my ludlow life: Nicola North

This is week, we interview Nicola North, mum of twins and Voluntary Training Development Office at the Working Together Cafe on Fish Street.

The Working Together Cafe is staffed both by learning disabled members and volunteers and provides work, training and social opportunities.

The aim of the café is to provide real work opportunities and a meaningful role for all those involved. The wonderful Nicola is right at the heart of it all.

What’s your connection to Ludlow?

1. Are you an incomer (fell in love on a visit)
2. Returner (grew up here, went away, glad to be back)
3. Have never left the shire (why go anywhere else?)

I am an incomer and bought a house here 20 years ago.  We actually exchanged on the house whilst I was in labour with the boys, in Bristol. We had family in York and family in Bristol and we needed to be somewhere in between.  The choice was either Ludlow or Milton Keynes…easy choice (sorry, Milton Keynes)!

Finish the sentence: Living in and around Ludlow is the bees knees because…

Ludlow is full of different characters and different people, just everything you could want.

Tell us something about Ludlow that no one else knows

I have my own special, alternative tourist trail for when friends come to visit.  I go through to the back of Rickards and show them the amazing, Medieval courtyard.  We then walk behind St Laurence’s Church to get to Dinham House where Clearview Stoves have their showroom.  It’s an amazing house to look round. We continue down the hill to the Millennium Green for a lovely view of the river and the castle, at any time of year.

Your favourite haunt and why?

The Millennium Green.  It’s a very special part of Ludlow and is dear to many people for all sorts of reasons.  Everyone from Ludlow goes there for one reason or another; in the summer to fish or swim or walk across the weir and fall in which is always great fun! We swim the dogs and in the Autumn, we sit in the Green Cafe with hot water bottles and blankets and brave it outside with a cup of tea; it’s an amazing atmosphere.

What would your perfect day in Ludlow look like?

It would probably start with walking the dogs over Whitcliffe common, going down to the Millennium Green, having a cup of tea and a buttermilk scone with lemon curd, taking the dogs back home and then coming into work here in the Working Together Cafe.

Finally, your recommends: your top spot to eat, drink or visit in the area?

My top places to eat are Koo Japanese Restaurant which is amazing and has my favourite takeaway bento boxes.  I also love the Millennium Green Cafe…obviously! And the Working Together cafe, of course!

WORKING TOGETHER

If you would like to learn more about the Working Together Charity, please visit:

http://www.workingtogetherludlow.btck.co.uk/

Or follow Nicola on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/nicola.north.399

http://www.workingtogetherludlow.btck.co.uk/

Or follow Nicola on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/nicola.north.399