Ro, Dora and Rufus arrived at about 11 o’clock and Ro helped shift tables onto the lawn – LT and I had moved one, and the chairs, but two more tables were a bit heavy for little Z.  It was such a lovely day that we thought that tea could be taken outside, where the children could have more fun anyway.

Saturday was a lovely day.  Ro and I made about four dozen scones and whipped cream and put out dishes of jam.  That was almost the extent of the food preparation, apart from putting out the rather splendid cake that a friend of theirs had made, and putting out bowls of savoury snacks.  Ronan was right.  Keeping it simple is a good way to go.

Dora has three brothers, one married with three daughters, and a sister who has a daughter, and all our lot turned up too.  All was happy and cheerful.  LT was introduced to everyone and – my goodness, the lovely man finds himself keeping extremely busy.  He used to have such a calm life and now it’s – well, you know me, darlings.  And so did he, from this blog, well before he even met me.  He knew what he was in for.  I’ve gained a lot of fun from his lifestyle too, I must say, but he’s the one who finds himself working jolly hard.

I digress.  It was fun and there were two or three half scones left over, that was all, so we’d made the right amount.  Young Rufus was very pleased with his presents, if a bit bewildered at the sheer number of them.  He and his parents will be at the blog party next Saturday and it’s not out of the question that we might eat outside again, but we’ll have to see what the weather is like on the day.  We will be in the teens, numerically, so it’s quite possible, but so is fitting in the big dining room.

At this point I should add, there’s always room for more, if you would like to come, whether you’ve been before or not.  It’s just relaxed and easy, whether there’s six of us or thirty.

In the evening, we went to a concert at the Aldeburgh Festival.  It was a first at Snape for LT and the weather was perfect for us to have a stroll through the reed beds, as is traditional, beforehand.  We noted that the string quartet all used iPads rather than sheet music – they had a foot pedal to change pages.  They were really rather brilliant, especially the lead violinist and we were quite bowled over by the Britten string quartet; the final piece he wrote, shortly before he died, that was premiered posthumously in December 1976.  We will be there again on Wednesday, when we are going to the opera.  Another first – I’ve been to operas there in the past, but never seen Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.