Alittlebitoutoffocus

Alittlebitoutoffocus

Last weekend I went back to the UK for a few days to see some of my old friends in York.  Waaay back in October 1977, I began working in the offices of what was then the Rowntree’s Chocolate factory until October 2005, by which time it had been taken over by Nestlé and I eventually moved over to Switzerland to finish my career.  In those 28 years I made a lot of good friends and it’s always great to go back and catch up with a few of them.  On Friday, I played a round of golf with Martin and Ian and his wife, Janice.  (Sorry, and perhaps thankfully, I have no pictures of me hacking my ball out of the undergrowth at York Golf Club, Strensall).

On Saturday, Pete organised a walk from Millington, which is about 30 minutes drive to the east of York.  Our route would take us partly along the Wold’s Way and partly along the Chalkland Way.  But, most importantly, there would be a refreshment stop at the Wolds Inn, at Huggate.  😋

During our walk we spotted quite a few spring flowers, (and many thanks to Martin’s wife, Jan, for helping me to identify them), a red kite, some white pheasants (though I only got a very bad picture of one hiding in the undergrowth – see pic 12), ‘one of the finest views in England’, according to Pete, and it’s hard to disagree (see pic 25)  and yet another use for one of those old telephone boxes.  Previously I’ve seen them turned into tiny ‘swap a book’ type libraries and a defibrillator point, but this time it was a bike service station, complete with pump and repair kit (see pic 32).  Now that is what you call ‘recycling’! 😊

The final image, courtesy of Google maps, shows the position of Millington relative to York, within my home sub-county of East Yorkshire.

4 responses

  1. usathroughoureyes Avatar
    usathroughoureyes

    So pretty there. I didn’t know that Nestle is located over there.

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    1. Alittlebitoutoffocus Avatar
      Alittlebitoutoffocus

      Yes, it’s a lovely area of the UK. Very peaceful. Nestlé have factories and/or outlets in almost every country in the world. They were quite a small presence in the UK as far as confectionery was concerned until they took over Rowntrees – which added Kit Kat, Polos, Quality Street and Lion bar (amongst many others) to their portfolio. They also had, or maybe still have, 3 (Purina) petfood factories, a few milk processing plants and a 50% share in Cereal Partners. Oh yes, and of course 2 coffee factories. They used to be involved with frozen foods and ice cream, but I think they were all sold off as they were unprofitable. It’s a HUGE company. (I was but a tiny, tiny cog in the machinery). 🙂

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      1. usathroughoureyes Avatar
        usathroughoureyes

        WOW we had no idea their size! This is what we cherish about blogging with folks like you is we learn things about what is happening on the other side of the pond.

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        1. Alittlebitoutoffocus Avatar
          Alittlebitoutoffocus

          I like to educate (and entertain sometimes). 🙂 I seem to recall they had just become, or about to become, a billion dollar company when I retired and they are undoubtedly the largest Food, sorry Health and Wellness, company in the world. A lot of their products are sold under their Brand names, so you may not know that they are Nestlé products. The HQ is by lake Geneva/Lac Léman, which is where I worked from 2005 until 2015. Their business model effectively sets annual targets for each market or sub-business and they each strive to meet or beat those targets and send the ‘profits’ back to HQ. If a market needs capital to invest, they apply to HQ with a business case for some money from the big pot. It seems to work anyway. 🙂

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