Sunday afternoon tea

Many Sundays were spent at Meadway too for Sunday tea. An open invitation to all family members which many accepted.

I would go to Sunday school in the morning in my best clothes (our Sunday bests) then we would walk to Meadway in the afternoon for a feast of homemade sandwiches, cold meats,sausage rolls, salads, fruit cocktails, cakes, trifles, a cheese board with every condiment and preservative imaginable (homemade) and of course pots of tea by the caddy load of every variety. 

My favourite being Earl Gray then and still is today.

After tea, grandad would always enjoy smoking his pipe with the other men of the family joining him tohave a cigar and a small tipple of his finest selection of whiskey or brandy.

The women usually cleared up before indulging in a gin and tonic or hot chocolate with a nip of brandy or whiskey. It was always just the one!

On the Sunday evening, as regular as clockwork (forgive the pun) grandad would wind all the clocks in the house by key and ensure they were chiming in synergy.

He had many clocks from tall freestanding grandfather clocks to cuckoo clocks which all chimed in unison on the hour every hour. The cuckoo clocks would open up to reveal a wooden bird who would cuckoo as many times as the hour it was before retreating back into the clock with the windows closing behind it.

He even had one that depending on the weather would open to show a figure in a rainy, windy, cold or sunny scene appropriate to the weather at that time. It was amazingly accurate!

I was baffled yet enchanted by this for years believing it to be magic (which my grandparents did not discourage me from thinking)!

When I did not have school the next day, on many occassions I would stay over at Meadway with nan and grandad helping them out with the crossword puzzle or playing cards.

Gin rummy! A card game that over the years I truly mastered! My grandparents and I played for money so what did you expect!

Well by money, I mean we each had a tin of coppers that was kept in the cupboard and was never spent or used for anything other than our card games much to my disappointment as my tin was by far the fullest after years of being hustled and learning the hard way by those two card sharks!

As for the crossword puzzles, my part was to search through the dictionary, read out word meanings and check spellings, never got promoted to filling out the boxes unless it was in pencil first!