We were delighted to see this article in today’s Times:

THE BEST ICE CREAM IN WALES

1 Domenico Parisella arrived in Llandudno in 1943, and his family have been making artisan gelati in North Wales ever since, using a traditional Italian recipe and local produce. £1.55 from the cafe in Happy Valley, Llandudno

2 Gianni di Lorenzo makes his sublime, gooey chocolate ice cream from the Holstein herd on Wyn Evans’s Caerfai farm, just up the road. £1.70 from Sands Café, Newgale

3 Forte’s Chocolate Button Surprise (left) was not much of a surprise, as it happened: the buttons were just hidden in a stack of dairy ice cream. £2.25 from Forte’s ice-cream parlour, Mumbles Road, Swansea

Paralympian hopes after 12 months

Paralympian athlete Becca Chin took up her two sports only last year A teenager has surprised her coaches by making the British Paralympic team for two sports she tried for the first time only 12 months ago. Becca Chin, 16, from Deganwy, will represent team GB in the discus and shot put at the Beijing Games. The Conwy teenager has already had a busy year preparing for 11 GCSEs. But once her exams are over, she will spend the rest of the summer in athletics training before heading for China in September. She said: “I never saw Beijing as my target - I thought it was London 2012. “I’d go to school, and then come home and either revise or train… so it’s been full on. “But then, just after winter, I realised how well I was doing I just kept on progressing more and more in each competition. “And then I qualified for Beijing, which I was really surprised about, but really happy.” ‘Achievement’ Disability Sport Wales has 70 young athletes in its academy. It is hoping to have 50 members from Wales in the GB team at the 2012 games. The organisation took 23 members to Athens. Becca will do her summer training at Deeside athletics club in Connah’s Quay. Her coach, John Parkin, said: “She has developed very quickly. That amount of improvement in any athlete, able-bodied or otherwise, is tremendous, really. “She’s a good athlete, she listens to everything you tell her, and tries to do everything you tell her, and she’s trained really hard this winter.” Gerwyn Owen, of Disability Sport Wales, said: “It’s a great achievement at such a young age.”

We are delighted that Becca, who works part time for us , has made such phenomenal progress that she is now able to participate in the Paralympic games in Beijing. If you would like to help us in raising sponsorship for Becca please e-mail us at info@parisellasicecream.co.uk. We will be watching the games avidly this summer to see if she can clinch a medal.

Just when you think it’s looking good for a decent summer along comes the rain to put a (literal) dampener on things. Although demand for ice cream in the area has waned slightly in the past week or so, here in the factory we have been kept going with the addition of some new accounts. So at present we are manufacturing as much now as we were over the recent hot spell. The beauty of running an artisan factory is that you can make a variety of flavours at short notice and with relatively low quantities. Most of the product we currently hold has been manufactured within the last month with Vanilla, Strawberry, Rum, Mint, Toffee, Chocolate and Honeycomb turning round on a weekly basis. Indeed, I was embarassed to run out of Vanilla one day last week due to not enough Royal Bourbon being ordered. We now have 200 in stock and are looking to go up to 500 by the weekend. With the new batch freezer due in soon and work now completed on the factory the increase in flexibility and capacity will be of great benefit in managing production and ensuring our customers get their orders as fresh as possible.

If you are Chris from Corwen who rang on Wednesday can you please ring again as the number you left on the answerphone is unclear and we are keen to talk to you.

As a keen musician with 33 years of playing the bass guitar behind me - I was wondering if there are any other musicians connected to the industry. I do know that Steve Henshall of Alfred and Co. runs PA and lighting for his wife’s band, Bibby Road but are there any others out there? I would love to know. Please visit my site at myspace http://www.myspace.com/tonyparisella and say hello.

Well the workmen have now moved in to start work on the second phase of factory development. Our cold storage freezer was increased by 33% last week and work is now being carried out to prepare space for a second batch freezer, decorating table and a workstation for HACCP and labelling. I hope to have some before and after pics up soon.

Although the weather has not been too favourable recently most forecasters predict something a bit more normal this year. In Conwy, it was the upcoming bank holiday weekend which saw the break from the record April sunshine into the gloomy three months that followed last year. I’m sure everyone in the trade is praying we don’t get a repeat performance.

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Some pics from the show. Excuse the multiple image as I’m still getting to grips with WordPress!!

Emma and myself will be exhibiting our ice cream at the above event in Venue Cymru, Llandudno next weekend. If you are attending please come and say hello. This is a very good event with something for everyone and was well attended last year.

As half term draws to a close, its worth pondering the difference reasonable weather makes to our business. Those of you who decided to open this week will have reaped the financial benefits as the unseasonably clement weather gave ice cream sellers a great start to the new season. It’s always a difficult one to call when the kids are off this early in the season but my advice is always be prepared as Easter is only six weeks away anyway. The sight of people walking around in t-shirts eating cones is always uplifting to us ice cream vendors but even more so when we are only in the second week in February!!

Let’s hope this trend continues into the season proper.