Diamond Jubilee Tea Party!

This weekend people have been celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee all over England!

There have been massive celebrations and events over the last four days and we were given an extra bank holiday today, in addition to the normal June holiday yesterday.

I love the Queen and admire her very much and I have loved seeing the way communities have come together to celebrate our nations’ Queen 60th year of reigning as our monarch!

There have been concerts, parades, street parties, picnics, village lunches, commemorative services and gun salutes galore!

For my celebrations, I chose a wonderfully English Tea Party!

When organising things like this, I tend to leap in with a ‘all or nothing’ attitude. I get obsessed with the details, think about little tweaks and improvements even when I’m meant to be concentrating on something else, research the shops and web every couple of days, plan, plan and re-plan.

I started thinking about the tea party in March. The invitations were in the post by the middle of April.

Sadly, this didn’t stop me from becoming overcome by life and convincing myself I had two weeks preparation left … when I actually had just one … 😛

However, with the help of the wonderful man who is my husband, and the un-ending assistance of my dear friend K, who was staying that weekend, we made it to this point:

I went for a high tea theme of savouries as well as cakes.

I just had to have the traditional cucumber sandwiches and threw in a childhood favourite of Marmite and cress – yum! I was rather pleased with the mini quiches, which is something I’ve wanted to have a go at for a long time.

This wonderful cake stand – complete with coloured dots! – was a wedding present from my friend A and her husband. Doesn’t it look splendid all loaded up with sweet treats?! I was quite pleases with the sponge fancies I made – I decorated them with card-making decorations! 😉

A made this scrummy chocolate cupcakes, which embraced the English Jubilee theme hook, line and sinker! Aren’t the decorations so cool?! I had a Big Ben!! 😀

One of my closest friends, R, baked scones and brought the essential clotted cream and jam to go with them. They were absolutely scrummy and the party would not have been complete without them!

I loved planning and setting up the details of napkins, tea cups and saucers, napkins, flowers, little decorations …

I snagged a beautiful vintage-style table-cloth from Ebay for a bargain price and dissected a wedding candle wreath to add some rose-like elegance to the setting.

All three of my sisters came, so plus my friends K, R, a and myself, we were a comfortable seven round our games-chest-come-coffee-table.

My final little thing was a favour bag, containing each girl’s favourite kind of chocolate – or as near to that as I could come! 😀

I’m so glad I threw my Jubilee Tea Party and hope that everyone who came had lots of fun!!

What did you English readers do to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee?!!

And you are …?!

Over the summer I got accepted as a member of my local Youth Offending Team Panel – a long-cherished ambition of mine – and today I my second day of training … yes, that’s right, I am talking about Saturday and no, you didn’t hear me wrong when I said “day” – we’re talking 9am – 4pm here! 😉

For someone like me, who always gets thoroughly excited about young people, youth crime and helping make their lives better, this is a wonderful – though awe-inspiring! – experience!

As well as being filled up and over-stuffed with loads of information, it is also providing about 26 or so opportunities for meeting someone new!! 😛 Lot’s of new names to try to remember and lot’s of new faces to associate with the right name … lot’s of introductions and the usual set of “I’ve-never-met-you-before-how-should-I-be-relating-to-you” questions … you know, “What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do? What degree did you do? Are you married? Do you have kids? Why are you here?”

Some questions are more comfortable to answer than others and all of them are only brushing a surface picture of the outside of each of us … but that’s how it goes – this is the way we humans normally start down the road of getting to know each other.

This, along with some very welcome comments from some of my blog readers that I have never met before, has set me thinking …

Who are you?!? 🙂

If you think about it, it’s kind of a little unbalanced, right? Each and every one of you know quite a bit about me now … but I know hardly anything about you!! No-fair, ok?! 😉 There are some exceptions – some of you I know in my every day life and some I know through your own blogs – but I am getting more and more confirmation that I have mystery readers that I know nothing about!! Ooooooh mysterious!! 😀

On principle, as long as I am making you smile and, for whatever reason, you enjoy reading my blog, that’s me content! Please keep on reading, laughing and hopefully taking something positive away with you!!

I’m also thinking of running my first-ever little mini-series!!! Just incase you can’t tell, I’m super excited about this!! 😉

Let me introduce … big fan-fair please! …

From My Front Room.

You’ve all been welcomed in over my front step, so now I would love it if some of you would like to come and take a seat on my comfy red sofa, get hold of a steaming mug of tea, munch on a piece of my warm Apple and Cinnamon Cake and share a little about yourselves …!!

I will start, by sharing the answer to some questions about myself … then it will be your turn! 🙂

If you’d like to come and sit on my sofa one cosy afternoon, just email me with your name, blog home if you have one and the reason why you read my blog: alldotty at  gmail dot com

I’m excited about meeting you soon!! 🙂

Congratulations!!!

To ourselves … !! 😉

On the first whole day of our holiday, Sunday 11th September, L and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary!! 😀 In the evening we popped open one of the un-opened bottles of champagne from the toast at our wedding reception, 365 days earlier …

Since before we were engaged we started having a bottle of champagne every time we had something to celebrate … ok, so maybe true wine connoisseurs would turn pale at what we use as champagne, but hey, the point is in the celebrating and making life special, marking achievements, not whether the bottle of bubbly cost £28.99 or £4.40, right?! Or maybe it’s just my hubby and I’s lack of understanding when it comes to the finer points of truly excellent champagne! 😛 The bottles from our wedding were the really “nice” kind, so it was a good treat! 🙂

I have kept the corks from each bottle of champagne L and I have shared together and one of the corks from our wedding, and the one from our anniversary, have the date written on them … you may call me a soppy romantic if you like!! 😉 However you view this tradition of mine, it is amazing the difference it can make to my outlook on life when, on a day when all I can see are the failures, trials and troubles of life, I see the over-flowing little draw of champagne corks, reminding me of how many things there have been to celebrate and how many things we have achieved.

On the Sunday afternoon we went to Fowey, a Cornish town built on a steep transition from hill-top countryside to estuary waterfront … we parked at the very top of the hill and took a 15 minute walk steeply downhill to reach the harbour seafront – phew! That was fine … it was just the walk back up to the car which was slightly more worrying … !! 😉

Fowey is my Grandparent’s favourite Cornish town, but sadly we weren’t able to have drinks in the bar of their favourite hotel, with views over the boats in the harbour, which was especially recommended to me by my Grandad … we did, however, have cups of tea and a piece of yummy lemon drizzle cake in a cute little cafe where the tea-pots were all different colours and patterns, they had sand picture-makers on the tables, mis-matching pictures on the walls and – get this! – dotty table cloths on the tables!! 😛

Neither of us think that the self-portraits I take of us are very flattering … we both think we turn out with enormous heads!! 😛 But somehow we both look slightly unnatural and very embarrassed in the picture where some very kind and friendly locals took a photo of us … ah well, at least, in some day in the distant future, our grandkids will be able to laugh at these photos and wonder how Granny and Grandpa could ever have looked so stupid … 😉

This first year has been one of the hardest and one of the happiest years we have experienced … here’s to our 2nd year of marriage – may it be filled with God, love, joy, peace and growth!

What did you do/plan to do on your 1st wedding anniversary?!

Afternoon Tea with Lady Fortescue

There's nothing quite like a good cup of tea! Mmm

Growing up, my sisters and I used to play all kinds of imaginary games. The tree in the garden became Robin Hood and his Merry Men’s secret hideaway (or if we were feeling particularly protective of our status as girls, it was Maid Marian and her Merry Women!); the old window-seat in the lounge was sometimes a pirate ship, sometimes a hospital; the amazing dens our Mum helped us make out of the dining-room table, (aka: junk-room – we never ate a meal in there the whole time we lived in that house!) washing racks, massive old bedspreads, chairs, bookcases and lots of clothes pegs, were used for a barge which helped smuggle King Charles II out of England during the Reformation, The Little Princess’ attic bedroom, a shop, sometimes a restaurant, a cave in Swiss Family Robinson, Uncle Jim’s houseboat in Swallows & Amazons and often a treehouse!

I had many favourite toys growing up (one was a little square catalogue from a hardware store, useful in so many games!) but I think the one which was the most consistent favourite with my sisters and I throughout the years, was the dressing-up box! Yup, a huge cardboard box (and I mean huge – it was often used as a boat by J and I when we were 5&3!) filled with all kinds of old clothes. I believe it started with two skirts that my Mum had worn as a teenager, but which on a 3-year-old was a beautiful swirly dress, all the way to the floor. unique find from charity shops, sewing failures and unwanted pass-ons from family and friends all made their way into the dressing-up box … sometimes by accident!! I remember numerous occasions when a lost item of everyday clothing was found buried amongst odd hats and silk skirts with holes in them!

 

Me at about 4, looking very pleased with myself in my favourite "dress" and hat! The red check shirt was NOT dressing-up - you have to love the 80's! 😛

The games we played with the dressing-up box are far too numerous to list – or even to remember every one! Jane Austen was a staple favourite as we grew older and for quite a number of years we had a passion for The Importance of Being Earnest. This led to tea-parties … Victorian ladies … and the creation of Lady Fortescue!

Lady Fortescue was a lady of high-society, living in a massive Victorian country estate and a luxurious town-house. In one of these two residences, she would throw tea-parties and garden-parties, and even the occasional ball, to entertain her friends. This is where my memory fails me – there was definitely a Lady Glastonbury, I’m pretty sure a Lady Mansfield (maybe?) and although I can see my sister N sitting there, waving one hand as she talked about her husband suffering from gout, while clutching a cup of tea with the other hand, which was encased in a glove which was far too big for her, I cannot remember her Lady’s name!! Oh, Big-something … 😛

This game was taken everywhere, all the way over to America and back and was played regardless of surrounding or the lack of props – all we needed was our four imaginations and some random story, and we would sit talking for hours on long car-journeys, or waiting in boarding-lounges.

Eventually of course, we grew out of playing this and Lady Fortescue was resigned to the box under my bed, along with the blue gloves she wore to drink tea.

We have never grown out of our fondness for tea-parties though! Now, instead of playing pretend Ladys, we catch up about our real lives. Instead of dressing up in hilarious combinations of clothes, we wear pretty skirts – just an excuse to have fun! 😉 And instead of drinking water out of mugs, and pretending it’s tea in fancy cups and saucers, we drink real tea out of real cups and saucers, dug out from under my bed just for special occasions like these!!

And yesterday, in honour of National Sibling Day (hey, any excuse to drink tea, dress up and have fun is a good one, right?! 😉 ), I hosted a tea-party for my sisters.

 

"You are invited to a Strawberry and Cream Tea ..."

I loved preparing these napkins!

There were place-setting and a little gift for each of my sisters ...

... a little wall-hanging for J, to match her room ...

... a funny quote about hats for N, who is devoted to wearing hats! ...

... and a little heart-hanging for T, who adores little things! 🙂

L took a photo of us before hiding away, out of harms reach, from girly chatter! 😉

This was the first time I got to use this amazing cake-stand, a surprise wedding present from the lovely A!

Shortbread, to go with the strawberries, yum! 😛

Don't these look good enough to eat?! Well, that's exactly what we did! 😀 Lovely and juicy!! 😛

Setting up the table made me realise exactly how much of what lives in my kitchen cupboards is dotty ...

I was so pleased to find these cups and saucers a year ago, which I knew my sisters would love!

You have to have jam and cream on your scone!!

I had a go at cutting some of the scones out with a heart-shaped cutter - fun!

I could easily eat another one of these right now!!

Yummy scrummy!!! 😛

Meet Keith (L's big rainbow striped teapot) and Marilyn (my small dotty teapot)! They came from our respective houses and now share a shelf in our kitchen - very much at home with each other!! 😉

Shortbread, cream and strawberries - this picture-perfect combination just has to be experienced!

T drinking ... um ... tea!! 😀

My sisters brought me this lovely big bunch of daffodils, which looked so beautiful in the evening sunlight!

Ahh, April!

This was so much fun to plan, create and share with my sisters, who will always be my favourite tea-party companions!! 🙂

What did you and your siblings like playing when you were growing up?

Do you put cream on your scone first, then jam? Or jam first, topped with cream?

For me, I’m a cream-then-jam girl all the way!! Why would you put the jam on first anyway?!? 😛