Brits don't do lemonade

Jack and Henry, his buddy from down the street, are very much into Legos. So much so that they decided to start a Lego Club. One Saturday, we hosted the first Lego Club get together. There are three rules to the Lego Club. 1 - No grownups. 2 - No babies. 3 - no dogs. Lots of legos contraptions were built, destroyed and built again. A good time was had by all.

But a few days later, Henry and Jack decided they needed to raise some money for the Lego Club. They needed to sell some lemonade. Plus, Henry had seen someone playing a guitar on the street and people just threw him money. So not only was there going to be lemonade, but Henry was going to play the guitar and Jack would sing! Brilliant! Plans were made, lemonade was bought and Jack practiced.

The fateful day was upon us. We took the lemonade, cups, change cup, tables and chalk up to the corner of Abbey Road. We set up shop just across the street from Abbey Road studios to catch some of the tourist traffic. Well - it turns out the whole "Lemonade Stand" is a foreign concept over here. The first person that came by the stand look at us in horror and ran away with his son saying "No Anglais, No Anglais!" He truly was afraid. Granted Henry and Jack were screaming at them at the top of their lungs...."LEMONADE - 20p!!! LEMONADE - 20p!!!" If I didn't understand English, I'd probably run too. Then a British friend of Henry's mum stopped by and asked what we were doing. Here is the basic transcript of the conversation:

British Mum: "Hello."
Henry's Mum: "Hello - would you like some lemonade?"
British Mum: "Why are you selling lemonade?"
Henry's Mum: "They are selling lemonade to raise money."
British Mum: "Why do they need money?"
Henry's Mum: "So they can buy some Legos."
British Mum: (In a very serious tone/look and directed towards us parents) "Do you need some help with money?"

Needless to say - I think most of the locals thought we were this hybrid American -Gypsy gang using our kids to peddle cheap lemonade. But the kids were none the wiser and they had quite a fun time planning and working their lemonade stand. We were able to sell a few cups of lemonade - 3 to be precise - before the rains came and we had to close up shop. Here is a video of Jack singing "When I'm 64" after a sale.

All our best!

- John