Is that word pious used in our language directly from the pope of the same name, i have previously wondered? it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how as one of the leaders, but way below top rank in importance and skills, of this sprawling rural business, I manage by 10am on a Sunday to make the office cleaner cry (quite by accident–but she must learn to smile more when she does local primary school lollipop duties, the kids are scared witless by her and the mothers think she’s an old dragon, she says it’ll make no difference, i said someone’ s got to start being better in any relatiosnhip, you are actually very nice and funny but you can;t stand around looking like you want to eat small children on toast if your main job is seeing them safely across the road), and worry that the ageing flirt-maniac who doubles up as the business handyman (leave it to me, he says, as he starts taking your toilets apart, and then disappears for a while with the repairs obviously having caused more drama than expected, and his ’shopping’ trip to the local DIY place having been completely unsatisfactory), well, whether he gave the fruity German 18 year old intern a few too many Pimms last night outside his mobile home in Bishopstone by the Sea. She seems OK this morning, I am glad she is capable of looking after herself; her mysterious mother Heidi down there in Stuttgart has huge confidence in her two children who’ve been here this summer. Heidi found us we don’t know how–call out of the blue, can i send my son to learn engllish please and work on an organic farm…what can you say? I find that yes is usually the easiest answer, worry about it later, especially when the toilets aren’t fixed.
What are blogs for? This is the first i have done for this website and the reason i’m feeling a bit pious is that i’ve just had to write a piece on a form saying why Slow Food UK should nominate us as one of their star producer profiles. We seem to have slipped into being Slow Food devotees, without much conscious effort, because what we do just seems like gut instinct. Being considerate with animals, and the land, and people. Occasionally they’ll take advantage of you–piglets will escape and run amok in the nighbours golden crops; the land wil fill with alll sorts of colourful and hard to lose weeds; the odd member of staff will laugh at you behind your back and sometimes to your face because they’re not used to being treated differently, and honestly, and trusted. The last pub manager was like that–he did bring order out of chaos early on, but being nice to him meant he thought he could roll you over any time he felt like it. Tough, really. Customers got a bit pissed off, too,when he started telling them the place was too good for them.I think this relationship has now come to an end I said, and he laughed. He thought we were joking. If anybody out there is employing an ex manager of The Royal Oak, you can always give me a call, and good luck
The food at The Royal Oak continues to entertain us. Jasper the head chef is a marvel, and his exhaustion is held at bay in the knlwedge we are taking on a brand new great number two at the end of next week, and we’re ve found a woman in the local circus who wants to be number 3 chef in October. Shes good at juggling plates, apparently, usually with food on them. She’s been running Circus Sauce, the food end of Giffords Circus, for the past five months, feeding 45 people a night on whatever she’s found whereever they’ve pitched up, and that sounds like our sort of woman.
The weather pisses us off a lot, but in the end we think it evens itself out. as i write this we’re expecting ‘10 days rain in 24 hours’, to quote that ludicrous rag The Daily Express which i saw in a petrol station yesterday (does anybody ever beleive anything they read in that thing?) at the risk of alienating possibly one or two customers (as many as that?) what is the point in that newspaper? I’m not usually for banning things, but i could argue my case here–on another occasion. anyway for those who are interested in ther daily bread, the winter wheats and some of the oats are now harvested; the spring wheats remain where they have been for the past five months, and can stand another week or so of being untouched before anybody starts to panic, so Helen says. She is the farmer, I know nothing of these things. I’ll never make a farmer, she says, because I can’t remember the names of any of the fields. Ther’s about 80 of them i think. Why fields are called what they are called is another subject, but 2 o’clock bushes and 3 o’clock bushes are about the only ones i can remember.
How long are blogs meant to be? Has any body read it? is it interesting. I doubt it. the sort of blogs i have to read as part of my job are deathly, too often, written by vitupertive personalities with big grinding axes, allowed no other access to the world except this extraordinary means. i will learn, and responses will either spur me on or send me back to my day job.
