April saw the van booked for its second corporate engagement of the year for Below280 a company based in the Apex Business Village, Cramlington. The location for an employee appreciation morning with Bass Notes Coffee Now I'm still not 100% sure about the organisation of the business but as I understand it, the owner of Below280 is also the owner of Decerna, a company based at the same address but upstairs from Below280. Below280 provides expert consultancy and education in L

The requests for the Bass Notes Coffee van to attend School Sports Days started earlier than ever this year, with the first one taking place just before the May half term. I really enjoy serving at events like this as the welcome from staff, parents and guardians is so appreciative, especially if it's a school I've not been to before. For me to attend a school costs nothing and really does require minimal logistical planning. They just decide where they want me to be position

The first opportunity to trade in the year is, for me, one of mixed emotions. This year it was to be on the 31st January with the team from Urban Park Markets at their regular, monthly Gosforth Central Park food, drink and crafts market. The blue and white Bass Notes Coffee trailer is set up in a park, offering a cozy spot for visitors to enjoy freshly brewed coffee. This market is set both inside, nice for some and outside in the cold for the rest of us totaling some 40 plu

May '26 was shaping up nicely anyway then I secured a tender to provide craft services for a local production company on location at the coast. Securing work of this nature is incredibly exciting in my view, however once the initial adrenalin subsides I tend to catastrophise, a lot. It's because I care deeply and I'm a perfectionist which comes from decades of working as a professional musician. Thoughts such as, what if I get there and my equipment doesn't work, what if the

Mid-November may seem to some a little early to be thinking about Christmas, let alone choosing a Christmas tree but over at Lamesley Christmas Tree Farm, it isn't! I began my annual residency here last year on the 15th November for the first of two early access weekends, the farm then officially opened on the 29th November for trees to be chosen and, if desired, taken away. I would be there for a further two weekends. A huge inflatable Santa! Lamesley is the only Christmas T

In February I was approached by the Retail Development Manager of St Oswald's Hospice through my website to see if I might be interested in supporting their Big Book Event at their large shop and donation hub in Byker the first weekend of March. My wife's family have a deep connection with St Oswald's as her mum received support from them during her battle with bowel cancer. Ali (my wife) also ran the Great North Run in her memory back in 2023 raising money for St Oswald's. T

So the business has been going for three years and I've never been involved in a fireworks night! I've come close but for whatever reason it's never quite worked out. This year though there were a couple of potential events on offer. Fireworks night at South Northumberland Cricket Club in Gosforth was the closest though and also came via a recommendation from Durham County Cricket Club where I've been involved in a couple of events this year. What fireworks! I dropped the van

In early February I received an enquiry through the website from the PR manager at Karbon Homes asking if I could attend their upcoming event in North Shields. Karbon Homes are a housing association based here in the North East. They were planning to hold a welcome event at one of their new housing developments for their key stakeholders, and the mayor of North Tyneside to meet the new residents and take a first look inside the new homes. What better way to break down barrier

The Great Food Festival was a brand new event for 2025 set on a relatively new development, Great Park. A three day event on the final weekend of August promising family entertainment, street food, bars, craft stalls and of course, coffee! A new event is always a gamble and a huge guessing game surrounding stock levels. I'd been up at the Bellingham Show in between the two days I traded here so felt fairly confident that I wouldn't be awash with milk come the Sunday evening.

At the start of this week, 8th September I had a rare, free weekend. I'd been asked to submit a quote for a Taylor Wimpey open weekend but that hadn't worked out. Then the phone rang, it was the digital marketing manager for My Car Cleaning in Newcastle. Their showroom was moving location. Not far, literally around the corner and down a level but nonetheless it was worth celebrating. As it was to be held on a Saturday morning they thought a coffee van would be an ideal additi

Early in September I received an enquiry via the contact page of my website to provide a hot drinks package for Aratellus, the world’s most technologically advanced seabed investigation and intervention solutions company for offshore energy. This event was to be a relatively small one for their customers to view their equipment following on from a subsea event at the same location at the Port of Blyth the day before. The company base at the Port of Blyth The remit for this wa

Let me start by saying I LOVE these events, they are known as food battles. I go to them as a punter myself. They are normally held at Wylam Brewery in Newcastle and celebrate some of the best restaurant and street food traders that the North East has to offer and that's saying something. Past battles include, Battle of the Burger, Slice Wars, Mexican Standoff to name a few. Holding the Indian street food battle at Durham County Cricket Ground was a new collaboration between

What better way to kickstart October than with two days at the Catalyst in Newcastle caffeinating the delegates of A-Line's Professional Development Anaesthesia training. This was a fairly late booking that came as a recommendation from my roaster, Baristocracy coffee roasters. The company approached prior to my engagement hadn't worked out so I was happy to jump in and provide the service they were looking for at a price point they were happy with. A-Line are based here in t

The last weekend of August was to be a Bellingham sandwich as I was on another event the days either side. I traded at this event last year so I knew roughly what to expect this time, as long as the weather played ball, which it did, until at least, it was time to pack up. The journey to the Bellingham Show is one of the longest I make with the van at 40 miles with the last 5 miles or so being a bit of a challenge towing up and down the roman roads. It was an early start too

This was a new event for me this year, over two days the Durham County Show has moved to its new home at Thornley Hall Farm. Setup was the day before which can be useful as it removes any of the "where do you want me?" indecision that can occur at the beginning of a trading day, plus alleviate my personal angst of how level or not the ground will be! The only challenge I had was, can I get from NT Washington Old Hall to Thornley Hall Farm by the prescribed end of setup time,

The August bank holiday weekend saw uncharacteristically good weather this year which was fortunate, as I was to spend the Saturday and Sunday positioned on Baltic Square. I didn't know what to expect from this weekend when I was booked for this initially; although the location, next to the Tyne was enough to to temp me to commit. What was a real surprise and added bonus was that this weekend was to coincide with the free, immersive art exhibition at the Baltic Centre showcas

When I started Bass Notes Coffee three years ago I wanted to serve products that had as much traceability as possible. I was able to achieve through my coffee bean choices and to adopt my, up until now USP of using a single origin coffee bean. Through careful selection I was able to carry this through to my tea and drinking chocolate offerings too. Recently I've had to adapt to the ever changing green bean coffee market. For the last couple of years I have served a single ori

OK, so not strictly a wedding coffee service, this was the day after the wedding, coffee service. Lots of the happy couple's guests had stayed over, in bell tents in some quite torrential rain. At the time of booking the rain hadn't been part of the agenda. It was an early start as I had to head south down the A19 50 miles to a lovely little village just outside Yarm to begin service at 9am. Luckily the weather from the day before hadn't left any debris on the roads to impede

At the end of July I was asked to go to a construction site in Chester-le-Street where Glencar construction are building a huge...

This year the rise in the cost of coffee has been in the news, it seems, almost constantly. Why? I'm going to attempt to answer that and...