Breakfast at Tiffany's

Sheep's wool around our young cauliflowers to protect against slugs.
It doesn't work, last night we found several tiny slugs munching away.

It’s fair to say I’m not a morning person. Not that I lounge in bed till noon because I do drag myself up for the daily morning service at 7:30am, but it takes me a little while, and a cup of strong tea, to get my neurons firing on all cylinders. Not everyone is like me of course, for instance Bill* takes it upon himself not only to issue a cheery Good morning! to everyone who walks into the breakfast room but also to ask each individual how they are. My replies tend to be non-committal as I haven’t by that time acquired enough evidence to ascertain exactly how I am. 

Young River’s entrance to the dining room is usually heard before he appears as his mum or dad carries him through from the outside. You can tell what kind of mood he’s in before he even enters the room. Loud screams might indicate that his breakfast period will be foreshortened as his parents withdraw him again for the sake of the community - luckily this is not a frequent occurrence. He might be calling for “Dawdy”, his name for his best friend. But usually it’s Nummy (honey) that he’s requesting, in a new and not altogether welcome whiney tone.  Whatever noises he’s making he is the centre of attention, and sometimes rewards us with some hilarious antics such as yesterday’s use of a scrap of toast as a telephone on which he was conversing with Granny (apparently the only person who ever calls his household on the landline). 

The usual spread for breakfast is hot porridge, home-made yoghurt, a range of breakfast cereals, and toast. On Mondays there are poached eggs. Wednesdays the porridge is replaced with sausage, beans, fried potato and fried bread, and on Saturdays a full English is served. No prizes for guessing which is the best attended. 

A ritual has developed around the toasting of bread. We had been bequeathed a four slot toaster which turned out to be notable only for the incredible tardiness with which it toasts. Perhaps its manufacturer decided to focus on the quality of its toasting rather than with brevity. With twelve or fifteen hungry toast-lovers, it makes sense never to leave a slot empty, and so when putting in a couple of slices for oneself you are obliged to call out “Anyone for toast?” to which someone will call back “Yes please!” Then the call-out “What colour?” to which the response is either “Brown!” or “White!”. An optional third call is to enquire how many which elicits a reply of either “One!” or “Two!” (the default is of course two). Recent growth in the number of breakfast-takers has prompted some, myself included, to resort to toasting on the top of the Aga which does take longer but at least you don’t have to wait for a slot.

Once the toast makes its way to someone’s plate, it is interesting to observe how many variants of spreading there are even amongst the small sample of toast-eaters that live here. Some lay the butter on thicker than the jam, taking pains to ensure every square centimetre is covered. Others mix jam with peanut butter (a practice which Dante somehow overlooked when describing how people get assigned to the inner circles of hell). Even the temperature of the toast at buttering stage is important - some such as myself slap the butter on as quickly as possible to ensure it melts, while at least one person allows them to cool a little by propping the two slices together to form a tent so that the butter won’t melt once spread. 

Leaving cake for our favourite Bruderhofs

Sadly breakfasts will be quieter affairs from now on, as “Good morning!” Bill left the community yesterday to start anew in Bridport. Not only that but another guest (known here only as “Mr S”) left on Monday for Brook House, our “halfway house” in Dorchester, and our Bruderhof couple are leaving today after a year of volunteering at Pilsdon. Rather than returning to the Bruderhof community they are striking out into the world, having got themselves jobs looking after an elderly couple and their large house and gardens in the New Forest. 

The community will be the lesser for their absence. We will miss them all. 

*Not his actual name.