Well, it has finally come to this. The current situation with coronavirus has driven us to actually make our own scones. Who would have thought? With nowhere to go and buy them, we were faced with little choice. Although they will continue this might provide welcome relief from the reposts of late. When every day is much the same this post is also intended to remind you that it’s Friday. Friday is followed by the weekend.  The way things are, you could easily miss a whole weekend! Don’t want that, so relax, enjoy!

It’s not that we’re bored or anything! Okay, yes we are a little bit bored. It would be great to be out there riding the highway mercilessly hunting down scones like days of yore, but that’s not going to happen. Not for a while yet. When I saw Pat leafing through the pages of The Secret Life of Scones by Suzy Bowler I thought – oh, oh, something’s going down! I left her to it. I just eat and write about scones which I suspect is a heck of a lot easier than making them. Anyway, Café 54 is quite a nice establishment with a lovely dining room and a pretty living room that would be perfect for afternoon tea.

Tickles

I fully expected to be summoned and ushered into one of these rooms where there would be a glass of champagne waiting to tickle my tastebuds.

By the way, how many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? 10 tickles! Sorry!

Instead, I was taken straight to the kitchen. There was only one table and we had the whole place to ourselves. At this rate, Café 54 is not going to last very long.

Turned out Pat had followed one of the Genius recipes from the book but had added lots of fruit and almonds. They were fruit and nut scones! No comments, please! By now you know we like our scones crunchy on the outside and nice and soft in the middle.

Double crunch

Well, these were crunchy on the outside but the almonds gave them a lovely crunch on the inside as well … unusual but fab! Pat assured me they were topscones and I couldn’t but agree. The gooseberry jelly and cream finished them off perfectly. There was nothing really to complain about at Café 54 … the welcome had been great and the service was perfectly adequate. We might try it again sometime.

This is the recipe:

Can’t provide any contact details because if you decide to visit Café 54, you would be made most welcome but your chances of getting a scone would be pretty slim. We’ve eaten them all!

SHED OF THE DAY

Since the sheds seem to be proving popular we have decided to give you this one. It’s not an island shed, these are reserved for island scones.

ps: GOOD NEWS: Ospreys are seemingly unaffected by the lockdown and have just arrived back in Scotland from Gambia. Well done them!

BREAKING NEWS: The £10. 36 that I’ve had in my pocket for the past four weeks has mysteriously been reduced to £5.36. A fiver has been snaffled! I have my suspicions!