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The charity making life better by water

Meet Christina

Lady in her cake shop

"Our tea shop eats seven cakes a day in high season! We definitely get through a lot of delicious home-baked cakes. Obviously I have to taste every new cake we get in before I can sell it to any of our customers! Well, just so that I know that every cake I serve tastes good, of course!

Trying to source locally as much as we can is very important to us, and our cakes are baked by two local women. Cakes like death by chocolate, lemon drizzle, sticky toffee and carrot!

In the summer we're crazily busy, and since we added our conservatory we've been able to stay open all year. We get all sorts of customers throughout the seasons. Maunsel Tea Shop is on a Sustrans National Cycle route so we get a lot of cyclists and walkers dropping in, and many of our regulars are from the local community. Lots of dog walkers drop in for a cup of tea, and their dogs come in for a treat too!

I've been here ten years. I live in the village and started working here when I was at school. After I'd been to university to get my degree in child studies, I came back to work here – just because I enjoy it. Now I'm here five days a week and I love working here because of the community spirit. I know a lot of the customers and my favourite thing about my job is the customers, definitely.

Over the years I've worked my way up to supervisor... One day I'd love to have a tea shop of my own."

Christina, Maunsel Lock, Bridgwater & Taunton Canal

photo of a location on the canals
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