Good morning from a rather damp and stormy Somerset. After the extreme heat of the middle of the week, it was rather a relief to have the temperature drop almost as fast as the torrents of rain we had here on Thursday night. It is safe for me to admit to this now but the first thing I thought when woken by the noise of the rain in the middle of the night was quite how bad/horrendous a mood poor Amber would be in as having cut and turned their hay earlier in the week they were planning to bale and store it all on Friday! So it was a relief when having sent my commiserations to her first thing on Friday morning to have a reply of smiling faces saying they had got it all in by midnight on Thursday!
It has been a rather strange week at The Smokery as I was stealing a few days off. The huge heat makes a very old building an extremely hot and hard place to work and then one of our number had a huge sadness out of the blue. I am always impressed by my amazing team at the smoke but their compassion and maturity in helping one of their own acknowledge, deal and then react to such news has been simply outstanding and I have never been more proud of them.
We are now entering the last few days of what has been our popular June Box and our Whole Baked Ham offers so if you would like to order one for any date in the future then you only have until close of play on Tuesday to do so. Remember you can specify a date you would like your order delivered, so for example if you wanted to order a ham for Christmas delivery you could do that and still receive this months offer price, you just have to order it by Tuesday! I was delighted with how many people took up the offer of the Trout Box this week and I will definitely do similar offers in the future as it seems a sensible way to introduce folk to products they might not usually try?
When I returned from the Smokery late yesterday afternoon Charlie said that someone had delivered a present to the door but that she had no idea who as Bertie had answered the door and as usual he was “away with the fairies”. Upon opening a beautifully wrapped parcel with a ribbon and brown paper I was truly moved to find a hand drawn picture of our house on the lane we live on in our village. It is perfect and very poignant as we are soon to leave a house we have loved and lived in for a good few years. The card simply said “Thank you for keeping us going with fruit and veg through the worst of the lockdown”. Delivering food boxes of various shapes and sizes to peoples doors locally in the evenings seemed a tiny and sensible thing to do if folk needed it, and was never a hardship in anyway at all. So to receive such a special gift for such a small service has completely thrown me and as ever moved me to tears. Thank you Gill Cox it will always be up on a Pattisson wall from here onwards.
Finally, it was with some trepidation that Charlie and I opened the envelopes that it transpired contained the boys school reports especially having experienced first hand this week the nightmare that is home schooling! Apparently losing your rag and suggesting in a slightly raised tone (definitely not shouting) “how do you not understand that?” is not a good technique and is clearly jolly frowned upon by both student and his mother! It appears we needn’t have worried as both boys have clearly managed to pull the wool over their respective teachers eyes. It was when we informed them how chuffed we were that the trouble began. In our house if your first ever school report, at the end of your first year, is a good one that child can choose an overnight trip and treat. The three previous winners of this family award have done such things as the Natural History Museum, Tower of London and Bristol Zoo. Stanley however decided very early on where and what he would like to do and to our horror has not waivered at all. Thankfully he seems to be taking the news very well that purely due to Covid 19, and no other reason, we are unable to take him to the Amazon river and Rainforest although his sisters Edith and Nancy have decided it is hugely amusing to explain that the world is opening up in July and to ask again then!
I hope you have that you have a good week ahead.
My very best regards and remember assuming your child will get a bad school report could be a very, very costly mistake!
Jess
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