Donna Gwinnell Lambo-Weidner

Alice Wetherby-Pimms’ teas were famous for drawing an eclectic crowd. Every Wednesday at precisely 2:55 p.m. the area before her gate would be swamped by a mob of the most unlikely bedfellows – dashing princes and their chamber pot removers, knights and their nemeses, good-humored gnomes and curmudgeonly trolls, pirates and bankers’ sons, just to name a few.

At three o’clock sharp the five-year-old would sashay from her forest bound playhouse and flip the latch, a signal to the swarm that two gold rimmed bone china cups had been filled to the brim with the Darjeeling that had been created just for her in the year of her birth.

Dressed in a sky blue smock and cloud white apron tied in a tidy bow at the back of her water melon sized waist, the barefoot child would peruse the now orderly queue snaking along the trail. In choosing who would be blessed by her company, it was not uncommon for Alice to toy with the crowd, first pointing to one, shaking her head, then settling upon another.

In moments like this, Grandpapa Pimms, Continue reading →