In her stride

“Where is the woodland walk?” she asked as the four of them got up from their table to leave (two toasted teacakes, unbuttered, to share, plus hot drinks).
I suggested they set off to the English Heritage Visitor Centre the way they’d come and the various walks would be sign-posted.
“Are there any more walks?” she said, “I have to up my number of steps. My friend here has done a thousand more than me.”
I suggested she take a tour of our garden, past the former tennis court, following the walled garden.
Surely a thousand steps, there? No idea; never counted.
A job for a quiet day perhaps.

Pie Eyed

Over the past week in the run up to Christmas we haven't been particularly busy but it has been rather lovely.
We have seen some of our regular customers. Alec and Val were celebrating their wedding anniversary yesterday. Maureen and Geoff came to pick up a Lemon and Blueberry cake (for Maureen. Geoff is saving himself for that whisky-laced fruit cake.)
We held a seventieth birthday tea for four people and we added in four of our homemade mince pies. As they prepared to leave we noticed there were two mince pies left on their cake stand. Did they want to take them home? They breathed out heavily, held their stomachs and said they wouldn't, thank you, they were going out for dinner and were already full....
We said our goodbyes and left them to it.
When the door closed behind them we went to clear their table.
No mince pies.
A mystery indeed.
Could it be that the pies migrated to the people on the next table? That's our best guess.

the big chill

When we decided to trial winter opening I remember laughing and saying something about snow.
We haven't really had snow in these 'ere parts for 8 years.
Not proper snow.
Not like this:

It was forecast so I decided that I would open up for a couple of hours and see what happened.
I live closest and don't have to venture onto a main road. In fact, I can walk. Which is what I did.
I hadn't been there many minutes (hadn't actually taken off my coat) when into the door came a couple from the village.
They'd walked up to the Court, found it closed and thought they'd chance their arm at the tearooms.
They could probably see my footsteps.
The only ones in the snow.
We sat with tea and chatted for an hour. Topics of conversation - kids, the rise of China, university applications, Brexit.
It was something rather special, and will probably never happen again.
The snow can do that.
They went on their way.
I locked the door at 1pm and walked home.