Tea and Sympathy

Quite a day at Ickworth...not only have my colleagues decided that I'm the resident computer fixer, but I'm the designer as well. Computer fixer, I can handle. Some right-clicks here, a restart there. Nothing I haven't watched John do a million times.

But designer? I'm HOPELESS! Ellice, I'm flying you over to design the Ickworth education pamphlets. It all started when I had to make a little gift certificate last week so I muddled around in Quark (a design program) for a while and put some text and color blocks on top of a picture of the house, and poof! everyone's all excited and I'm the Fairy QuarkMother.

Then we were setting up Santa's Christmas Grotto, which we thought was going to be a forlorn rocking chair in the corner of the Orangery, but Mark the Forester (yes, he's hot) had created an elaborate Narnia-esque teepee-shaped thing out of gnarled old oak branches that he found around the property. He's added an entryway, and tomorrow we're going to put some evergreen branches on it and some fairy lights. Julia has visions of fake snow...I'm not sure if that's going to add anything. and it's quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's also impossible to describe. If I can get a picture of it tomorrow, I'll post it.

On my way out of the West Wing, I slipped on the wet gravel at the bottom of the steps, turned my ankle, and took a monstrous digger. I thought I was fine, tried to get up, and my ankle gave way again. So Sarah and Mark put me on the bottom step, at which point I went completely gray and Sarah thought I was going to pass out. She radioed the rest of the house to request "First Aid at the West Wing" in a somewhat pannicky voice. Having been on the receiving end of this kind of call, and knowing how scary it is to have a non-descript first aid emergency radioed to you, I was trying to get her to describe WHAT the problem was, so they didn't call an ambulance, but she wasn't paying much attention. Within about 3 minutes, I had Sarah, Mark, Charlotte , Jenny the first aider, and two members of house staff. Quite an audience. Once the house staffers realized that I was fine, they announced that they were going to go back in the house and put the kettle on so I would have a nice reviving cup of tea to make me feel better. How tea relates to twisted ankles I have yet to establish. Silly Brits.

I'm fine now, buoyed by a vast quantity of fish and chips, a glass of wine, a hot bath, and lots of sympathy from John.