the reluctant tea lady

There were only two of us in today to cover the plant centre, me and the manager.  Both gardeners were in, instructed by the boss to do shifts on the hedge cutter so that all the yew will be cut by Thursday when the tamoxifen collectors come for the clippings.  I presume the hedge trimmer is too heavy and the vibrations too much for anyone to use it solidly for three days running.  The immensely dignified and perennially good natured woman from the village, who lives in what must be England's most upmarket commune, made it, but while she will help with the watering first thing, she does not do tills or telephones.  My absent colleague who was due to leave at the end of the month was not in, and by now I have given up expecting her.

As we went out to start on the watering the manager said he supposed that meant we were doing the tea room again.  I supposed it did, too.  He appeared just before ten carrying a lemon drizzle cake and saying that it looked like that and scones, since he didn't think we could serve the rest of the Victoria sponge.  He showed the sponge to me, and the top had slid right off the bottom half.  I said we could definitely not serve the Victoria sponge to the public, but it made its way to the staff room, and by close of play half of it had been eaten.  He put a notice on the cappucino machine saying Out of Order, which it was in the sense that neither of us knew how to use it.  I ended up having to make several pots of tea and cafetieres of coffee, telling customers politely but firmly that those were the only things I knew how to do, but I was mightily relieved when the phone rang mid-morning and it was one of the tea shop girls saying she could come in at noon.

The manager said that interviews for someone to do the tea room and shop had started.  In the meantime I suppose I should be glad that nobody has suggested training me to use the cappucino machine, otherwise I would be afraid that my tenure as tea lady was intended to be permanent.  In fact, if I were paid to read Graham Stuart Thomas' dictionary of shrubs and climbers in between doling out the odd pot, that wouldn't be a bad job, especially on wet days.  Not as good as a holiday job my uncle had in his student days, when he was paid to sit in a van.  He had a full driving licence, the delivery driver hadn't and required nominal supervision.  My uncle sat in the passenger seat swotting up on physics while the van driver, duly supervised, did the deliveries.  However, the tea shop girl was not allowed to get away with studying her sixth form subjects but was set to work wiping the sacks of compost in front of the shop.

Things got rather frantic just before lunch, and I don't think the manager made it through a meal break without being interrupted, but we coped.  Things are quiet, partly because the end of summer always is, and partly because the soil is so dry that it is not good planting weather.  Once we get some rain, and people get back from their holidays, we won't be able to do it with two, not if trade rises again to the level the owners would like it to be.