Teaching Frances to eat scones

Frances parked the stroller inside the front parlor of our Elizabethan teashop, then we slowly edged my parents and Kate over to a table. Frances and I had tea, Kate had formula. Lew and Jesse had coffee and toast and cheese and Dundee cake, a rich fruit concoction strewn with slivered almonds. As the name implies, this sweet cake originated in Scotland and, with luck, is impregnated with that golden highland beverage. Frances ordered scones, which arrived with strawberry jam and a pot of thick, bright yellow, velvety clotted cream.
“No, no, darling, you don’t put butter on ‘em!” Lew snickered, but in good humor.
“What do you mean? How’re you supposed to eat them?”
I cut a scone in two for her, applied a layer of jam to one half and topped it off with a dollop of clotted cream.
“There you go! No butter!” I said. “Bon appetit!”
We all watched with approving smiles as Frances started to eat and enjoy her first perfectly layered scone.
“Oh, it’s so good – taste?” She did not have to ask twice.

Afternoon walk

“Been up to the church, have you?” A familiar voice jarred my musings as I walked back through the quiet village of Rattlesden. Again, it was Dave, only this time he was weeding a garden beside the pub. I stopped for a moment and watched him turn over the garden.
“So Dave, the food in the pub, you didn’t actually say before—”
“Well,” said Dave with a smile spread with irony. “He calls himself a chef, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just a cook. But the food is not too bad.”
Well, it hadn’t been too bad at all. In fact, the Sunday cold plate had passed all expectations. Not that expectations for food in pubs ever ran that high with me. But the fact was, our “local” was very local, just a two-minute walk away. And the menu was surprisingly adventurous. So it seemed churlish not to try the place for a hot dinner. I ambled back to our little nest. I found Lew, recalled to life and back in the kitchen, making tea.