A brief tale of
our love story
We met in 2011 after working next door to one another. We began dating after not too long and both felt like running away together and left to travel the world. Our relationship unfortunately did not survive the trip and we broke up shortly after returning.
We went our separate ways, Amber going to university and achieving top grades in whatever she did and Ols taking a slightly more unconventional path after taking the break-up rather badly with a season in the french alps and then eventually running away with the circus, as you do… We did not see each other for 10 years.
A visit to the circus…
We reconnected after Amber visited the circus, we chatted and slowly became friends again. We were both unhappy at the time, we both wanted to run away. We fell in love again, bought a dog, fell in love some more, bought a lorry and made plans to run away from life a bit further. We had a week, Ols proposed in the circus ring on the last day working there, Amber thankfully said “yes”, a few days later we discovered we were to be parents and in June 2024 we had Little baby Zephyr.
Here we are still running away with each other.
Ols Halas
Ols has been a chef since he was 15 and never wanted to do anything else.
From an early age he provide any house guests with a menu written in crayon and insist on cooking for them. He went to catering college whist working at several cotswold hotels and restaurants before going to France to cook then eventually joining Giffords Circus and running the acclaimed Circus sauce. Ols wrote the ‘Giffords Circus Cookbook’ with the late great Nell Gifford that won the guild of food writers “best general cookbook’ and has also appeared on Saturday Kitchen on the BBC.
Amber White
Amber grew up in the cotswolds near fairford and attended university achieving firsts in both phycology and development in psychopathology.
She taught in Burma before becoming a SEN teacher and then deciding on a career change and becoming a yoga teacher after trips to the Ashrams in Rishikesh completing a 200hr yoga course. Amber has traveled far over the years enjoying a vast range of cuisines and cultures and joined Ols in working at the circus.
Gifford Circus cookbook
This extraordinary cookbook is a celebration of the food that brings the circus and its audience together, alongside the story of the circus itself and its vibrant community – it’s a celebration of the colour, personalities and images of the circus and its slow journey through the English summer countryside.