Picnic time at the opera

At last it's summer ! At last picnics at country house operas will be fun - warmth, sunshine, glorious gardens.  It's Regatta week and Wimbledon, too. This year I treated myself to new picnic plates at the shop at Garsington Opera Wormsley and of course used them at Glyndebourne, too. These one are proper enamel, not plastic, designed by Emma Bridgewater. They're sturdy, but surprisingly easy to carry. They "feel" like real plates but should last ages. And only £6 each, about the same price as decent melamine. At Glyndebourne, there's a £500 golf caddy which must be nice to push on grass, but the plates and glasses inside are very basic clear plastic. But it's a great talking point !

I don't do clear plastic except for glasses. Waitrose does an excellent  range, wineglasses of different sizes, champagne flutes, hi ball glasses usw. which feel classy and look like the real thing. Coloured plastic is not my scene even as post modern irony, though I have a wonderful 50's glass tumbler that screams "Gold Coast, Queensland". It's so kitsch it's a treasure. After years of feeding small children, I don't do fussy food. But I do like "civilized" picnic ware that's not pretentious. With nice, light plates and glasses, you can use real cutlery without having to lug a bivouac. There's no substitute for real cutlery! Though you could do all-sushi with decent chopsticks.