Scones are lovely, aren’t they? They conjure up images of Grandma’s house and cream teas in the Peak District. There’s a bakery not far from where I lived as a child that makes wonderful fresh scones. The smell of the bread baking on a bright morning is irresistible.
I remember when I was still quite small. My Grandmother and sister and I would never pass the bakery without going in and buying pastries. Every week we would get a different treat. I love sweet pastries. Croissants, cream horns and elephant’s feet. Most years we’d buy our birthday cakes there too, Grandpa ceremoniously collecting them at lunchtime and adding party candles.
This one occasion I recall, we had come to buy pastries and we were standing outside the bakery looking in at the window display of cakes and buns. It was a lovely warm summer’s day. There was a plate full of delicious fat golden scones. My sister and I were hanging our noses over them lustily.
Grandma squinted at the scones thoughtfully. “Just a minute,” she said to us both. “I have to go inside. Wait here.”
Of course, being particularly greedy and disobedient children, we followed her into the bakery.
“I was just wondering about the scones,” Grandma began. “Are those real raisins you put in them?”
“Yes,” answered the shop assistant with the kind of patient smile one reserves for the very elderly.
“Are you absolutely certain those are real raisins you use?” My Grandma asked again.
“Of course they are,” the shop assistant replied tolerantly. No doubt she thought Grandma was a bit dotty.
“Then, if you don’t mind me asking,” my Grandmother said with the kind of patience one reserves for the young, “Why does one of the raisins have wings?”
After Grandma told Mummy about the glazed bluebottle she’d seen baked into the scone, we got our birthday cakes from somewhere else.
