A good marriage

Yesterday I made Lemon and Elderflower Drizzle cake.
I had made an elderflower cake last year, using a single lemon.
It was fine but not great. The elderflower was barely there and there wasn’t enough lemon.
So I tried again, raised the number of lemons, added homemade elderflower cordial into the mix and then once it was cooked I skewered a few holes and dripped more cordial into the cake before adding the drizzle topping.
Much better.
A real relief.
I rang Emma (21) who was due into work in an hour. I had forgotten to make a sign for it. Could she knock something up, please?
This is what she arrived with:

 

Such a talent.
The sign did its job and this morning I’m going in to bake more.
I doubt Harry and Meghan’s cake looks like mine, which is an unadorned traybake, but it’s certainly a good combination now I’ve sorted the balance.

Seasoned

Today Brian came in for his lunch.

He’s a regular visitor, one of the men who visits on his own. He’s been coming a few years now and recently we’ve started to chat a little more.

Today he brought me a gift.

A thoughtful, local gift from one of the other places he visits.

I just hope it’s not a comment on my cooking.

More Venus and Mars

This morning we hosted a hen party.
A high tea for thirteen young women.
They had booked six weeks ago, were all staying in a rented house nearby, brought fizz for us to chill the day before and then an hour before the event they brought decorations, balloons and signs. They hung paper lanterns from the ceiling and lit candles.
The table looked gorgeous.
The ladies looked gorgeous.
The bride wore a sash.
They sat and chatted outside after their high tea and then went on to their next venue where they were going sailing for the afternoon.

As they were mid-tea a dozen men in their twenties and thirties walked in.
A stag group.
We’d never hosted any element of a stag party before. We didn’t know they were coming. We’re not usually the sort of venue associated with such things.
They had been quad biking locally for the morning and each ordered individually. A few cream teas, a few coffees, one panini. They sat outside having pulled a few tables together.

Perhaps they’ll all meet up in a Worcester nightclub later this evening?

Flash, bang, wallop.

“Are you the lady on the radio?” he said.
He was part of a pensioner group from Evesham.
Forty cream teas in the conservatory.
Most of them liked LOTS of cream.
I presumed he was talking about my lemon drizzle chat on local BBC last week so I nodded a “that’s me.”
He picked up a camera from the table in front of him and took my photograph.
An hour later, as they were leaving, he asked me if I minded that he’d taken the photo; said he should have asked; said he’d send me a copy.
He told me that once he was walking in a street and John Bercow was coming towards him. He stuck out his hand and said, “Hello John, mind if I take a photograph of you with my wife?”. Mr Bercow didn’t mind.
Then another time he met Jane Garvey and asked her if he could take her photo.
She told him he could, for a fiver.
“But then she didn’t charge me,” he said.

Cream crackered

That was intense.
The forecast was correct.
Three weeks until the next Bank Holiday.
Will we do more than the 110 cream teas of today?

Making hay

So when I said that the ice cream freezer was bulging I was clearly wrong.
This morning, aware I had a fair amount but that it would probably not be an adequate supply for Monday, I sent a text to the ice cream dairy, Bennetts, begging for supplies.
They don’t open on a Sunday but within a couple of hours Chris had sent out nine boxes, each containing 18 tubs.
I filled the display freezer again and put the rest in the big freezer ready for tomorrow.
Then I got them out and again refilled the display freezer.
By the end of the day I had done this another twice.
*Sigh*
Fortunately Chris has taken pity.
Another 12 boxes will arrive by midday tomorrow in readiness for what is forecast to be the hottest Bank Holiday Monday on record.

Lazy

It looks like we might, finally, have a decent weekend. A bank holiday one at that.
The drinks fridge is full.
The ice cream freezer is bulging.
I am going to have to make lemon drizzle cakes for the weekend as BBC Hereford and Worcester rang this morning to ask me to comment on a poll which puts it top of a favourites list. We have known this for quite a while.
If I were a proper business person I would have ensured that we always have lemon drizzle on offer but since I make it and I have to get up earlier and sort my day out differently for that to happen it rather goes by the wayside.
I really need to give myself a kick.