A toddlers’ tea party

Sounds terrifying? You may well be right!

This morning had my usual weekly chat with Nigel the Curate, round at his house now since we have only one broken dining room chair and one rejected computer chair left in the Rectory. The Salvation Army can’t take swivel chairs with only three feet. They have to have four or five feet. Bet you didn’t know that. Neither did I.

So off we bowled to Nigel’s lovely cottage, overlooking the beck with its kingfishers (and its barn owl working the meadow around dusk) and sat in the conservatory to drink coffee. Nigel has a new coffee machine and I’m a little green (with envy, you understand) since it produces coffee to die for.

Not much to discuss now, really, but we had a chat and then I came here to Al’s house (he’s our son) since he has chairs. He’s at work, but gave me permission to use his place when necessary (and his broadband is faster than mine). I made him some shortbread to keep the invitations coming.

This afternoon I’m obliged to attend the toddlers’ tea party, held in the churchwarden’s garden. It’s put on by the Mother’s Union, who invite all the families who have had children baptised in the last few years. So that’s about twenty children under the age of five,then, mostly with their Mums (Dads have more sense. Or maybe they’re working) and older siblings.

The sky is looking decidely threatening but they’ve put up a marquee in the garden which should effectively spare the house. Except, of course, for the loo. And you know what it’s like. If one wants the loo, they all do.

So think of me (and Nigel the Curate) this afternoon, playing ‘Ring a ring of roses’ and ‘poor Ginny lies aweeping’ and ‘Lucy Lockett lost her pocket’ and on and on, then consuming vast quantities of jelly and orange squash.

I know you’d love to be here with me, but sorry, you’ll just have to be content with reading all about it.