La premiere ouverture

A nervous night. can we do this? have we made the right decision? But we wake to a beautiful sunny day, forecast says it will be 29-30c, emphasising one of the other reasons we came to France.
Official opening is at 12 with the mayor but we put our sign out and dress the terrace early. just on ten a van pulls up, a delivery?, no just an elderly French gent wanting his first beer of the day. ( assumption here, it may not have been his first)
The opening goes well, 40 people here for a free drink and free canapes, so it would. The mayor speak about the up and coming village, what they have achieved, what they will achieve and why this means that "commerceants" like ourselves want to come here.
This took me back, we take the risks, we pay the money, we put in the hours of sweat and toil and a person in higher authority takes the credit.
J said a few words and people clapped so it was either very good or they felt sorry for her (not true, i know it was very good)
By 1pm they were all gone, 200 euro of drink and food gone,nothing in the till and nobody in the bar. We sat outside wondering.
But our wondering was short lived, a party of five turned up a velo, for lunch. This put my "cooking" to its first test, five orders, 3 different items, plus chips, me who hardly knows how to use a microwave yet alone a cooker.
The afternoon progressed slowly but surely, a beer here, a wine there, a couple of ices, the odd coke. Arsenal on the tele, all was well.
And then came the evening!!.
all of a sudden we didnt have enough chairs on the terrace. ( we have 24) and Laurie was moving tables and chairs from inside, outside. A table of seven ordered meals, an even bigger test. They wanted proper meals, duck, steak, brochettes not snacks. I thought we had only written them on the menu for authenticity, I didnt realise people would order. And, they all ordered different dishes. Dont they know that I have practised that!. Hasnt J told them we have only practised on all having the same dish.

AAAHHHHH!

An English couple we have met out here, helped us out, clearing tables, cutting bread etc and we made it through. The beer keg ran out mid evening and we thought the machinery had gone wrong, we just didnt believe we had sold the 30 litres so quickly.

We officially closed at 10pm but a table of 9 French people were still eating at 11 and J was still serving drinks. We eventually ate ourselves at 11.30, on the terrace outside our bar.
And at 1am we called a halt to a very busy and fulfilling first day. We started taking money rather than spending it and we open again at 10 am this morning.

We hope our customers enjoyed their time at Bar des Tilleuls, I am sure we are going to.