Tea the Twenty-Eighth

Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 

'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 

'so I can't take more.'

Lewis Carroll

Bettys, Stonegate, York - Tuesday 17th December 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Olivia Ryan

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Christmas here has been one of the best things about having our own home in York. After the end of what is always a long and busy term it is not only wonderful to escape but also to return to this beautiful city and do all the things we 'always do'.  Olivia and I took this opportunity to combine a shopping trip into town with a lovely tea a deux.

For this tea we returned to the medieval Stonegate, one of York's oldest streets, this time to visit the smaller of York's two Bettys. 

The shop front is always inviting with the typically attractive displays of confectionery and patisserie. Through the shop and up the winding staircase you reach the tea rooms with their pleasingly idiosyncratic sloping floors and ceilings, typical of these old buildings. I think I am right in saying that this was originally the Taylors of Harrogate cafe, and, as the companies are now merged, the more famous cafe name won out.

Nice to see the craftsmanship of the Thompson workshop featuring again - the wooden light fittings, amongst other features, bear the tell-tale mice, last seen at Tea the Seventh.

The Bettys menu was, as ever, a joy and Olivia started with a bacon muffin whilst I revisited the pikelets - a winter tea definitely requires a toasted opener. We were not disappointed, and thought the sprig of parsley garnish on the muffin would have made the tea also appealing to the guinea pigs, had they been refined enough to join us.

Olivia was not attracted by the cakes on offer so while I indulged in a very fine chocolate and passionfruit bombe, she enjoyed chocolate mice brought up from the shop below.  I was allowed to sample the 'hindquarters' of one mouse, and can confirm that Bettys' chocolate is as fine as ever.

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Olivia Magdalen Ryan has been simply the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened to me, as any parent would understand, and the last ten of my forty years have been fabulous because of her. She is kind and funny and thoughtful, and surprises and delights me all the time, and I am unutterably biased in a most joyful way. Obviously there had to be a special tea with her, and her company for this in one of our favourite places at a favourite time of year was a lovely start to the festive season.

We talked about Christmas plans and presents (and no, we still haven't finished buying presents, and no we have no idea what we are going to buy for some people) 

Watching 'Box of Delights' this evening, pantomime tomorrow, planning baking, looking forward to Midnight Mass and gatherings of family and friends - we had a fine afternoon of anticipation together.

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Twenty-Eighth Tea - Twenty-Eighth Year

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Tea the Twenty-Seventh

Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, 

being offered to persons that have already dined well, 

it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, 

and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment.

Jean Brillat-Savarin -The Physiology of Taste

The Eastbury Hotel,  Long Street, Sherborne, Dorset - Saturday 14th December 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Roger An Grows

Jo Ellis

Paul Ellis

Rachel Greaves

Rosie Monaghan

Amelia Monaghan

Verity Monaghan

Maggie Nightingale

John Willetts

Lu Worrall

Sophie Worrall

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Another long anticipated tea, in a special place with a group of very important people.

Reaching the Dorset sign on the road from Wincanton to Sherborne is always a powerful symbol of coming home and so it was with enormous joy that we made the pilgrimage west to take tea in a place that will always mean home for us in some way.

Randomly applying for teaching jobs, as a postgraduate student who needed to pay off a loan, I ended up with my first post in Somerset. To be honest, before planning the drive to my interview, I wouldn't have been able to locate Somerset on a map (it's just one of those counties in 'the south', after all). I was phenomenally lucky - a fantastic early experience of teaching in a wonderful place, has led in the longer term to a range of surprising opportunities and more immediately to years living in a very lovely area. Paul, a year after my appointment at King's Bruton, then got his job at Sherborne School and our life in the South West was properly established. Sherborne was a first home after we were married and then the place to which we brought home our tiny person (born just across the border with Somerset, in Yeovil). Sherborne and its environs is the place where we became grown-ups, the place where we became a family, and to which we have indelible links of friendship and experience. The requirement for a tea here was then imperative.

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An 18th Century town house, converted into an hotel in the early 1900s, The Eastbury is the town's most elegant and renowned hostelry. It seemed very much the place to go and was certainly a very attractive and harmonious setting for tea the twenty-seventh. As we were a relatively sizable party were given the library to ourselves. An agreeable and well-appointed room with its green striped walls and heavy red velvet curtains, adding and appropriately festive air, it was certainly a charming location, although it was a little surreal that the only time that Paul and I had been in there before (independently of each other, I might add) it had been for school planning away days, and so held interesting memories of discussions of maths and strategic development for us, respectively.

There is much to commend about the tea - the scones were excellent, and both they and the sandwiches were generous and fresh.  Tea and coffee was readily supplied and replenished by our designated waitress who hovered discreetly by the door, to ensure that we were continuously provided with the necessary comestibles.  Rather disappointingly, though, the 'full afternoon tea' did not include cakes, and the general presentation, whilst adequate, rather lacked the finesse I would have expected of the establishment.  All in all though the quality of what was provided, in the very pleasant surroundings, was good and the joy of the company we were in ensured that it was a really fabulous occasion.

Lu passes the sandwiches

Maggie dispenses, or possible receives, tea - either way, she seems quite happy about it, which is more that you can say for John and Roger...

The younger ladies enjoyed a table to themselves.

Always nice to have tea in a library too, although some of the literature on the shelves was not at all to Mr Ryan's taste...

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The company at tea were a mixture of former colleagues, co-parishioners and fellow choir members (and their entourages) - with interesting intersections that could have inspired the first tea constituency Venn diagram of the odyssey, had I felt so inclined.  They are all friends who are very important to us, despite the inconvenience of our living in Sussex and Yorkshire meaning that we now see them only on rare occasions. Jo very pleasingly said that when we are in Sherborne, it seems as if we are still there all the time - it is lovely to be able to slip back into friendships like these and to reaffirm how much they matter.

A significant number of those at tea are or were members of Sherborne Chamber Choir, and the importance of that particular institution in our lives cannot be underestimated; music, friends and fabulous experiences (the 1999 photo below was taken on the SCC tour to Paris - happy days...). We still miss it horribly... Nothing is likely to compare.

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Twenty-Seventh Tea - Twenty-Seventh Year

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Sherborne is an extremely beautiful market town, with an abundance of beautiful historical buildings, including its medieval abbey and almshouses, two castles, (both inhabited at some point by Walter Raleigh), not to mention the eponymous school.  The golden Ham stone of the traditional buildings is glorious, and the beautifully haphazard conglomeration of buildings that cluster around the narrow roads, are idyllically English.  It isn't easy, even when you are there all the time, to take this for granted, and when we come back to visit, it strikes us again and again how lucky we have been to have lived in the middle of all of this.

Not forgetting the important site of historical importance that is Mr Ryan's former classroom (lower windows)

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Towards the end of the afternoon behaviour did begin to lapse.

Miss Ryan forgot all about deportment

Mr Willetts thought it was acceptable to attack his wife

and I, apparently, revealed something scandalous to Rosie

Still, as Maggie's very splendid card points out, we had a panacea at the ready

Just a very happy day!

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Yellow Car!

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Tea the Twenty-Sixth

Is there no Latin word for tea? Upon my soul, if I had 

known that I would have left the vulgar stuff alone.

Hilaire Belloc

Horsted Place Hotel, Little Horsted, East Sussex - Sunday 8th December 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Debora Downing

Lynn Varley

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The autumn term is always long and busy, and there have been sadly limited opportunities for taking tea, indeed the month of November was entirely fallow in this respect.  However, it was nice to snatch the opportunity to have a tea with friends from work to mark the beginning of a festive flurry of odyssey events.

DD and Lynn are very fine colleagues, who were clearly going to be excellent company for a country house afternoon.

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Horsted Place had been recommended by several people, and also by the invaluable publication 'Where to find Cream Teas in Kent, Surrey and Sussex' which another colleague, Pia, had given to me earlier in the year.

Formerly an aristocratic seat which played host on numerous occasions to E II R, no less, it is a beautiful Gothic revivalist house, and much of its detailing was designed by Pugin.  As I know I have mentioned before in these meandering tea reflections, this is a style I very much like and to have afternoon tea on a beautiful early winter's day, sitting in the window seat of a long and traditional drawing room, looking out over crisply beautiful lawns and looking back in to gothic carved stone mantlepieces surrounded by low tables and elegant furnishings.  When a waiter returning our coats proudly told me that the staircase was of Pugin design, I did bite my tongue and not say to him 'ah, well, I have one of those at home' - and to be fair it was a rather more exciting one than that which Pugin (son, or possibly one of his minions) designed for the Mayfield Gatehouse (and I am well aware that I only get to live with my own as long as I carry on with my current job).

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The tea was very pleasing.  Silver teapots and an interesting cake-stand with fluted serving dome on the top layer (and and integral holder ready for use once it had been lifted) brought traditional, if quirky, style, whilst the cakes were presented on sleek and nicely proportioned black slates which, whilst having a modern feel, fitted nicely into the idiom. The rather 1980s-esque floral china was perhaps not the most stylish, but this is being very picky.

The dome served to keep warm the delightful buttered crumpets, which are an excellent augmentation of the usual hotel afternoon tea repertoire, and this was a fine starter.  Tea also featured smartly cut sandwiches of a good variety (DD commented that egg sandwiches always take her back to children's parties, and to add to the illusion we had jelly too, although given this was champagne jelly the comparison began to be less strong).

The scones tasted very good, although perhaps a little too crispy around the edge. On reflection, I am being a stern critic here, and with the bountiful cream and very good raspberry jam, they more than held their own in the odyssey overall rankings - if not absolutely top flight, certainly a highly commendable second rank.

The approaching yule-tide was signalled by the first sighting of mince pies at tea, accompanied by unusually dainty slices of stollen. Add to these the jelly, some excellent meringues (combining crisp and chewy with considerable finesse) and a finely layered chocolate whiskey cake (which Lynn praised highly, not least because of its marzipan element) and overall Horsted Place provided a very generous and interestingly varied palette.

Service was discreet, and in fact a little more of waiting presence in the room might have been helpful when extra milk was required, etc. However, the lack of any pressure (and we sat around comfortably for over two hours) combined with the dirth of indicators that this was a hotel at all (reception: a subtle writing desk in a small room off the main hall) did help to complete the country house illusion.

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Twenty-Sixth Tea - Twenty-Sixth Year

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Inevitably, we talked shop some of the time (schools are such fascinating and all-consuming places to those within them, it would be impossible to avoid it), but largely we talked about tea, families, Christmas and the delightful anticipation of the approaching holidays. It was lovely to have time to chat and laugh with friends, in a lovely setting and without the pressure of bells and timetables - this is the civilising influence of this project that I must try to maintain occasionally, even when the fortieth tea has been taken.

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