From mid-July, The Edge Cafe on Mill Road will be reopening for takeaway - including sandwiches, main meals, cakes and drinks. In the meantime, they've kindly shared the secret of their gorgeous brownies - just click on the picture for the recipe.

As well as being open for delivery and takeaway (Thursday-Sunday) and adding another brunch service, Scott's All Day have also teamed up with Restaurant 22 to create a very special lockdown pizza - salami, local asparagus, mozzarella, pecorino, parsley and confer garlic oil on a white base. Mouth-watering!

OliveOlive have added a couple of great new items to their online shop. The Halloumi Cookbook features 60 delicious recipes for halloumi lovers, and their new 30cm olive wood boards are also available now. Don't forget all our readers can get 10% off using discount code INDIE10.

We're sure some of you are more than ready for a slice of Italian life!  After weeks of lockdown, Italy is now welcoming visitors and there's no safer place to be than in a private villa. Essential Italy are offering Indie followers a special 10% discount on the following properties for September: Panorama (Tuscany), Rosetta (Sardinia), Villa Roxanne (Puglia). Just mention Indie Cambridge when contacting Helen or Ian at info@essentialitaly.co.uk

Literature Cambridge has created a new series of online study sessions. Join them for live lectures and seminars via Zoom with leading scholars with a special interest in Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries, such as E. M. Forster, Katherine Mansfield, D. H. Lawrence and Elizabeth von Arnim. They also plan sessions on Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushie, Bernadine Evaristo and Kamila Shamsie. Details here.

Lovely Laird Hatters in Green Street is open again - starting at 5 days a week, Tues-Sat 10-5pm. For summer they have classic Panama hats, cool caps, and now face masks (a few varieties and one special line to match their summer caps). Safe systems for staff and customers will be in place including using paper tape measures for head sizing which customers can take away, or self-measure in the shop. 

Over the lockdown Nomads on King's Parade have been sending messages of love to Cambridge. With a big brass Buddha and a smaller Healing Buddha in their window, there's a special mantra beside them allowing anybody looking in and reading it, to receive a blessing! The beautiful shop itself is now open, but if you can't get to it, they've also been busy setting up an online shop so you can get lots of Nomads wonders there too. Namaste! 

After a pause during lockdown KCP Furniture & Finishing are now back working in people's homes (under the new government guidelines), and doing free video and/or socially distanced design consultations. Not surprisingly, there's been a lot of interest in repurposing existing spaces to create new home offices as well as dual-purpose spaces that can be used for work in the day and living spaces in the evenings and weekends. They've also secured a capital grant to purchase a state of the art CNC machine. Once this is up and running, they'll be developing a new range of bespoke freestanding furniture which they can make to clients' specific requirements and deliver direct to their door.

Don't like grapefruit ;-) no problem as Cambridge Fruit Company's new website lets you choose what goes into your fruit (or veg) box. They're also doing their bit to help other local indies, and you can now order meat, dairy, bread, drinks and cakes - all sourced from lovely local independents. Visit the site here.

Babylon ARTs, has just announced the re-opening of the Babylon Gallery on Ely’s riverside, following its temporary closure due to Covid-19. The first exhibition will be their annual selected Summer Open exhibition which will run from Saturday 1 August to Sunday 6 September. The deadline for submitting works is 10am Monday 13 July. All the  info can be found here.

Huge congratulations to our Indie Cambridge member Eve Waldron for being shortlisted for the 2020 UK Construction Week Role Models initiative. Eve feels passionately about educating young people about a career in interior design and the construction industry, so is the perfect candidate. The overall winner will be announced on 7th October. Good luck Eve from all the IC team!

On June 19, Fen Ditton Gallery is launching its next virtual exhibition 'Plantlife'. Alongside the launch, they are running a campaign on social media inviting you to show them all of your #lockdowngardens - whether that's the work you've done on your physical garden, or a creative response. The exhibition will support the charity Plantlife, focussing on their Road Verge Campaign.

Stir Cambridge have been busy making a few changes and are now open for takeaway. The Bakery retail has moved into the cafe and  there's a one-way system, perspex screens and health and safety sign off - so  they're good to go and as COVID safe as they could possibly be! The Bakery online shop is still going strong and they now deliver to the Shelfords and all CB24 and CB25 areas too.

The Darryl Nantais Gallery in Linton remains closed, but owner Karl continues to be available for private appointments for both artwork and framing consultations and collections. The plan
going forward is to soon be open on Fridays and Saturdays 9am to 4pm, with supervised admission, controlled numbers and everyone working together to keep suitable space between. 

Indie member Art of Flooring are also back up and running at their Milton Road showroom. It's all by appointment only, so you'll need to get in touch with Sam Wilson in advance. Call him on 01223 755802 or 07939 550804 or email sam@artofflooring.co.uk

Making over 4,000 fabric face masks and raising over £22,500 for NHS charities in the process, Jane Horwood of Catfish Web Design and her team of volunteer sewers have been a little busy! Two more of our indie members Backstitich and The Cambridge Fabric Company have also pitched in with supplies. Watch their amazing story in this film.

Finally, for one of our members - CKLG Accountants, the last few months have, like for many other companies, shown how working differently can bring advantages, and also inspire a more positive work-life balance. Read their blog here.

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