ladyofastolat | No lunch

Grump! This is the second week in a row that I have to dance between 12 and 2, which takes me out the house from 11.30 to 2.30, or so. Who arranges these things? Don't they believe in lunch? Yes, we often dance outside pubs and cafés and places that serve food, but you can't eat a sit-down lunch when you've got to get up every few minutes to do a 5 minute dance, and it's a bit cheeky to take sandwiches when you're on the premises of a pub that serves food. I know that some people are lucky enough to be flexible about meal times. Pellinor (and my Mum) can forget to eat lunch, and don't even notice. However I (like my Dad) get icy cold, dizzy and utterly pathetic if lunch is delayed. I can just about wait until 1, although I might have to wrap up warm to last that long. Any later than that, and I dissolve into a heap of sobbing uselessness.

So I'm going to have to eat lunch at 11, which will of course just set up problems later, since I'll then have to eat dinner early, too. Grr!

Besides, as we discovered last week, the audiences don't really turn up until 2-ish, anyway. Last week, we danced by the exit of a huge, touristy car park in a tourist honeypot, just outside a touristy café and a touristy gift shop. Barely a soul there at 12. Three coach-loads of tourists and a few hundred cars by 2, just as we were finishing. Grump!

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TBH, I would just take sandwiches. The pub (or whatever) is presumably getting some benefit from you dancing there and I'm sure no more wants you uncomfortable and unhappy than anyone else does. If in doubt, phone ahead and ask if there will be sandwiches available to buy and, if not, if it is OK if you bring your own.

I think I'll just take sandwiches and snatch quick, furtive bites in between dances, while hidden by massed ranks of Morris dancers. I will doubtless feel guilty, being the lawful good paladin that I am*, but if I phoned ahead and they said no, then I'd be stuck. (They do sell sandwiches, but they're of the very expensive served-with-salad-and-chips variety.)

* Not that any RPG has ever forced my character to decide whether to take sandwiches to a foody pub, or refuse to do such a chaotic deed, but now I kind of wish that one would. Are you listening, GMs? :-D

I regularly buy ham sandwiches for the dogs when we are out and about. Nobody has ever refused to sell me a sandwich without accompanying salad. In fact, often I get given a discount.

... of course, it might be that the dogs cute 'I want a sandwich' faces are what's getting me the discount, and if a random person danced by asking for 'just a sandwich please' they would be greeted by outraged bristling and harumphing. Who know?

I might try that one day, but today is not that day. We're very short of numbers so I'll be dancing every dance, and although we'll be alternating with another group, most of our other dancers are of the nervous, non-confident type, so I'll need to spend the short gaps briefing them on the next dance. Just time to take a furtive bite from an illegally smuggled sandwich in my clog bag, but not enough time to queue up and order in what is a very busy touristy lunch spot.

Or maybe I just need to borrow a dog, then I could send it in with a "I need a sandwich" placard around its neck...

Assuage your conscience by buying a packet of designer crisps from them?

If you phoned ahead and they said no, you would have grounds to request that this pub not be visited by Morris Dancers in future. You could also then very publicly melt down with a clear conscience in their beer garden or car park and weep loudly that it was because they refused to feed you appropriately.

The pub might also be interested to know what they need to do to sell more food to Morris dancers.

My mother, who fancies herself gluten intolerant*, is shameless about asking pubs if she can have one of their sandwiches, only on the bread she has provided and half the size without the chips but with a potato salad instead. I'm always amazed how unfailingly helpful they are about this kind of request. So you could also go for requesting on of their expensive sandwiches but with only have the filling on a paper plate please and without the salad or chips - though you might still have to pay full whack for it.

*and almost certainly is by now.

I'd happily never visit said pub again, quite apart from any possible sandwich-related misdemeanours they may or may not be planning to commit. However, the dance side that has invited us to dance with them today virtually lives there. I don't think we've ever danced with them in any other location!

I really should learn to be more pushy (in a polite, good way) when it comes to being a customer. I do that stereotypical English "oh, I couldn't possibly complain or be an imposition" thing. A few weeks ago, I asked in an ice cream place if their chocolate chip cookie ice cream contained nuts. They made such a performance about finding out - a second staff member kept wandering up to make pointed comments about the amount of effort the first one was being put to. I ended up feeling awful... but, really, I was in the right, and they were in the wrong, and exhibiting bad customer service. But knowing that and believing that is a very different thing.

It seems to me there are a whole load of issues here which might be solved in a number of ways (long term) - e.g., requesting the inviting side to make sure that there are sandwiches available (I'm sure the pub would be happy to create some just for the Morris team for a reasonable sum of money to which you could all contribute). I mean I'm assuming the pub would make more money, not just from you, but also from Pellinor et al, if you could all easily and quickly access some food while you danced and I bet they'd be fairly willing to bring out a big plate of sandwiches for you all at 12.30 or something if properly warned in advance and remunerated.

For today though, it does sound surreptitious home sandwiches are the way to go.

I assume you will not be returning to said ice cream place...

When a dance side is hosting a weekend, with lots of visiting sides, they do tend to arrange for a buffet lunch to be laid on, but it doesn't seem to happen when it's only local sides. As it turns out, there were 6 groups there, so I would have had plenty of time to order - though then I'd have worried about being up and dancing when they came out with my order and were shouting my number (Pellinor was at Springfest, so wouldn't have been there to claim it.) Oh well... I took surreptitious sandwiches, and nobody complained.

I definitely won't be returning to said ice cream place, especially since they were very over priced. A week later, in a different place, we paid less for an amazingly generous double scoop, than this place had charged us for a small single scoop.

I suppose dancing between bites of sandwich may cause indigestion?

But otherwise, yes, this. And what sort of pub can't rustle up a quick sandwich on request, even if they don't have them on the menu?

When I started working in St Albans, I was stopping in a B&B on my own. First evening there, I was feeling glum and lonely, and went to the nearest pub. I ordered a ham and cheese toastie, and was impressed when the barmaid got down a bread knife and cut the bread, and even more impressed when she got down a carving knife and cut the ham.

Not fun! They really need to rethink the dancing times - especially if you're leaving just as the tourists arrive!

Hope it went well.

I guess it varies from place to place. Today's place is a popular tourist lunch venue, so it was busier at 12 than at 2. I guess last week's place is the post-lunchtime stop for all the coach tours, since the coaches only started appearing in force in the middle of the afternoon.

I can't go without food either.

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