Ladies’ tea

Today we had 3 neighbors over for afternoon tea. They are all widows, aged about 75 or so.  All of them have lived in their houses (next door and across the street from us) for 50 years.  They arrived here as young brides! Eleanor planned the tea and made the invitations.   We planned on cucumber sandwiches – Eleanor will not eat cucumbers but always wants them when we have tea.   As usual, ran out of time at the end, so we just had sweets.  We cut brownies and shortbread into little pieces, and made mini blueberry muffins, so the ladies could sample everything.

It was a nice afternoon.   The kids helped serve and sat quietly as the ladies talked about their cable tv bills, local restaurant prices (they’ve gone up!) and asked about homeschooling.  They were really fascinated with that topic and kept coming back to it… then they’d veer off again.  I knew James was bored near to death (and had had way too much tea with sugar to keep himself occupied) so finally allowed him to excuse himself to his room.  Eleanor stayed with the ladies.

One lady brought a large bag of M&Ms for each kid, to compensate for the fact that she won’t be home on halloween.   We didn’t tell her we don’t trick or treat anyway.  I have to admit she is our favorite of the three.  She winked at James a lot and tried to veer the conversation toward the kids more.  I’m sure she knew he was bored.  (She also brought the best cookies when we moved in, then brought us the secret ingredient and the recipe so we could make them ourselves.)   Another lady brought some cookies in a little Christmas tin.

They seemed to be delighted with the invitation.  All of them have families but mostly not nearby.   Their daughters work and their grandkids are so busy they don’t have much time to see them.  There was a fair bit of talk about how families don’t eat dinner together anymore.   You can imagine their opinion on that!   I’m sure they have a lot to say and like to have someone to say it too.  We need to have them over more often.