Christmas At Thrush Green by Miss Read Read Free Book Online Page B

tea - leaf tea always, never a bag! - and was pleased that some of her regular customers appeared to enjoy choosing a different variety each time they came in. And at the end of that year, The Fuchsia Bush had been awarded a Certificate of Excellence, one of just thirty or so awards the Guild told Nelly they handed out each year. Nelly was thrilled to bits, and rewarded her hard-working staff with a few extra pounds in their Christmas pay packet. She bought a pretty photograph frame to put the handsome certificate into, and it now hung close to the till in the tea-room. She wasn’t sure how many of her customers noticed it, but it made her and the staff feel good.
    She hoped that this big envelope contained a Certificate of Excellence for the coming year. Once more, there hadn’t been a customer who had been definitely identified as a Guild inspector, although Gloria thought that one particular woman was a possibility.
    Telling Nelly about it at the end of the day, she said, ‘She were sitting at table 2 in the window, and writing in a little notebook, and kept looking round her. I had just taken a tray to table 1, and instead of coming back to the counter, I turned to her table very quick, hoping to catch sight of what she were writing.’
    ‘And did you?’ asked Nelly.
    ‘Yeah, but it were just a shopping list. I could see the name of the supermarket at the top.’
    ‘I’m told it’s likely to be more than one person when the inspector comes,’ said Nelly. ‘A couple isn’t so obvious.’
    When her tray of twenty steak and ale pies were all topped, and waiting to go into the oven in batches a little later, Nelly washed her hands and then turned to the small pile of cards that Poppy had left on the edge of the work table - with the bigger envelope on the top. She wiped her hands down her apron before picking it up.
    She slit the envelope with one of the kitchen knives and carefully extracted the contents. Yes, hooray! There was the Certificate of Excellence with next year’s date glittering in gold in the middle. There was also a letter, which Nelly now read:
    Dear Mrs Piggott,
    We are delighted to enclose the Certificate of Excellence for the forthcoming year, and would like to congratulate The Fuchsia Bush on another good performance. Our inspector commented especially on the wide range of teas that you provide, but also asked me to mention that he was totally bowled over by your coffee cake.
    I am also very pleased to tell you that the Guild has decided to award The Fuchsia Bush first place in the regional awards, in your case the Cotswolds area.
    Nelly gasped with delight, and sat down heavily on the kitchen chair. First place in the regional awards! Oh lordy-pips - this was totally unexpected. In fact, she wasn’t even sure she knew anything about regional awards. She read on. The Guild explained that the regional awards were made following a second inspection, incognito of course, to a select number of tea-shops that had most pleased the inspectors after the first round. Both the inspectors, the letter continued, had been fulsome in their praise for The Fuchsia Bush which would now receive the Guild’s Gold Award for the Cotswolds.
    The final paragraph said that the president of the Guild would come in person to present the award, and they hoped four o’clock on Thursday 18th would be convenient. The award, Nelly read, was sponsored by Cotswold Highlights - a local glossy magazine - which would arrange for the local media to be present.
    ‘Oh crikey!’ Nelly exclaimed. ‘What on earth shall I wear?’
    Nelly’s heart beat even faster, and she fanned herself with the letter. She would have to take some time off to go shopping. But now, she thought, pulling herself together, she must get on with the lunches.
     
    That afternoon, Ella Bembridge - spinster of this parish, and in her late sixties - had arranged to visit her friend Dotty Harmer. The sun that had occasionally struggled out during the