……has it’s up’s a downs and we are still very much strangers in a strange land. The class structure here never fails to astound us and we are constantly faced with this in many subtle ways.
We have had three luncheon parties this week and we have been reminded of what servants are about – they serve!!! Now food and presentation is very important to me, so I unwittingly suggested that, with the intention of bringing ‘hot, visually interesting’ food to the guests, that I plate each course in the kitchen and then bring them to the table. (As happens in restaurant?) I was told…. “NO! NO! NO!….that won’t do at all! What an insult to our guests!!! – they MUST be served at the table!” Standing at somebody’s elbow, like Mr & Mrs Jeeves, waiting for a gap in the conversation to plop food on someone’s plate is not our idea of fun……but it does have it’s upside – we hear the most interestingly ‘classified’ snippets of conversation. It’s astonishing being so invisible. However, that is the small price we pay to live alongside the aristocracy in Britain, in park like surroundings, with the use of a tennis court, a swimming pool, a games room and to drive the BMW (which we are probably about on a par with to our employer)…… We are very useful, a nice symbol of wealth, but unlike the BMW we take time off and are reluctant to be at our employer’s beck and call 24/7 as much as he would like us to be ……we figure 12 hours a day – 5 days a week is a good deal for him. He begs to differ – “What!!!” he says, when it comes to the end of our working week “Off again – damn! More deprivation!!!” That’s a compliment!!!!!…….. With that in mind off to Amsterdam in two days ……………miss you all heaps and wish you were here xxxxxx
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