In Search Of A Cream Tea.

I recently went for a lovely weekend away in Dorset and on the way back home, my partner and I decided we would get a cream tea (get into the spirit and all that).

We forgot that trying to do anything on a Sunday (especially in winter) in this  country is impossible.

EXHIBIT A: We found a lovely looking tea-room on-line which was in the New Forest and was perfectly on our route back. It closed at 5. Fine, we thought, we’ll get there in time. We pulled up just before 4.30. The closed sign had just been placed on the door.

EXHIBIT B: Following the early closing of exhibit A we drove to exhibit B, a pub in the town of exhibit A, advertising on a chalk board  “cream teas all day”.

Problem solved, we thought.

We parked (easily, which was a shock in itself) and walked into what appeared to be the entrance of the pub.

Now this is a problem with British eatery establishments. There are rarely ANY signs telling you what to do when you enter. Do you order at the bar? Do you wait somewhere to be seated? Do you find yourself a seat? No, not one hint of what to do to give the restaurant your custom.

This pub was no different, after 10 minutes of standing about awkwardly, trying to make eye-contact with a member of staff so that we could order or at least have some inclination of what to do, we huffed off.

EXHIBIT C: I remembered seeing another tea-room as we drove through the village to exhibit B, so we walked there.

Finally, we thought, we can have our cream tea (we were starving and grumpy by this point after failing to eat anything during the day…first world problems I know).

We entered the tearoom…again staff (in this case a teenage boy) failed to tell us how to order, so we went and sat down.

After about 5 minutes the aforementioned teenage boy comes over and tells us that they are about to finish serving hot drinks. We ask him if can we order, at which point he tells us to order at the till (could have done with that info. a little bit earlier sunshine).

At the till we order and he goes into the kitchen.  We are then told that the cook is not serving any more food…not even cold food.

Do we complain or even stamp our feet a little bit.

No!

Instead, we apologise for being so late and hastily shuffle out of the shop.

We ended up eating a custard slice, in the car, at the services on the way home. Story of my life.*

Love

Madame Squirrel

* Not the story of my life at all.

Disclaimer: Madame Squirrel is not usually this grumpy; she just really really likes cream teas.