Nor any drop to drink

Sarah and David's wedding day dawned and it was oh-so-wet after a week of intense heat.
And we ferried the stuff to set tables in the marquee in the pouring rain.
Some of us in wellies.
Some of us in raincoats.
With the hoods up.
We set up the cheese tower with rain beating down. We laid out china tea cups, saucers, tea plates, pastry forks, in the pouring rain. We prepared the Pimms in the pouring rain.

The guests were served ice cream cornets after the ceremony. They were meant to eat them standing outside the church, chatting in the sunshine while photos were taken but the thunder and lighting rather scuppered that.
Instead they were served inside the Church porch and ate them in glorious baroque surroundings.
The seventy guests arrived in the marquee under umbrellas.
The bride and groom made the short journey in a vintage car and then trekked across the grass into the marquee, under umbrellas.
Then at about 4 o'clock the sun came out.
The sides came off the marquee.
The photographer lured the guests outside for some shots in the sunshine.
It was as it was meant to be.

Berry inconvenient.

It's a big weekend.
The marquee is up.
The bride and groom (and friends) are coming to decorate it today in readiness for their Afternoon Tea reception tomorrow afternoon.
Fingers crossed for good weather although the marquee is huge so the guests may not notice any rain.

We had a storm overnight and more are threatened during the heatwave.

Our other customers will probably be inside, struggling with the temperature in the conservatory.

One issue.
Strawberries.
The farm in Witley where we get all our strawberries and raspberries are "between varieties". The first ripened quickly and all came at once. The second variety is taking its time.
I am serving strawberries at the wedding and at a party on Sunday.
Hmmm.

Elementary Entry

Today we finished the last page of the Visitors' Book.
Someone wrote in the final box: "Excellent" then a / then what looks like "Canada".

Excellent/Canada?

Great/Britain?

Under the weather

I find the heat exhausting. And it's hotter inside the tea room than it is outside. It's ridiculously hot in the conservatory which means no one can sit in there.
So we do a lot more walking.
Which makes us even more tired.

Earlier on this week we had a seriously showery day.
The sort of day for which we keep an umbrella stand with a few umbrellas standing in it - so that people can borrow a brolly if they're caught without one.
An Australian couple, who'd just had lunch, started to panic when they saw that their prized umbrella  had vanished from the stand. It was an expensive one, they told me, a large one, an Aston Martin one no less. They were concerned it had been stolen.
In fact it had been taken by a couple for their walk to the visitors' centre in the rain. They had asked if they could borrow one. They promised they would leave it at the centre and one of the lovely English Heritage staff would return it to us the next day. As usual.
But instead of taking one of ours they happened to choose the jolly expensive, large, Aston Martin one. Well, wouldn't you?
I called the centre.
It had just been handed in, wet but undamaged.
The Aussies set off quickly for their reunion.

Good Gourd

Thursday was a lovely but strange day typified by a high tea order.
With our high tea comes a choice of sandwich. One lady scanned the menu and asked for hers to be made with cucumber and cream cheese.
When we were clearing her table we found most of the cucumber on the side of her tea plate so were concerned she hadn't liked the sandwich.
"Oh, it's ok," she said, "I just don't eat cucumber."

And by the way, Maureen is as lovely as I'd hoped.  

She lived up to her voice.

Mo - tivated

I am looking forward to meeting Maureen.
Maureen has the most amazing voice - it's lovely, deep, rich and Welsh-accented. She sounds as if she always has a smile on her face. She has a gorgeous laugh. I have an image in my mind of what she might look like.
We've been speaking and emailing for weeks about her group's visit today. There are 25 of them coming from the Cynon Valley, arriving for coffee, then a tour of the Court and Church and Crypt and back to us for lunch.
The day has dawned. It's beautifully sunny.
I hope she smiles throughout.

I'm in early to make biscuits to go with their coffee.

Compare and Contrast

Back to what passes for normal at the tea rooms today after my weekend foray into the world of compering. Upton Food and Beer Festival was the venue for a  WotsCooking demonstration kitchen, and I watched and commented on ten very different chefs creating more than twenty very different dishes VERY quickly.
I learned the following:
1. That compering can be fun.
2. That compering can be hard, or indeed easy, depending upon the chef and the audience.
3. That we should all be using rape seed oil because it's really versatile, cooks stuff well and is produced in this country.
4. That towers of food look really great.

I have decided to put the "towers of food" idea to the test in my own home.
Not because I want my creations to look like they've been produced in a restaurant by a chef with two rosettes or a star.
It's because I think this will force my children to eat with a knife and a fork.
Or rather with the fork used as a fork instead of as a spoon.
My constant refrain at mealtimes is "THIS IS A KNIFE AND FORK MEAL" which means they turn their fork over for a few seconds.
I take full responsibility for their table manners.
Largely because I haven't yet found anyone else to blame.

Tea rooms visitors usually do use their cutlery correctly so the "tower" policy will not yet be introduced.