Future tense

Last week I bought a 2014 diary.

It already has a booking in it for June (group from South Wales - very organised)

There's also a wedding in July/August which will be inked in as soon as the date is decided.

Strange to be getting excited about next season while looking forward to finishing this one...

Abetting

I'm going to have to write this very carefully....
A few weeks ago one of our regular customers asked if we would provide her with certain items for a party she was having, for which she didn't have time to fully cater. This we did willingly and she passed them off as homemade.
But one little white lie can beget another.
She had comments from friends about her fantastic food.
Now she says she has to order more.
They'll then be in the freezer for when these friends visit her over the winter months.
This will allay their suspicions.
Apparently.

A real tonic

We had some real characters in today and thankfully the time to speak to them.

There was the young couple who ordered panini and coffee. When I delivered his cappuccino he asked for a mug of hot water, waved a sachet of lemsip and made what my kids would term 'a sad face'. He was on leave and had come down with a cold.  He smiled when his girlfriend bought him a therapeutic raspberry coconut slice.

There was the couple who sat outside with a beautiful English Setter. They told me the dog's name is Mr Cooper. He was named by their then four year old grandson who rather liked his school dinner lady - Mrs Cooper.  Their smoked salmon sandwich was half on white and half on granary bread - all we had left by the time they ordered.

There was the couple who had dressed in the same coloured clothing, but didn't realise until we asked if they'd done it deliberately, the couple searching for the local fishing pools, and the three toddlers learning to swim who arrive with wet hair and their mums on Fridays.

A lovely day.

Palpitations

This morning was...interesting.
Jane, who works at Witley Court, came in for coffee and a chat during her rounds at 10.15.
She mentioned in passing that a large group was coming to see the Court, and added that they were coming to us at the tearooms before their tour...
"Are they?" I asked.
These were the only two words I could get out of my mouth, which had gone very dry.
She said the group had emailed yesterday to say I knew all about it, that there were 30 of them coming for tea and cake. And joy of joys that they were from a tourist organisation.
Oh and they were due at 1020. In five minutes time...
By now I had picked up the phone and dialled Sara who wasn't due in until midday.
And my brain was whirring with questions about whether I might pull this off...or more likely fail abysmally.
And a little bell of recognition was sounding in my head about a booking for 30 people in the tourist industry.
But there was nothing in the diary.

Jane radioed the Court to find out more.
And discovered that they are in fact coming on OCTOBER 26th, not September.

It took me a few minutes and a large latte to recover.
At lunchtime a five month old girl called Isla, with huge brown eyes, almost made me forget the trauma of the start of the day.

Music to my ears.

Last week my book group met to talk about anything except books since none of us had read the right text.
Still, we passed a pleasant couple of hours in the local pub and as we prepared to leave we thought we'd better sort out a book for next time just to keep up appearances...

Clare was the first to proffer a title:
"My husband has given me a copy of The Piano Room", she said, "he thinks we'll love it."
There were the inevitable questions. How long is it? What's it about?
I typed into my phone and read aloud from the Amazon site:

"The last thing that Lucy Aybrams, a carefree Californian undergraduate at Oxford University sees, before quicklime sears her corneas, is a human anklebone swinging from the fallen roof of a road-protest tunnel in the English countryside."

Lots of aghast faces. Clare looked surprised. We're pretty open minded and I love a good thriller but it didn't sound like something Clare's husband would suggest. Still we dutifully wrote down the title and author and all said we'd try to read it.

Later that evening we had an email from Clare.
It wasn't, in fact, called The Piano Room.
It was called The Music Room, by William Fiennes:
"The bestselling author of The Snow Geese returns with a mesmerizing, heartstopping tribute to his older brother and the house in which they grew up."

Not a swinging human anklebone in sight. 

And counting

It was a busy weekend.
Which is why I'm only now thinking about it.
On Saturday beautiful Anna & gorgeous Rob were married in the church and walked down to our garden with their 70 guests for Pimms and canapés of warm mini tartlets and pasties. The sun shone, it stayed dry and the garden looked very green for their photos.
Then in the evening it was the last of the church concerts for the season and 30 people came for a pre-concert supper. I ran out of homemade honey ice cream (local milk and cream and our own honey are the only ingredients ).  Must remember how popular it is and make more for the next time.

We now have less than 6 weeks of the season left.
I have started writing my list of winter jobs.

Sighs.

"Ooh, you're bigger than I remember," she said as she walked in.
She meant the size of the tea room.
I hope.

Spectacle

We had such a lovely group in yesterday.
From Art Pursuits UK.
They ate our ham, homemade honey ice cream and the last of the Witley strawberries.
The left a very generous tip and wrote in the visitors book: "scrummy food and great staff".
Without my glasses I read it as "quaint staff".

Ta-dah

Andrea's Blackberry and Cinnamon cake

Andrea's Blackberry & Cinnamon Cake

Yesterday a friend sent me the recipe for this cake.
Today is a day off so have just picked the blackberries. I picked them in the pouring rain and now have 250g of wet blackberries.


Hope it's as good as it sounds.

Butter for greasing
140g soft unsalted butter
140g caster sugar
140g ground almonds
140g self raising flour
1 egg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g black berries
Icing sugar for dusting

Heat oven to 180/160 fan/gas 4.  Grease and line 23cm springform tin.  Put the butter, sugar, almonds, flour, egg, cinnamon and vanilla into mixing bowl and beat well.  Spread half the mixture into prepared tin and flatten lightly using back of fork.  Sprinkle over blackberries and dot over the remaining cake mixture so the fruit is covered.  Place tin on a baking sheet and bake in oven for about 1 hour until golden and springy.  Leave to cool in the tin.  Sift the icing sugar and a little ground cinnamon over the top and serve.

Party party

Yesterday we hosted a tea party for a 3 year old. Most of her guests were adults but the children who did come had squash in tea cups poured from pretty tea pots. Note to self: remember this simple change to tea parties for next season because the kids really love it.
Today we held baby Daniel's Christening celebration. Lots of banners and balloons, sandwiches and scones, cakes and canapés. And lovely people. Which isn't alliterative.
By 4 o'clock, as the poor weather set in, the last customers left.
I was home by 5.30.
It's properly autumn now.

Confession

Among the first customers were three regular visitors who sat in the conservatory and drank americanos.
Among the last customers were the same three people, who sat at the same table, in the same seats and drank tea and ate scones.
In the interim they had been somewhere for lunch.
They told me that they think of the tea rooms as their special place and they love to come. But they were horrified when they came on one of the Bank Holidays this year to find a queue to the door and every table full.
We have had amazing Bank Holidays this season. Sunny, hot and incredibly busy.
They don't make me happy though.
I like people to see us at our best, to have a chat about cake, coffee strength, tea in pots and how lovely the china is, the surprising beauty of the Church and the shocking state of the drive.
On a busy Bank Holiday all this goes out of the window as multiple trays full of food and drink are carried out and multiple trays full of debris and remains are carried in. It's all a bit of a rush and not conducive to pleasant conversation and individual attention.
And it takes us ages to clear up at the end of the day...

Grounded

Ha.
Wasps don't seem to like rain.
The rain today was very welcome.

Lovely customers. Not in large numbers (because of the welcome rain) but nevertheless lovely.

Her loss

Apparently Miley Cyrus was in Great Witley last Sunday.
She signed the Church visitors' book.
She didn't sign ours, but maybe that's because she didn't make it down the path to the tea room and didn't fancy a homemade scone and a nice cup of tea.

The Late Show

The Langley Local History Society was late. 

Thank goodness.

The day turned into a beautiful one, as predicted, and couples and families and groups of friends braved the wasps and came out in the hot sunshine which meant that we were very VERY busy at the appointed hour of 1pm. 

When the nineteen arrived at a quarter to 2 (they had very kindly warned us that they were behind schedule) we were in a far better state to receive them.  

A little luck can make all the difference. 

Pest

Distinctly autumnal this morning but I am assured that the fog will lift, the grass will dry and that we're in for another beautifully hot day.
I shall be doing battle with the wasps again, this time to try to deter them from ruining the Langley Local History Society visit.
I'd love them to be able to have their lunch outside.
The wasps may love that too.

I find myself grateful that the forecasters are offering rain later this week. With luck this will mean I can write about something other than insects.

Menace

Wasps continue to annoy though in significantly lower numbers.
I have colourful wasp catchers hanging in the garden.
I have fresh mint in jars on the tables (apparently wasps hate the smell of mint - who knew?).
I have citronella tea lights in jars.
I have a swatter.


Do I feel sorry for the slaughter of the little striped things?
No.
They have been attacking one of our hives. Our lovely hardworking bees have been killed for the honey they've spent weeks making.
No. With wasps I am hard line.