There are a few unwritten laws that you should adhere to if you want to make your life a little easier, more beautiful. One of them is: no excursion without a stop. Other things can be argued, such as what to eat after a long hike or a demanding museum visit. For Sarah Merker from Britain, the answer was always clear: a scone. For ten years, initially with her late husband, she visited the sites of the National Trust, the British nature and heritage organisation. About every visit, about every scone, she wrote in her blog "National Trust Scones".

Anna Vollmer

Editor in the arts section.

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A few days ago the last entry appeared. Merker has now visited all 244 cafes of the National Trust and crushed an even larger number of scones. What began as a private project has taken on unexpected proportions. Merker has published a book, was a guest on television and was portrayed in the "New York Times".

Devon vs. Cornwall

The cream tea, an afternoon snack with tea, scones, jam and clotted cream, a type of cream to which she sat down on her excursions, has national cultural significance in Great Britain. And Merker has become an expert, even an authority on one of the most discussed issues in the British Kingdom: cream at the bottom, jam at the top – or vice versa? The first variant comes from Devon, where they boast of having invented cream tea. The second from Cornwall, where a larger, dogged lobby has formed (harsh online comments on photos in which a scone was first smeared with cream and then with jam are not uncommon).

Both sides have their arguments: dairy products under toppings, it is said from Devon, that is a long-proven, successful recipe, just think of the butter. A scone should be warm, they say in Cornwall, and if you apply the cream first, melt it. That's not how it should be. A few years ago, the Queen stepped in. She preferred, as apparently most, the variant from Cornwall.

Scone or Scon?

Merker is diplomatic: the main thing is that the Scone is fresh, then nothing can ruin him, she said on ITV breakfast television. She is not a hardliner when it comes to pronunciation either. Even if you have agreed on jam or cream, there is something to discuss: Is it "scone", as in "bone", or "scon", as in "gone"?

Either way: no excursion without pastries. For the final stop on her blog, Sarah Merker chose Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, the mighty 60-million-year-old formation of more than 40,000 basalt columns. She had been there with her husband before her project and could be sure not to be disappointed. Neither from the scones, with jam and cream, nor from the natural site itself. Because, she writes in her last entry, it is the only one of the National Trust that looks like it was made of scones.