Highs and lows.

Fran arrived on Thursday afternoon and I have just returned from seeing her off home, I managed not to sniffle until she was on the train. It has been a lovely long weekend with her, even if we did eat far too much.

On Saturday we went to Le Petit Boulle in Neath for afternoon tea

She had arranged for flowers on the table, for me to take home, and a balloon.

This was booked by Fran some time ago and promoted by the company with fabulous photos of tables laden with eye candy goodies.

The reality was far from that. The cake stand arrived 15 minutes after we sat down, it held some sandwiches, made with white ready sliced bread, there were chunks of cucumber, wafer thin sliced ham and very thick cut smoked salmon. The sweeties were scones that had been cut in half across the top? wafer thin slices of Bara Brith and all of 3 Welsh Cakes, some considerable time later some slices of sponge cake appeared. When the cups and plates arrived they were thick white "transport cafe" style. The cream and jam came in assorted dishes and when the tea finally arrived it too was in a heavy white pot. BUT it was a breakfast pot and held exactly one and a half cups, I should say here that there were three of us.

Fran was very not amused and asked for more tea, cream and jam, minutes later 2 more pots of tea arrived, but it was a shambles.

The food was not good, the whole affair was mismanaged and a disappointment.

The owner will by now have had a missile in email form from Fran who is in the white cold stage of anger.

We put it behind us and had a very good dinner at home later.

On Sunday these arrived in the morning. beautiful flowers

with a little box of chocolates and a card with knitted bees.

Then in the afternoon a huge box turned up full of balloons.

I feel very spoilt, and in truth very happy for it.

Then of course we had Rufus for the weekend, and the manner of guests the world over he hogged my seat at every opportunity.

Ben was in full support and took the other corner.

My Fran's new sweater, that she wore all Sunday, and sweltered in, looked very good on her. But as she is shy here it is on the model.

, 

Now for a serious topic, sometime ago I had a lengthy whinge about tights. I managed eventually to find a brand and size that were perfect. At the end of last summer I bought 2 boxes ready for this year. As it has been Summer Holiday weather for the past few days I dug them out. JUST LOOK!!!

This was after 5 minutes wearing them.

Needless to say the rest are now in the CS box and I have to start a new search. The Nora Batty look is not for me.

 And on that footnote (he he) I am off to get another load of washing hung out while the kettle boils for tea.

                 TTFN                                                         Pam

I just want to add that even though the afternoon tea was a shambles the best and most important part of my weekend was that not only was Fran here but she was here for virtually 4 days. Everything else, while mostly lovely, was by the by.