pops in with a few more copies of her book, a chap drops off a couple of the splendid walking sticks he makes as a hobby and a knitter on her way over the dale delivers a hat and a few scarves - "I know it's coming up summer, but I was passing."

When David and Judy Goff say their business uses local suppliers, they mean really local. Everything in The Fat Sheep is made in the Yorkshire Dales, much of it within a few miles of Reeth, where the shop sits on the side of The Green, in the former Literary Institute.

So there are wooden bowls made in Marske, each one with a label telling you where the tree came from, pottery from Ingleton, paintings from Richmond, herbs from Newby Wiske, jams and preserves, including the famous banana chutney, from Leyburn, jewellery from Bedale, beer from Harrogate, candles from Wensley, handmade soaps from West Tanfield, miniature dry stone walls made by a man who makes the real thing too, angel chocolates made just the other side of the green... and much, much more.