It's fun and (in this area I think) unique. Enter and turn to the left to pick your own…read morestrawberries or right to pick gooseberries (note if you want gooseberries for jam (tart in taste) pick them green - pick them when the are somewhat red/pink in color if you want them sweeter. Later in the season blackcurrants and red currants will be ready for picking. A fun way to spend an hour or so - then home to make strawberry daiquiris:)

Half way between Ticknall and Hartshorne is Scaddows Farm. Accessed by a track, that splits into…read moretwo, the left fork going to the pick you own fields strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and redcurrants. A great way to spend an early summer's day, soaking up the sun and picking some of the very best tasting fruit. Sadly, closed until next year now, for the fruit to replenish. The right fork goes to Scaddow's farm shop, a great place to buy local produce. The shop, whilst not huge, has a great selection of meat, dairy products and cheeses (infused with chilli, ginger, apricots etc.) Home-made bread, teacakes, jams and marmalades too. A great variety of fruit and veg, fresh and mostly local, and surprisingly reasonably priced, competitive with local supermarkets. Scaddows also has a small cafe selling an impressive, but small range of items. A range of home-made soups, scones, teacakes and cream cakes, are the lion's share of the menu. A small selection of indoor and outdoor seating for the diners; the picnic benches outside have an unbelievable view across the fruit picking fields, through to Ticknall and beyond. Very peaceful and one of our favourite places to have lunch at the moment.

Tesco opened an express branch here a couple of years ago, and it brought about a flurry of…read moreconcern. Would it ruin business for the butcher (W. Taylor), the chemist (Dean & Smedley) and - amusingly - the other two convenience stores we already had, Co-Op and Premier? The answer, generally, is no. This branch stocks anything you might need for an average day, but it doesn't have extensive ranges in anything. I visit several times a week, and it's my first port of call here if I need things in a pinch - peanut butter, writing paper and fruit, for instance - but if I wanted anything less simple, like Eccles cakes, specialist casserole mix or hair dye, it's unlikely I'd find it. That's not to say it's overly simplistic. You can get no less than six types of peanut butter (Whole Earth organic smooth, organic chunky, non-organic smooth & non-organic chunky, Tesco own-brand smooth, Sun-Pat smooth), two brands of Rooibos tea, various packages of fruit and nuts, most magazines, most chocolates and several flavours of Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs. You can buy sushi, tights, two kinds of caffeine pill and a selection of kitschy bright cleaning cloths and sponges. I've bought Starbucks instant coffee packets, Elnett hairspray, blueberries, Tabasco and an iTunes card in one go here. There's a smallish bakery on the premises, and I can't fault shopping to the smell of cinnamon swirls. There are two self-service checkouts and two tills; personally, I like using self-service as it's quicker, but putting weighed items can be a pain - and you don't want to try and remove an item as you'll be waiting around for a while for a member of staff to approve you. Other notables? There are a couple of noticeboards for selling or buying, and for advertising dog walkers and the like. It's nicer than shopping in the Co-Op, which has serious odour problems in the air conditioning system, and the Premier, which is uncomfortably quiet. I feel like rating Tesco 4* would be something of a sacrilege, a misuse of the rating system, so I've put it as a 3*. Nothing spectacular, but definitely useful, and nice to have around.

Just on the periphery of the Cooper's Square shopping centre is this tiny branch of the health food…read moreshop. It has a great range of dried fruits, nuts, cooking ingredients, superfoods and seasonal goods like sugared oranges and lemons. A perfect one stop shop, but the range of items is a little reduced due to its small size. One slight negative is that because the shop is outside the no-smoking shopping centre, cigarette smoke often pervades into the shop, which has its doors permanently open.

Bettys Farm is situated between the main centre of Willington and the A38. The access road is a…read morelittle on the bumpy side, but takes you past the free-range chickens pecking away in harmony with the sheep they have at the farm. The wind turbine and solar panels that presumably power the farm, can be seen from the A38. The Farm Shop is stacked with a whole range of products from flour, jams and preserves to cakes, bread and rolls, all locally sourced. There is also sizeable range of fruit and vegetables, and dairy products like milk and cheese, the local Derbyshire cheese - Peakland White, that tastes similar to Stilton is lovely. Bettys Farm also has a tiny cafe area and its own butchers counter, thus far though we have not tried either, as we always go after work, just as it is about to close. We have tried their chicken and pork sausages though, which again are sourced locally, full of flavour, worth paying that little bit extra. In comparison to most farm shops though Bettys is very reasonable, with the eggs being particularly good value. A dozen eggs being a fraction of the price of those in the supermarkets and much tastier, because of the life the chickens have led.