Chocolate Viennese and Cornish Fairings. These are what I shall be taking to work this week, since it is the tradition in the place where I work to take biscuits when there is the slightest excuse, and if they are home made, so much the better.
For the past year I have been working a few hours a week in the sub-post office which is in the back of the bookshop/stationers/pharmacy where I had spent the last eight years plying my trade. The Post Office is being closed, despite it being a thriving , profitable and throughly convenient establishment, and in the face of loud and insistent complaints from the locals. Don't talk to me about "consultation" : that is just a euphemism for "We spit on you."
The little town is split into two halves by the railway, and a pretty steep hill. There is another Post Office in the other half of town, and that is the one beside the sorting office, and in a bigger building, so if they were determined that we should only have one, that was always going to be the one that they kept. Never mind the fact that a lot of the old people will find it difficult to get to, and that there are so many shops close to us, plus the Library and Health Centre just around the corner, on the flat.
The Post Office in general is supposed to be losing a lot of money - well in our town, both offices are making money for them, so where is the sense in closing a profitable concern? As things stood, we were effectively subsidising some of the rural ones which can never turn a profit, but are needed, nonetheless.
So I am going to be completely retired, along with a clutch of friends and workmates, and that is why the biscuits. I somehow think they are going to taste of sand and ashes.
2 comments:
At some point, I must get the recipe for fairings from you. The pasties were a success, even though I can't find skirt...
your blog makes me want to go to england right now. not for the closing down of post offices but because i get sentimental when seeing the flowers the knitting the biscuits.
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