Page 28 - May 2020 parish mag_Classical

Sunhats and Cheesy Feet
On Sunday 29th March, deep into the lockdown situation that we are all enduring,
we had a phone call from our family in Warwick “Do you want to have a tea party
in the garden this afternoon?” What? We are supposed to be observing ‘social
distancing’! How can we? “No, you stay in your garden, we’ll be in ours.” Well,
by the wonders of technology we managed it. We agreed a time and were
instructed to get in the garden and be ready to receive a WhatsApp video call. It
had been quite a nice afternoon but was rapidly deteriorating, but we donned
sunhats and Tim considered a bow tie (it was getting even chillier) all ready for
the event. The call came through at the set time- but we discovered that the
younger generation had decided it was too cold outside, so they were tea-partying
in their kitchen!
As it happened, other dimensions
had changed as well. The
grandsons (8 and 6 yrs) were
actually running a very smart
‘virtual’ café with all the wares
displayed on their kitchen table
and sideboard - well out of the
way of Gracie the dog. Flapjacks
made that morning looked very
enticing, so that was on offer as
well as tea, coffee, toast and jam, crisps and cheesy feet biscuits (more of which
later). We did notice that there were no prices mentioned, which rather raised our
suspicions. We were asked to order from the extensive menu which was recited
to us in case we couldn’t read it. I ordered a cup of tea, toast and jam, which came
to £3.50. Tim went for tea and a Kitkat. His bill for some reason totted up to £10!
He rapidly negotiated with the boys for a piece of flapjack to be included in the
price, “Ooh Grandpa, don’t know about that ...” so they had to call a short financial
decision-making meeting (heads together, aprons still on). However, the request
was eventually agreed, on condition that all bills were paid online immediately.
All in all it was a most entertaining thirty minutes (it seemed like longer as it was
really cold in the garden by this time and Tim’s bow tie had been swapped for a
woolly hat) and it brought us all together on a Spring Sunday afternoon.

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