I counted them in...

Dire day weather wise. Whatever happened to September as the month for an Indian Summer?
Today looked like this:
1000 Arrived and set up.
1155 A Canadian couple ordered two coffees.
1205 Three mums and three toddlers had coffee and lunch.
1300 Church steward came for his free coffee and a chat about bees.
1310 A man and three ladies had soup, jacket potato and sandwiches. Then millionaire's shortbread.
1345 A couple. He had two cappuccinos and a piece of cake. She had quiche and a latte.
1405 Older couple and daughter had 3 lattees and apple juice.
1600 The afternoon church steward came for his free tea and a chat about how quiet the day had been.
1635 A man came in to ask what time we closed, said he'd be in shortly. Really just wanted to use the loo.
1700 Lights out.

If you can't beat 'em.

I am planning a staff outing for the week after we close up for the Winter. To say thank you for all the hard work. After the experience at the weekend I am thinking of asking them all to bring a packed lunch. Then all we have to do is to find a really nice restaurant, order a glass of tap water each and get our own sandwiches out. Sorted.
Not the best of days trade-or weather-wise. The rest of the week looks pretty grim too, so I'm catching up on paperwork and ironing. Or trying to.

Bark and Bite

A very busy weekend. But it didn't take me by surprise. This time.
Yesterday (Saturday) we had Club 94, a group of 16 made up of men who all retired in 1994 from their jobs in a newtown creation quango (their words, not mine). They came with their wives and were delightful - funny, complimentary, nice. The early afternoon was marred only by a woman who ordered tea and then ate her own sandwiches in the conservatory. When I tackled her about it she said she was about to rehearse and couldn't rehearse on an empty stomach, her friends had eaten their lunch in the car but she'd been driving so she couldn't, and anyway she hadn't "done me out" of anything because she'd bought tea. Grrrrrrr. I thought her rude. Would she do that anywhere else I wonder?
She was a member of the Swansea Bach Choir who were performing in the Church last night and came to us after their rehearsal for sandwiches, cakes and tea at 6pm. All 31 of them. I only wish I could have barred her - turned into Babs Windsor and yelled "gerroutomyteeerumz". But I didn't.
Then today 51 for a buffet lunch. Protestant Church Musicians from all over Europe: Norway, Sweden, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland. They sang grace before they ate. Beautiful. They particularly liked scones with jam and cream, left a very generous tip and not much food.

Vegetunian

A miserable day but we had a group of fourteen ladies booked in for lunch. They hadn't preordered. The organiser told me weeks ago they were old school friends and didn't mind waiting for food - they always had plenty to chat about. The first one through the door scanned the menu on the board and wrinkled her nose. "Is that all you've got?" she said, still wrinkling.
I said I was sorry, but was there nothing that she liked?
"Not really," she said. More wrinkling.
Then: "I don't eat chicken." At this point I should point out that there's nothing involving chicken on the menu. Except eggs.
Then she said she was a vegetarian.
Then she ordered a tuna jacket potato. I didn't point out that tuna is a fish, and therefore was once alive.
Late afternoon a couple with an indistiguishable foreign accent and faultless English had coffee and cake. She was wrapped in a headscarf and said she'd dressed poorly for the cold weather.
They left a very nice comment in the visitors book. Turned out to be from Iceland.

Taking orders

41 came as planned, and 25 had ham salad, but they weren't all ladies. There was a smattering of husbands among them. I'd roped in Dad and my own husband who donned a pinny and wrote down orders at the till. He called me over only when faced with a debit card transaction. I told the lady in question that it was a day off from his real job. "Is he a vicar?" she said, "he's so placid and has the air of one."
Late in the afternoon there was a blessing up at the Church. The groom was American. A few of the guests came in for tea before the ceremony among them a lovely family from Los Angeles who had tea, teacakes and scones. They were SO complimentary about everything. They took their time over tea and strolled up to the Church at about 5 past 5.
The service was due to start at 5.
All the way from LA and they're late because of a scone.

Five a Day

"What's the soup?" asked the man on his own. We had two unusually: Courgette & Tomato and Courgette, Celery and Watercress (Peter in the village is growing a very good crop of courgettes this year and brings us a box each week). The man also ordered a slice of mystery cake. That's the mainly chocolate one with the mystery ingredient which is? Er. Courgette. He's had his ration for the season now.
Tomorrow 41 Rubery ladies arrive for a tour of the Court followed by lunch.
19 of them have ordered ham salad.

Early Bird

Arrived at 10 to open up after a trip to the cash and carry and the supermarket. A woman bringing leaflets about a concert in the Church next year came in at 1015 and told me about the concert, the leaflet, her husband's achilles injury, his badminton, his operation, their previous job and her current job. She bought a necklace. She wears a lot of big jewellery because as she's tall she can carry it off and she has two weddings to go to and quite a lot of clothes in the turquoise colour of the necklace, although she does already have a necklace in that colour, as well as one like the purple necklace on the second from bottom shelf.