tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5402239532934621152024-03-21T20:16:29.912-07:00Time For TeaSMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-22070845154993776932015-02-08T16:39:00.000-08:002015-02-08T13:03:50.116-08:00Tea the Fortieth<h3>
Saturday, 15th November 2015 - The Gatehouse, The Old Palace, Mayfield, East Sussex</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>It was now the hour when the fragrance of tea and <br />the warm, heartening scent of buttered toast <br />begin to float like a benediction over the English home</i><br />
Full Moon - P. G. Wodehouse</td></tr>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Kate Taylor</div>
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Well, it's about time... What on earth took so long? Tea the Thirty-Ninth took place in August - never has there been so long a gap in the odyssey. Additionally, this tea took place in November - an entirely different year. What possible reason can there be for this failure to blog?<br />
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There might be a number of reasons... The blogging has been delayed and delayed through school busy-ness, illness (minor, snotty but inconvenient) Christmas and more school - and a general feeling that if I had any time it should be spent on work that needed doing rather than the frivolous enjoyment of playing with photographs and waxing self-indulgent about my enjoyment of tea and cake. But I would also admit there has certainly been a barely subconscious resistance to finishing - the thought of the 'last' blog has been a rather melancholy one, and also there is a pressure to make it a good one (don't hold your breath). But as the 8th February, the second anniversary of the beginning of the whole enterprise, loomed it struck me as an auspicious date to post. I do enjoy a significant date.<br />
So let's get on with it - at last!<br />
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Choosing the location, the date and the company for Number 40 started to take on a much deeper significance than it should. By far the majority of the teas took place in the first year - at one point I thought we might make them all. Then Paul's fortieth seemed like an option, but in the end I did feel that it was better to have each tea important in itself and not just chalking up the numbers - for once the significant date itself couldn't rule the decision making.<br />
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Then to decide where to have it. There are numerous places that didn't make it into the odyssey that I would have liked. I had a great yearning for Claridges but the time was never right, or I never organised myself to book far enough in advance. At one point I toyed with trying to arrange tea at Cricket St Thomas in memory of the filming of To The Manor Born. Various other Somerset locations appealed - Bruton, the Pump Rooms in Bath, Yeovil - starry birthplace of Olivia. We missed one Betty's, at Harlow Carr gardens in Harrogate. We had a couple of abortive attempts to take tea in Cambridge (but maybe that was the Lord reminding us of where our loyalties lie...) or at The Orchard in Grantchester. So many other ideas too.<br />
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Perhaps another plan has to be hatched.... because there are also many people who I would really have loved to take tea with - some very dear and old friends, not to mention a sibling and sibling-in-law.<br />
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It was never realistically going to be a tea that encompassed everything that was missing from the odyssey, and once I accepted that it became much less of an anxiety. In the end what became the over-riding priorities in my mind were that it had to be with my two most loyal tea companions and there needed to be something special about it. Then a message came that gave me the very best reason for tea.<br />
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In their great wisdom the University of Melbourne decided to send the remarkable Kate Taylor on a management course in Oxford, and whilst she was in the appropriate hemisphere she suggested gracing us with her presence for a weekend. This was delightful news in any context, but then we realised that tea potential. Tea the Fortieth it is then. <br />
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Readers of earlier blog posts may recall that Kate (on that occasion with her boife, Greg) has had the unique role of being an honorary tea taker - this was Tea the Twenty-Third at the Savoy, over a year ago, which was a tea that they very generously gave me as my fortieth birthday present. Thinking that the many thousands of miles that separated us might prevent actual participation we had a framed photo of them with us on that occasion. I wrote then about what a very fine and special friend Kate is, and so it was extremely joyous that this unlooked for opportunity now arose.<br />
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It was very fabulios to see Kate and we had a lovely weekend. She was able to come to hear Olivia's school chamber choir singing the Faure Requiem, must to Miss Ryan's delight. Then on Saturday sampled the cultural opportunities of East Sussex with a trip to Ditchling and its excellent Museum of Art and Craft, via the retail excitements of Brighton, before heading home to light the fire, put the scones on to bake and to prepare enjoy the delights of tea.<br />
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<h3>
Mayfield</h3>
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With Kate coming to stay with us here at school, it became apparent to there was a very obvious and significant tea location too. Home. We have lived in Mayfield now for four years, and due to our love of York and the joy of going back to Emerald Street in the holidays, we are mostly only here in term time, when life is pretty much immersed in school activity. However, this very much is our family base, and we have a lovely flat, where we as a family we have lived through very important years. Olivia came here, aged 8, still very much a little girl, and now aged very nearly twelve and what seems like several feet taller, she is moving on with great excitement to her growing up.<br />
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St Leonards-Mayfield, the school where I work, and the Ryan family resides, comprises central buildings which were originally a pre reformation summer palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, parts of which date back to the 13th Century. Lived in and visited by the great and the good from medieval times to the Tudors, it is thought that St Thomas More and Erasmus may both have visited (one source suggests More may have held heretic courts here). Post-reformation, the Old Palace came into the hands of Thomas Gresham the financier who created the stock exchange. Romantic legends suggesting Elizabeth I visited him here are enjoyed by some of the more fanciful historians on the staff. The place fell into ruin over the centuries and eventually became a picturesque site for Nineteenth Century trippers, including one Princess Victoria, who left her riding crop behind (which remains one of the school's great treasures). Another visitor was a strong-minded and remarkably forward thinking American nun, Mother Cornelia Connelly, who came with a group of girls from her school in St Leonards-on-sea for a picnic amidst the ruins. A benefactress, the Duchess of Leeds, bought the ruins for her and she then raised the money to restore the buildings, developing the medieval banqueting hall into a remarkable chapel, with the restoration overseen by Edward Pugin (son of the more famous Augustus).<br />
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The Gatehouse, in which we have our flat, is a Fourteenth century building with Nineteenth Century extensions at either end. Our part is mostly Victorian and features a large and striking Pugin staircase - sometimes I wish we had a dining room instead of so much space being used up in a glorified ladder, but mostly I just love the staircase itself and find it remarkably pleasing to sweep up and down it at those times when a bit of dramatic emphasis is required.<br />
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It is a truly remarkable place to live and also remarkable is the story of Cornelia and her inspiration in founding the order (the Society of the Holy Child Jesus). She was also extraordinary in developing a system of education that was unusually forwarding thinking and emotionally intelligent and empowering for women.<br />
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Tea at home also means that you can choose to have whatever you would most like and, for Olivia and I, planning this allowed us to give reign to our basic tea desires. Crumpets and muffins - perfect for winter tea in front of the fire; Mary Berry's recipe scones (see Tea the Fourth) and home-made jam tarts (complete with home-made jam). Fairy cakes and chocolate brownies were also augmented by a very swanky selection of Fortnum and Mason biscuits which Ms T presented to us.<br />
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Another pleasure of domestic tea was the inclusion of familiar and story laden objects, from randomly acquired and eclectic crockery and implements, to the room swamping sofa (fabric named Elgar) that we bought when we lived in school accommodation with much more space. The latter is an ark of comfort when arriving home after a manic day of school and it could take up the whole room but would still be our furniture priority. The tray we used was one I bought in a kitchen shop in Leeds in 1992 to take with me to college - I'm glad to remember that even at nineteen I thought a vaguely Edwardian looking tray would be useful in life.<br />
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It was nice for the wedding gift butter plätti to make an appearance - I know Bronwyn will be especially pleased....<br />
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The joys of the fire (have I mentioned that yet?...); obligatory tea-pouring photos; posed eating; these are a few of my favourite tea things.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Fortieth Tea - Fortieth Year</h3>
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Style was taken very seriously:<br />
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Kate: glamorous in Vivienne Westwood<br />
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Paul: heritage-minded in tweed waistcoat<br />
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Olivia: slightly surreal in Sainsbury's hosiery<br />
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It was an afternoon tea typical of all the fabulous things of the odyssey - scones and cream, crumpets and cake, clinking china, roaring fire, entertaining people, and then the day ended with port and board games - leisure at its finest.<br />
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So here we are; the fortieth tea draws to a close and the great experience is complete. It was the most entertaining birthday celebration and absolutely fabulous way to spend time with people I love and care about, to catch up with people I don't see often enough, to reconnect with people after long years.<br />
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Ninety-two tea takers, over six countries, ten counties, three capital cities, one bailiwick; from windswept Northern islands to the Mediterranean; from stately homes to suburban terraces, from the grandest hotels to tiny cafes; historical curiosities, personal memories and a lot of fun. Thank you everyone. Right, time for a cup of tea, I think...<br />
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<br />SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-57207392887668480452014-07-15T15:35:00.002-07:002014-07-15T15:35:53.793-07:00Tea the Thirty-Ninth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48Gwa3oQJYCVnEdzPLshyphenhyphenRwLCXCocMwAp-gFQHLXgzHzskm7Zg3dKlJV9m6ew02gcrEkxyHgYCF-Z59r4SjeEvD_3NuT6ItvZRxsF6seLnR67B_cmIc_KdgTMJsM-7Pa5km4MEQXDjqA/s1600/IMG_2324.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48Gwa3oQJYCVnEdzPLshyphenhyphenRwLCXCocMwAp-gFQHLXgzHzskm7Zg3dKlJV9m6ew02gcrEkxyHgYCF-Z59r4SjeEvD_3NuT6ItvZRxsF6seLnR67B_cmIc_KdgTMJsM-7Pa5km4MEQXDjqA/s1600/IMG_2324.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="p1">
<i>Epicures drink it for want of an appetite; bon vivants, to remove </i></div>
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<i>the effects of a surfeit of wine; gluttons, as a remedy for indigestion;</i></div>
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<i> politicians, for the vertigo; doctors, for drowsiness; prudes, for the vapors; </i></div>
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<i>wits, for the spleen; and beaux to improve their complexions.</i></div>
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Arthur Gray - The Little Tea Book</div>
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<h3>
Peacock Alley, The Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh - Friday 11th July, 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Bronwyn Henderson</div>
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Philip Henderson</div>
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Agnes Henderson</div>
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Summer holidays having finally arrived we headed Northwards for a wonderful week on Lindisfarne with the Hendersons. Inspired by our day trip at Easter (Tea the Thirty-Sixth) we had little difficulty in persuading them to join us for a longer stay and with a cottage rented in the centre of the village we mostly enjoyed time on the island and in its immediate surroundings.<br />
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However, at the end of the week we made a more intrepid journey up the coast and into Scotland for a trip to Edinburgh. This seemed an excellent opportunity to add another country to the odyssey in excellent company. A little research found significant recommendations for The Caledonian (now officially the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh) but particularly in its favour was the fact that tea is taken in a part of the hotel called Peacock Alley. Given my great liking for the peacock (as a bird and as a design feature) the combination of this with tea was clearly irresistible.<br />
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It turned out to be a rather longer walk than we had anticipated... We knew that walking from Holyrood Palace to Princes Street was something of a way (a mile, or something similarly royal), but hadn't quite reckoned on The Caledonian being right at the other end of Princes Street on the far side of the castle. It was a warm day and Edinburgh was thronged with tourists and so we were in significant need of refreshment upon arrival. To enter the stylish cool interior of the hotel, and the beautiful airiness of Peacock Alley itself, was a particular joy.<br />
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The Caledonian was built in 1903 by the Caledonian Railway Company, and Peacock Alley is actually a glassed in courtyard between buildings and was originally the platform and concourse of the station which the hotel was built to serve, still featuring over it the original station clock.<br />
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It is a very attractive space with the wonderful outdoor architectural features of the striking Victorian red sandstone building combined with elegant and comfortable lounge furniture and design. I particularly liked the very fine art deco style light fittings. Paul and Olivia, through striking up conversation with a member of staff discovered that all Waldorf Astoria hotels have a Peacock Alley and why not, especially if they are as fine as this one.<br />
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The tea was excellent - generous, stylish and of a very high quality. The service was friendly and obliging, and we enjoyed the whole experience enormously from the arrival of pots of tea and glasses of iced water to the ceremonial placing of the cake stands (anticipated from affair as our smily waiter Vasilis carried them over).</div>
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They have no qualms about shop-bought jam here...</div>
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The sandwiches were lovely. Olivia was able to have the child's tea, which featured jam sandwiches to her delight, and meant that I was able to enjoy the peanut butter sandwich which she avoided - another first for the odyssey, even at this late stage.</div>
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The scones were good (if not the very best) and cream and jam were in generous supply, and the cakes and pastries varied and lovely, and supplemented by a plate of fruit cake and pecan cookies, just in case we were not already amply supplied.</div>
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It certainly held its own with many of the best teas in the odyssey and was much more reasonably priced than its London counterparts.</div>
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<h3>
Tea with friends</h3>
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It was very fine to be taking tea with Bron, Philip and Agnes again, after our last tea outing in Guernsey (Tea the Twenty-Second). They are such very fine tea and holiday companions and very understanding of general Ryan chaos. It would be fair to say that Agnes is the most changed since our last official tea event - the difference nine months makes when you are only thirteen months old is pretty considerable. </div>
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She is now walking and laughing and generally charming at every turn, and is doing a good job of coming to terms with her god-parents. We all loved having so much time with her last week, but very especially Olivia who was thrilled to be able to help with bathing, pushing push-chairs and generally entertaining. Thank you so much to Bron and Phil for sharing her with us, especially in their precious family holiday time.<br />
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It should also be conceded that Bron and Philip, in their own right, were reasonably charming too.</div>
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Agnes worked her particular charms very effectively on all the staff - melting hearts and being generally winsome. It turned out that she was more than a little partial to the berries that were decorating the cakes, so, when Bronwyn asked if it might be possible for us to have a few more, she was swiftly supplied with an enormous bowl full - which, to her credit, she worked through very seriously. Another big tick for the staff and general helpfulness of the hotel.</div>
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Thirty-Ninth Tea - Thirty-Ninth Year</h3>
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As a child I was acutely aware and deeply proud of having Scottish ancestry. Three of my Mum's grandparents came from Scotland and she had still regularly visited family in Edinburgh as a child. In that way that children have, I attached a great deal of significance to this seemingly exotic otherness and considered this as an important part of my identity (despite the fact that a couple of day trips and short family holidays were as near as I had ever come to living this particular dream). Growing up rather relieved me of all that sense and I had almost forgotten how very attached I used to feel to the place. So I am very pleased that Scotland did just make it into the 40 and additionally to rediscover how much I like Edinburgh. I look forward to more such excursions when we are holidaying in Northern parts again.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-15032447006244008952014-07-12T15:41:00.000-07:002014-07-15T15:36:16.152-07:00Tea the Thirty-Eighth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>There's something hypnotic about the word 'tea'</i><br />
Dorothy L Sayers - Gaudy Night</td></tr>
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St Ermin's Hotel, Caxton Street, Westminster - Saturday 28th June 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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I know it might seem that it has been a while since a 'tea' has been taken on the odyssey, but as we approach these final few occasions we have had to be much more discriminating - saving these events for special occasions and opportunities. The 28th June this year was always bound to be one of these, being, as it was, Paul's 40th birthday. Very important, then, to have a celebratory tea. It featured as part of an exciting London day of activity, starting with a trip up to the top of The Shard, to enjoy the extraordinary views over the city.<br />
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Then a quick call in to collect our theatre tickets before heading across St James's Park for tea. A slight delay in proceedings was caused by the fact that London's Gay Pride march was taking place at that very moment, and getting across Trafalgar Square and Pall Mall became a much more complicated and time consuming activity than usual. That excitement over, we had a very pleasing stroll across the park to tea.<br />
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I found the St Ermin's on the internet looking for somewhere nice to take tea in the Westminster area as this had been an important place to Paul, having had his schooling first at Westminster Cathedral Choir School and then at Westminster School. It looked very pleasing and very much lived up to this appearance. It also turned out that Paul had been there before, taken by one of his teachers - he recognised the entrance - and so it turned out serendiptiously to have established links, which we like to find on the odyssey.<br />
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Adjacent to St James's Park tube station, the elegant red brick Victorian buildings of St Ermin's are typical of the grandeur and style of this area of London. It began its life in 1889 as St Ermin's Mansions (named thus as it was built on the site of a 15th century chapel dedicated to St Ermin) and was converted into a hotel in 1899.<br />
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The conversion into a hotel was overseen by theatrical designer J.P. Briggs which helps to explain the lavish and dramatic styling of many of its rooms.<br />
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During the Second World War it was the headquarters of MI6 and, in 1940, the place where Churchill established the Special Operations Executive which ran from one floor of the hotel for the rest of the war. Less salubriously, it was later a place where Burgess, Philby and MacLean liaised with Russian agents.<br />
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Who would not like such a site of intrigue and adventure as a place for tea?<br />
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To reach the 'tea lounge' on the lobby mezzanine you have to climb the elaborate twisting white staircase which adds a great deal to the drama of the event. We found at the top a interesting combination of traditional decor suited to the Queen Anne revival styling of the building, with more modern furnishings, which, as a deliberately eclectic statement, works very well.</div>
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They have gone for the deliberately quirky, simultaneously vintage and modern, pastel theme in both the presentation and the tea itself, but this is done confidently and without going completely over the top, and so it works.<br />
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Alongside the striking pink and blue Victorian/Cath Kidston-esque fusion crockery, tea is served in a intriguing range of ways from the traditional wire basket and napkin for the scones to a very striking square shelved cake stand - it cannot be quite adequately described so see next illustration... We had rather more sombre white and dark brown stands but on a neighbouring table was a striking yellow version of the same, and a similarly striking colouring to some of the cakes, did give a rather psychedelic feel to the proceedings (together with the quirky mix of styles it was all rather Alice in Wonderland-ish)<br />
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This was a very highly performing tea. A nice range of fresh sandwiches, attractive cakes and some most pleasing scones. Alongside the traditional plain (applauded for both quality and quantity by Olivia and myself) there were also Earl Grey and raisin (which Paul enjoyed) and an unusual addition the orange scone. Now, I was dubious about this when I saw it on the menu but actually it was delightful - just a hint of orange zest - very fine with heaps of clotted cream.<br />
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Refined scone enjoyment:<br />
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I would particularly recommend the lemon macaron, but there were also glossy chocolate truffles, elaborate meringue pies and pleasingly compact walnut cakes. A very enjoyable spread indeed and the birthday boy seemed not displeased.<br />
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Olivia and I were both a little disappointed that the jam that came with the tea was blackcurrant (and those avid followers of this blog will already know of my feelings on this matter), so we asked the very obliging waitress if they might have any other jam available. A look of discomfort darkened her face 'We do have strawberry' [pause, voice drops significantly in volume] 'but it is not...... homemade'. We reassured her that this would not be any impediment to our enjoyment nor to our judgement of the establishment and enjoyed our shop-bought jam very much when a generous potful was brought to the table.</div>
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Thirty-Eighth Tea - Thirty-Eighth Year</h3>
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Happy Birthday, Paul!</div>
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Using this blog to pay tribute to a range of very important people in my life has been one of its most enjoyable features for me and I think it has been fairly clear already from quite a lot of occasions how essential a part of my life Paul is. He won't thank me for being soppy but I am going to say this much: thoughtful, loving, funny, intelligent, dedicated, a person of enormous decency and integrity, he is, without question, the love of my life, my best friend and a part of everything that I am, and I am so grateful to him for everything he is and does. There, I've broadcast that to the world now, Mr Ryan - so ner.</div>
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We finished our celebratory day with Mass at Westminster Cathedral - one of Paul's most important places - and then a trip to the theatre to see the utterly hilarious 'Jeeves and Wooster - Perfect Nonsense' - laughing, in my case, until I wept, on several occasions. A very lovely family day celebrating our favourite chap.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-57743652798888543212014-04-15T17:26:00.002-07:002014-04-15T17:32:43.378-07:00Tea the Thirty-Seventh<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I smile, of course,<br />And go on drinking tea</i><br />
T.S. Eliot - Portrait of a Lady</td></tr>
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Monk Fryston Hall Hotel, North Yorkshire - Friday 11th April 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Jill Fairley</div>
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Serendipity led to tea in Monk Fryston - Paul was alerted to some dining offer at Monk Fryston Hall via some internet scheme and it immediately struck me as a very suitable location. <br />
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The village is situated South East of Selby in the Vale of York, and at one stage my father used to drive me through here each day as he took me to and from school. In some far distant year, I think around 1884, my paternal grandmother was born in Monk Fryston, and my Dad often pointed out to me the inn where this great event took place, her father having been an ostler there. So tea with the shades of the ancestors seemed only fitting.<br />
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The birthplace of Jane Shan, later Thacker:<br />
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Monk Fryston Hall, just across the road from The Crown is a very attractive stone mullioned manor house, in attractive and stately gardens. The oldest parts of the building date back to the Twelfth Century when a Benedictine monastery stood on the site.<br />
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Augmented and refashioned over the centuries, as is typical of so many country seats, by the Eighteenth Century the grounds also featured a zoo, an aviary and a boating lake. The entertainments offered today are not on quite so exotic or lavish a scale, but it has the requisite gentility of a country house setting and a more than suitable site for the next installment of the odyssey.<br />
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We took tea in the dining room which runs the length of the front of the house, and was light and smartly appointed.<br />
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The service was friendly and helpful (if not of the greatest finesse) and when they realised that the message requesting provision of plain scones had been missed they were most apologetic and tried several times to ply us with extra sandwiches and cakes.<br />
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An interesting twist to the presentation of the tea was the inclusion on the cake stand of chutneys to accompany the sandwiches. These were not to my taste (and I do query the wisdom of putting them on the stand itself and next to the jam and cream) but it was nice to offer these as optional and did mean the sandwiches were largely unadulterated and well suited to my fussy palate.<br />
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The scones were pleasant, although not as light as they might have been, and the clotted cream and jam were plentiful which is always a sign of generosity of spirit in such establishments. The sweets included a very pleasing vanilla cream dessert, a light cream sponge swirl and little biscuits sandwiching cream and fruit. As a spread it fulfilled its brief very well.<br />
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<h3>
Tea with Jill</h3>
<br />
This was another particularly delightful reunion - Jill was my A-level English teacher, and has been a hugely important influence in my life, both as someone who helped shape the way I read and learn myself and as greatly significant model for me of what good teaching is. I still stand at the front in my own lessons and think 'how would Jill deal with this?' Perceptive, thoughtful and quietly passionate about her subject she inspired and challenged me and I know I wouldn't have been able to make as much of my university education or the opportunities that have come up since if it hadn't been for her academic grounding and encouragement to engage critically and reflectively.<br />
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It was lovely to see her and to catch up for the first time in a couple of years. She is excellent company and we had a lovely time talking about what has been happening in our lives, but also about history, ideas and books.<br />
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Spring sunshine, an interesting historic and personally linked location and a very important guest - an excellent tea indeed.<br />
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____________________</div>
<h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Thirty-Seventh Tea - Thirty-Seventh Year</div>
</h3>
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I am particularly proud of my improvement, over the course of this project, in being able to pour tea and talk at the same time.<br />
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<br />SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-76176635898831961432014-04-09T14:13:00.000-07:002014-04-09T14:25:06.036-07:00Tea the Thirty-Sixth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwUO5uwB18AfcbcPwjJtlMzlGdFKa4J0_bg5Rg5O4ZeomZxrpgFTikE_xlvjQv7AU3HsakmMQ4ZE3hZnVYuC-9U7hnxadp9Ng5W_vFlkX9fEBDWCx-nCOiwBOcpv2L3oY5lkoQ5F20k4k/s1600/IMG_0992.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwUO5uwB18AfcbcPwjJtlMzlGdFKa4J0_bg5Rg5O4ZeomZxrpgFTikE_xlvjQv7AU3HsakmMQ4ZE3hZnVYuC-9U7hnxadp9Ng5W_vFlkX9fEBDWCx-nCOiwBOcpv2L3oY5lkoQ5F20k4k/s1600/IMG_0992.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the </i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i>world revolves, slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.</i></div>
<div class="p1">
Thich Nat Hahn</div>
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<h3>
Pilgrims Coffee House, Front Street, Lindisfarne - Tuesday, 8th April, 2014</h3>
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____________________</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tea Takers</h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sarah Ryan</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Paul Ryan</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Olivia Ryan</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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____________________</div>
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Paul and I first came to Lindisfarne together on 9th July 2000, it was the first day of our honeymoon and we had a glorious week staying in a cottage on the island. We have since returned numerous times, with friends and on family holidays where our small infant frolicked on the wide breezy sands and clambered on rocks. It is a very special place that we love very much and it has been a sadly long time since we last came. It was always on the tea location wish list, but in a rather wistful, probably-not-going-to-happen kind of way. So when Paul suggested that a day trip from York might be rather nice it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.<br />
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The weather forecast was for sun and so armed with clothing for every weather/temperature, a picnic, and a predisposition to have an amazing time, we drove the 150 miles North and arrived about midday just half an hour after the causeway had cleared. <br />
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<h3>
<br />Tea at My House.</h3>
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It must be conceded that despite the very many virtues of the place, Lindisfarne is not overly endowed with 'proper' tea-taking opportunities. Afternoon tea as a concept has not really taken off in the catering establishments of the village.<br />
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A bright Easter holiday day had drawn many visitors and the number of small cafes about the place were busy. One cafe promised freshly made scones but what it offered in terms of bakage it lacked in charm. However, we were immediately taken with this place: an attractive stone house, with quirky and pleasing interior, and the promise of home made cakes and (for those who like to substitute such things for tea) their home blended and roasted coffee. <br />
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Additionally, and of particular satisfaction to me, is the fact the a few years ago I really wanted to buy this house. It was on the market at the time when we were looking to buy our house in York, and it was both beyond our budget and an exceedingly impractical location, but that didn't stop me looking longingly at the estate agents' particulars online and imagining my alternative life there. So I may not have been able to live here, but now I have taken tea, which is the essence of good living after all.<br />
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Getting past the anomalous idea of tea in a 'coffee house' (and in doing so tipping a nod to the delights of coffee which I would by no means deny - do note the excellent name for the day's roast) and accepting that this is very much a cafe geared to the practical and swift service of large numbers of tourists, Pilgrims made a very pleasing tea location.<br />
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Yes, it was paper cups only, (and sadly we hadn't thought to bring mugs with us - if only we'd known...) but the drinks were good and didn't seem to suffer from the lack of china. <br />
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The bedrooms are attractive little seating areas now, with eclectic 'vintage' furniture and quirky accessories (cushions made from coffee sacks etc). We had a room to ourselves for most of the time and reclined in armchairs and on the windowseat.<br />
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It was a tea of varied drinks and cakes, and, for all its more utilitarian chic, was very enjoyable, sitting in these comfortable surroundings out of the wild wind (which was a hallmark of much of the rest of the day).<br />
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Olivia had a beautifully squidgy brownie and I enjoyed a very commendable lemon drizzle, but certainly the most interesting cake of the day was Paul's:<br />
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This is Cuthbert cake - advertised as a mix of oats, honey, fruit and nuts, and named for one of the islands more pre-eminent saints (of whom more in a moment). It was acclaimed as very fine and was a pleasing topical addition to the occasion.<br />
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Most of us remembered our table manners and dainty habits<br />
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Others however...<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Thirty-Sixth Tea - Thirty-Sixth Year</h3>
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<h3>
The Holy Island of Lindisfarne</h3>
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Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, is a tidal island off the coast of North East England, just south of Berwick upon Tweed. St Aidan came to Lindisfarne from Iona in the the early Seventh Century and founded the monastery here, and the place became the base for Christian evangelisation in the north of England. A second Saint who became inextricably linked with the place is Cuthbert, becoming bishop of Lindisfarne. He was ascetic and heremitical by temperament and would retreat to a small island itself only linked at low tide to the main island, and then ultimately removed to Inner Farne, a much more isolated place, to live as a hermit.<br />
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It was here that the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels were illuminated in the Eighth Century, and on a more grizzly note a violent attack by vikings at the end of that century is now frequently noted as the start of the viking era in this country. The Priory ruins that are left now are from a later house, mostly built in the Twelfth Century and in use until the dissolution of the monasteries, are beautiful red sandstone, with ornate carvings and patterned columns, much like those of Durham Cathedral.<br />
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We brought Olivia here first ten years ago and she was fascinated by the information boards (this became a regular delaying tactic of hers in many sites of historic interest in her toddler-hood). Little changes:<br />
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The other most striking landmark of Lindisfarne is its castle.<br />
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A fortress was initially built on this dramatic crag in the Sixteenth Century, and then in 1901 the ruins were bought by publishing magnate Edward Hudson, who had discovered it when touring Northumberland with his friend Edwin Lutyens. Hudson had Lutyens refurbish the place in the arts and crafts style and for good measure Lutyens' friend and collaborator Gertrude Jekyll transformed an old vegetable plot into a walled garden. The castle remains a beautiful combination of castle and country house, on a very attractive domestic scale. It is set out as it would be for an Edwardian holiday retreat and it is very easy to imagine making yourself very at home there. It combines so many desirable traits in one place, it is certainly one of my most ideal residences.<br />
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We had an utterly fabulous day and a three hundred mile round trip for tea was most definitely worth it.<br />
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A quick jump across the stones to St Cuthbert's island (and even quicker jump back because it looked like the tide was coming in);<br />
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Ending the day with a stop off at the North Shore for a game of boules and some sustaining sandwiches before returning southwards;<br />
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Taking with us, naturally, an appropriate souvenir:<br />
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Glorious.<br />
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<br />SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-80753199799356534432014-04-06T15:35:00.001-07:002014-04-06T15:44:29.565-07:00Tea the Thirty-Fifth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSB0DhvU59CI6-32qrF3_Tj7dbdAf2cr9RZrxC6mlpuWSZ9DFpk22YQy9OT0avWpBCST9x3i55pSCEk2X0zil1hvjEu_5vbF2YlS9aUTjzsAVP_XhCagmfxI5MwGVLyO5iSDsqvMckLDg/s1600/IMG_0854.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSB0DhvU59CI6-32qrF3_Tj7dbdAf2cr9RZrxC6mlpuWSZ9DFpk22YQy9OT0avWpBCST9x3i55pSCEk2X0zil1hvjEu_5vbF2YlS9aUTjzsAVP_XhCagmfxI5MwGVLyO5iSDsqvMckLDg/s1600/IMG_0854.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>My dear, if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head, <br />I should better understand your affairs.</i><br />
Charles Dickens</td></tr>
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<h3>
Cedar Court Grand Hotel, York - Saturday, 5th April, 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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John Storey</div>
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Clare Storey</div>
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An extremely late Easter has meant an unusually long Spring term, and we have finally arrived at the holidays very much ready for a break from school. Arriving back in York has been joyful as ever, and what better way to mark the start of the long awaited holiday than to take tea.</div>
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We were joined for this by John and Clare Storey. John has been a colleague of Paul's at both Sherborne and Ardingly and they seem these days generally to be partners in scurrilousness (scurrility?), and those who know Paul will be aware that he needs very little encouragement in this.</div>
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The four adults in the party all being teachers, there was a general aura of holiday relief and an appreciation of the civilised possibilities of grown-up conversation, although Olivia's enthusiastic sociability tempered this appropriately.</div>
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The Ardingly Posse:<br />
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Our tea venue for the day was The Cedar Court Grand Hotel, which proudly asserts it credentials as Yorkshire's only five star hotel. It is an impressive Victorian building and a bold statement of the confidence and style of that era. With more than a hint of the French Chateau style, it is pleasing to note that it was originally neither a hotel, nor grand residence but the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway Company.</div>
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It is certainly very smart and well maintained, and, whilst some of the decor might have been more aligned to modern fashion than to classic hotel chic (a little too much purple quilting in some of the alcoves - that's going to date...), it is a very attractive setting.<br />
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Tea was served in a large light dining room, which looked out over the city walls, where crisp white lined table cloths, decent silver milk jugs and attractively restrained white china with a fine blue line about the edge, achieved a suitably serene and conducive setting.<br />
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High standards were maintained when it came to the tea itself. A good range of teas were on offer and whilst Clare and I opted for classic leaves, Darljeeling in her case and a blend of Ceylon and Assam in mine, there were other options for the more adventurous/fussy. John, having given up caffeine for Lent (and how anyone even contemplates that is entirely beyond me) chose something featuring Hibiscus which is certainly a first for the odyssey, and Paul and Olivia were entirely uncouth and chose caffe latte and hot chocolate respectively.<br />
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The service was excellent, very helpful and understanding of our varying sandwich requirements (the poor waiter did quail slightly but manfully took copious notes and by dint of reading back to us his understanding of our specifics, met everyone's desires very adroitly) and providing plain scones at our request.<br />
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The fruit scones had an unusual variation in containing cranberry, although Paul reports that he didn't particularly notice anything different about them. The plain scones were very pleasant, perhaps just a little doughy, and I do think that only one scone per person (even though they were reasonably large) is ungenerous. However, they thoughtfully provided a choice of locally made jams and lemon curd, and a good supply of clotted cream, so the staple requirements were well met.<br />
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The cakes were attractive and varied. A very pleasing glossy rectangular chocolate number contained within a surprisingly light mousse and biscuit base. These were accompanied by macarons and blackberry and fig shortbread sables. A rather quirky addition to the cake stand were small choux buns topped with white chocolate - so far, so conventional, but it turned out that they were filled with 'mulled wine flavoured cream' - now this was not unpleasing, in its own way, but distinctly seasonally confusing.<br />
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<h3>
People at Tea</h3>
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Thirty-Fifth Tea - Thirty-Fifth Year</h3>
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The City Walls</h3>
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Being the former railway headquarters the hotel is unsurprisingly close to the station and is situated directly by the city walls, and it was especially pleasing that the dining room looked out on a picturesque stretch of these.</div>
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York's walls are the longest medieval town walls in England, with stonework dating back in some places to the Eleventh Century, and in part built along the route of older Roman fortifications. A circuit around the city of about two and three-quarter miles is still walkable (with just a couple of small gaps where the walls have disappeared), passing the five ancient gates (or 'bars' as they are properly known). The walls are both beautiful and striking in themselves and also afford a wide range of views around the city. They have always been a feature of the city that I have loved and I still get a kick out of walking along sections of them as thoroughfares whenever there is a reasonable opportunity, just as much as Olivia does.</div>
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So after tea, with the ostensible reason of needing to get a photograph of the hotel, we took the chance to take in a small section before our more prosaic pavement bound walk home.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-29735998208756084062014-02-26T14:45:00.000-08:002014-02-26T14:51:35.201-08:00Tea the Thirty-Fourth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYlzjKt6QFxSYrGrgyEyTDECK3C7y8MgSFsgGHa4PtCzUyKwH36uspCVlR17IMK9StTPUE97Z-QRyhzyE00ca7MBFnlKGGO7XX2ZYwKVvfJF-Oa8pI64896avbgOERuKOi4eK92KEfz0/s1600/IMG_0407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYlzjKt6QFxSYrGrgyEyTDECK3C7y8MgSFsgGHa4PtCzUyKwH36uspCVlR17IMK9StTPUE97Z-QRyhzyE00ca7MBFnlKGGO7XX2ZYwKVvfJF-Oa8pI64896avbgOERuKOi4eK92KEfz0/s1600/IMG_0407.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'for coal fires roared, and punch and tea were steaming'</i><br />
The Shelbourne - Elizabeth Bowen</td></tr>
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The Shelbourne Hotel, St Stephen's Green, Dublin - Monday 17th February 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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A half-term trip to Dublin, with another birthday to celebrate (how did my baby get to be eleven?) - inevitably there would need to be a tea, and there was a very clear choice for its location.<br />
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The Shelbourne is not only one of Dublin's oldest and smartest hotels and historically interesting, but was also the subject of a history by Elizabeth Bowen (the novelist and short story writer who has long been a particular favourite of mine, and pet research topic when a student). I dragged Lucy, then Manson, here on a pilgrimage when we were in Dublin on a choir tour in 1994, but was delighted to have the opportunity to come back and to sample the tea experience here as a part of the odyssey. I would almost like to claim EB as an honorary tea taker as she has felt part of my life for such a long time, but even I must accept some limits of reality.<br />
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It certainly lived up to our expectations and was a very delightful afternoon.<br />
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Irish literature became very much 'my thing' when I was at university and so visiting Dublin is very exciting, and the days we were there were filled with those 'I am standing on the spot where.....' thrills. The Shelbourne was a particularly fine place for indulging in this type of literary historical self-indulgence. Not only is there Bowen's charming, if rather fanciful and anecdotal, 'biography' of the place, but this was where Thackeray stayed when he visited the city, and Yeats held court here reading his poems aloud to his friends.<br />
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The hotel itself has been at the heart of many events in the history of the city and the country. Hosting the great and the good, facing the dramas of an often turbulent history, it was practically under siege during the civil war, and still bears bullet scars. The first hotel on the site was begun in three Georgian terraced houses in 1824, and then the current building built in 1866, and is an institution for which people feel great pride.<br />
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We took tea in the Lord Mayor's Lounge - a very pleasing drawing room, with long bay windows looking out over St Stephen's Green.<br />
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Elegant but also comfortable, with armchairs and sofas around low tables, it was a most pleasing setting. We even had the joy of the table next to the fire.<br />
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It was good to see that they also maintain certain key standards:<br />
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The piano music was not live, but this can be very much excused by the civilised repertoire chosen for the piped delights - a tea accompanied by such as the Goldberg variations is a tea much enhanced.<br />
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The meal itself was very impressive. It was all beautiful presented with understated elegance, and carefully served. <br />
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The sandwiches were beautifully prepared, and Paul enjoyed them very much. They were a little fussy for Olivia's and my taste (which is entirely our own problem), so we asked for some bread and butter and were delighted by the selection of warm rolls and beautiful soda bread that was swiftly provided - an extremely promising start.<br />
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An interesting addition to the tea table was the warming stand for the tea pot - a simple silver dish with a tea light inside - this is much to be recommended.<br />
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The arrival of the cakes was both an aesthetic pleasure and a generous replenishing of comestibles. The scones warmed and wrapped in a napkin were accompanied by delicious little ginger loaves. Cream and jam were plentiful. The jam was raspberry, which I know does not always meet with the approval of cream tea purists, but was very lovely all the same.<br />
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The cakes were especially to be commended and were a very interesting historical element of the tea. The menu explained it all quite fully - the chef had based these individual sweets on recipes for desserts that have been served at different times in the hotel's history:<br />
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A pavlova first served over the Horseshow weekend in August 1954;<br />
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chocolate mousse with mango and passionfruit served on the occasion on an Ireland versus Wales rugby match in 1956;<br />
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and a blackberry mousse, with caramelised apple, from the 1924 Christmas menu.<br />
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They were all delightful, but for me the blackberry mousse was quite exceptional and I was very glad that Olivia didn't want hers.<br />
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There was so much to enjoy, too much really, but they were extremely obliging about providing a box for us to take with us the cakes we hadn't managed to eat.<br />
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The service was excellent - friendly and efficient, but unobtrusive. Other establishments could learn a great deal from The Shelbourne.<br />
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Also, they were very lovely to the birthday girl, which is always appreciated.<br />
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This is a very high ranking tea in all aspects of the experience. Perhaps the only place it slightly lapsed was with the scones - these were perfectly nice (good middle ranking) but not quite the exceptional standards of others that we have sampled. However, everything else more than compensated for this and the quality of the food should make certain London establishments look to their laurels.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Thirty Fourth Tea - Thirty Fourth Year</h3>
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The hotel is exceedingly elegant from the iconic nubian princess and slave-girl lamp holders along its facade, to its old fashioned barbershop, via the more traditional 'smart hotel' stylings of its hallways and staircases.<br />
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The small museum displays letters from illustrious and infamous guests and houses the hotel registers which are available for browsing. I wish I had had time to pore over them to find Elizabeth Bowen's signature but it might have been a rather lengthy task.<br />
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<h3>
Paying Homage</h3>
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Our hotel was also on St Stephen's Green, and whilst not on the scale of The Shelbourne, was a pleasing group of three Georgian terraced houses which had been part of Newman's Catholic University buildings, and were very typically Dublin buildings. Whilst we were on the third floor, and there were many, many stairs, we did have room at the front with views over the Green.<br />
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Only on the morning we were leaving did I make the momentous discovery that it was in one of these houses that Gerard Manly Hopkins lived during his time in Dublin, so had very little time to wallow in that literary serendipity. Given that he was terribly depressed during much of his time there, perhaps it was not to be brooded on, but then this was the place where he wrote his remarkable 'terrible sonnets' which are such extraordinary works it does still seems quite tremendous to have stayed there.<br />
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Another literary pilgrimage within Georgian Dublin was to 15 Herbert Place, Elizabeth Bowen's birthplace. It is now offices, but fortunately I made my hurried visit on a Sunday and was able to photograph it without incurring curious stares.<br />
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Added to which were the constant lines of Yeats that kept springing to mind, and not just outside the Post Office, which also brought back many memories of Sixth Form and did make it feel like Clare or Jill might appear around any corner and complete the quotation.<br />
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Another truly lovely tea.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-50142293882789237172014-02-09T15:11:00.001-08:002014-02-09T15:24:43.379-08:00Tea the Thirty-Third<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>The instinct which warns all good Englishmen when tea is ready </i></div>
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<i>immediately began to perform its silent duty.</i></div>
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Summer Lightening - P.G. Wodehouse</div>
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<h3>
The Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly, London - Saturday 8th February, 2014</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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At the inception of the odyssey, it had not been my aim to complete the forty teas within a single year (I was always aiming for too many expensive establishments for that to seem a reasonable imposition on the Ryan coffers). At one stage, though, it had looked as if this might be possible - however, it seemed quite out of keeping with the style of the project to rush unnecessarily and potentially to miss both people and places that I would really like to include. With only seven teas left, I fear even now that I won't be able to cover every desired eventuality, but it will be possible to continue to draw out the anticipation, perhaps even as far as Paul's approaching fortieth.<br />
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However, standards dictated that the anniversary of Tea the First should be celebrated with ceremony and style, and with unusual planning ahead on my part back in the autumn I made a booking for tea at The Ritz.<br />
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Another of London's iconic hotels, The Ritz was opened in 1906 by Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz. He conceived it as an exceptionally luxurious and stylish location, with several unique features for the time - bathrooms for every guest room, double glazing and brass, rather than wooden, beds.</div>
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Architecturally reminiscent of a French chateau, with irrepressibly rococo styling, it remains both a landmark and an extraordinary confection.</div>
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Ritz had previously been manager at The Savoy, and took from there the idea of the hotel afternoon tea, which is taken in the elegant palm court. It has become an institution at the hotel and it is necessary these days to book months in advance to get a table.</div>
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Given all this, we had high expectations of this tea, and the hotel do their best to develop this further. You are reminded at booking that there is a strict dress code - men are expected to wear a jacket and tie and no-one may enter the hallowed tea room in jeans or trainers (which leads me to wonder whether they have the same regular tussles that I have with sixth formers over what exactly constitutes a pair of jeans). Timings are also specified; you have a booking for a specific sitting and it is clearly stated that you may be there for up to an hour and three-quarters and no longer.</div>
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Now, I am all in favour of 'standards' (and it was very pleasing that people were smartly attired, although they were no noticeably smarter than at the Savoy or Brown's) but this then predicates a reciprocal excellence on the part of the establishment.</div>
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Once people had begun to take their places for the 3.30 sitting, tea was promptly brought to your table - a waiter took individual orders of tea blend, but the food was brought without consultation (so we had no chance to ask about minor requirements such as no mustard on the ham sandwiches). It did feel a little like they were simply going through the motions and depositing the teas on each table in a frankly canteen-ish manner. The staff were pleasant, and when asked for anything were largely helpful, although they were not as attentive as other places and there was no sense of your being 'looked after' by a specific person, as had happened not only at Brown's and the Savoy, but also at many other less renowned establishments.</div>
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The quality of the comestibles was, of course, extremely high - with light, fresh sandwiches, fluffy scones (perhaps a little chewy towards the base - I suspect the use of a strong flour with a lot of cream of tartar - the Nigella approach), plentiful cream and jam, and refined cakes and pastries, but the presentation was not absolutely top notch. Cakes were not very attractively arranged and were plonked a little haphazardly, very much to one side of the plate.</div>
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Floral china is clearly de riguer in these establishments across London, but I did feel this fluted design of little blue flowers was a bit 1980s BHS...</div>
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I am being harsh, I suppose, because much was very lovely - the lemon drizzle cake from the trolley was exceptional, and combined gooey stickness with an extraordinary lightness, and was deserving of high praise. However, again the slightly off-hand manner and inept serving skills of the trolley attendant compared not at all well with our experiences elsewhere (whilst you can't go too far wrong translating a slice of lemon cake onto a side plate, the gooey chocolate, caramel and pecan cake that Paul had was rather smeared onto his). </div>
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To finish off, as soon as other tables vacated around you, they went into clearing mode with little care to hide the fact that they wanted to clean up and start setting for the next sitting. The fact that everyone is herded in and out at the same time is not conducive to making it feel like a smooth and elegant feat of organisation. In other places where tables are discreetly cleared in an ongoing process you don't even notice - as Paul said of the whole experience 'you don't feel overwhelmingly welcomed'.</div>
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<h3>
Photographic Hazards of Afternoon Tea: The Cake Stand</h3>
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An interesting variation on the lounge pianist was the presence of a harpist, who manfully plucked his way through jazz standards for our entertainment. 'It had to be you' was interesting on the harp, and, of course, his medley included 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square'. He varied this diet with a snatch of Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, before completing his allotted hour and leaving so that the tea takers would have no difficulty hearing the clattering of plates and knowing that the staff really wanted us to leave.</div>
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Naturally, though, the company was delightful.</div>
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We did have a lovely time, and we did all eat a splendid tea (I'm still not really hungry twenty-four hours on), but if we were selecting a place for a very special tea in London in future it wouldn't be here.</div>
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Thirty-Third Tea - Thirty-Third Year</h3>
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<h3>
Birthday Treats</h3>
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Coming up to town on the train for tea was an excellent excuse for a whole day of birthday joyfulness.</div>
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Starting with a visit to the Persephone book shop in Bloomsbury for a small spending spree courtesy of my Mamma:</div>
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Enjoying archetypal London sights:</div>
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Lovely browsing in Hatchard's, Fortnum's and Liberty's, with a little stop off in Hamley's for Paul, sorry, I mean Olivia:</div>
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Culminating in a trip to the Criterion Theatre on Piccadilly Circus, to see The 39 Steps, which we have long wanted to see and which was utterly hilarious and a fantastic end to a glorious day.</div>
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Cake Horror</h3>
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A small glossy, yellow dome on the top of the cake stand - it seemed an enticing morsel, possibly passion fruit or mango, some manner of glazed mousse, I thought to myself. Full as I was, it seemed a shame to leave it.</div>
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I delicately took a forkful and then everything went wrong. The curse of bannoffee pie gets everywhere. Those who know me will realise that this was a terrible trauma - and it wasn't just that it contained banana, but also it clearly contained that even greater horror 'banana flavour' - oh, people of The Ritz, why?</div>
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In the past I may have smiled indulgently at the way, in most smart hotels, they talk you through all the items on your cake stand - from now on I shall insist upon it.</div>
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Olivia made full use of the varied facilities of the Ladies - although she was disappointed to be unable to get the lid off the ice bucket to freshen her glass of water.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-62883452725285798232013-12-30T15:49:00.000-08:002013-12-30T15:54:47.140-08:00Tea the Thirty-Second<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6ZZgH6R4T50O9wAUUSK3oGfSo2AFt2xlFw8wckXJABnFQ-ICATqoBsUckc3C_NSqMuSsUS4JWTwl2hza3bVvo6ImUAEQaDQNW4omARMr4CSmGCyd0mY-axst38CoattpCwMIWyx6Q2I/s1600/IMG_0057.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6ZZgH6R4T50O9wAUUSK3oGfSo2AFt2xlFw8wckXJABnFQ-ICATqoBsUckc3C_NSqMuSsUS4JWTwl2hza3bVvo6ImUAEQaDQNW4omARMr4CSmGCyd0mY-axst38CoattpCwMIWyx6Q2I/s320/IMG_0057.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>Can the most vivid imagination picture the angels (above the stars) drinking coffee? </i></div>
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<i>No. Yet, if I were to show them to you over the teacups, </i></div>
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<i>you would not be surprised or shocked. Would you? Not a bit of it.</i></div>
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Arthur Gray - The Little Tea Book</div>
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<h3>
<br />York Cocoa House, Blake Street, York - Monday 30th December 2013</h3>
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<b>Tea Takers</b></h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Rachel Hodgson</div>
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Alex Farmer</div>
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Another fine York tea today, continuing to make the most of the tea-taking opportunities of the holidays. It was very important to find an opportunity to have tea with Rachel, who is another special school friend. Having both been busy in our early professional and married lives it has been a further fine by-product of owning our house in York, that we have been able to see each other more regularly, as Rachel, Michael and their lovely daughters, Rebecca and Sophie are fortunate to be proper residents of the city. Today we were able to leave fathers and daughters enjoying festive relaxation while we had a grown-up ladies tea, and the opportuntiy for longer relaxed conversations. Alex, now a veteran for whom this is the third tea of the proceedings, has come to spend New Year with us, and with her tea companion credentials well established, we made up a very jolly party. It was good to introduce friends from different parts of my life and for us to be able to enjoy a comfortable and entertaining tea, in a very attractive and cosy cafe, while the winds howled around the streets outside.</div>
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<h3>
The City of Chocolate</h3>
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York is a city whose most notable industry has been chocolate - if that isn't reason enough to live here, I don't know what is. The trade began in the city in the early 18th Century, and Rowntree's, Terry's, Craven's all blossomed as major chocolatiers and confectioners in the 19th Century. Whilst the world of big business has changed the nature of many of these old firms, chocolate is still produced by Nestle<br />
in the city and on days when the wind is in the right direction, we can walk out of our front door and inhale chocolatey delight.<br />
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The city proudly celebrates its chocolate heritage, with trails, museums, plays and now an annual chocolate festival. In 2011 one York chocolate enthusiast opened the York Cocoa House, which is cafe , shop and 'chocolate school' - it is attractive, quirky and stylish, and in its attractive Georgian town house setting in the centre of town, it is unsurprisingly popular. We had to wait a little while for a table, but queuing is most suitably sweetened by the provision of luxurious chocolate buttons whilst you wait.<br />
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The interior is attractively eclectic with varied tables and chairs, a book-lined room housing their chocolate library and various displays of York chocolate memorabilia.<br />
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A large glass counter displays an impressive range of enticing chocolate cakes and biscuits.<br />
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A very civilised setting for a winter afternoon.<br />
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We opted for the 'Afternoon Chocolate' afternoon tea menu, which promised an extraordinary array, begining with chocolate savouries, followed by chocolate and cherry scones and a range of chocolate cakes. The pots of tea arrived promptly and we were able to fortify ourselves for the challenges ahead, helped by the delightful accompanying lemon curd truffles.<br />
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The savouries were particularly unusual - rarebit with chocolate, crostini with chocolate pesto and chocolate tapenade, and chicken wraps with a chocolate mole (for those, who like me, don't know about such things this, this is pronounced mo-lay, and is a Mexican sauce, not a small chocolate burrowing mammal). </div>
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To be honest, the chocolate was not a strong taste feature in any of these, but they were very pleasant, and the rarebit really quite delicious (the first rarebit of the odyssey, and certainly worth the inclusion). Still, it gave a coherent theme and a novel twist.</div>
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I was not sure what I would make of the scones, but actually was very pleasantly surprised - I enjoyed mine very much and the topping of crunchy sugar added an additional pleasing taste and texture. Alex was a little concerned by their crispy finish, but I felt this worked in the particular combination.</div>
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Rocky Road, Chocolate Orange and stem ginger brownies topped the cake stand and were generally agreed to be delicious, although we were all rather full by that point. It was a generous and well-thought-out tea and was very suitable for the setting.<br />
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<h3>
The Happiness and Sociability of Tea.</h3>
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Thirty-Second Tea - Thirty-Second Year</h3>
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Another lovely afternoon, and I hope to return to the York Cocoa House - Rachel and I were both taken with the idea of their chocolate workshops, and I am sure there are some very important skills thta we really ought to learn.</div>
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Tea and chocolate - a joyful combination.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-65338478016776902422013-12-29T16:34:00.000-08:002013-12-29T16:38:56.440-08:00Tea the Thirty-First<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>You remember Cleopatra </i></div>
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<i>Had a date to meet Mark Anthony at three </i></div>
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<i>When he came an hour late she said "You'll have to wait" </i></div>
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<i>For everything stops for tea.</i></div>
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Featured in Jack Buchanan's 1935 film, "Come Out Of The Pantry" </div>
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(Goodhart / Hoffman / Sigler)</div>
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<h3>
Hazlewood Castle Hotel, Hazlewood, North Yorkshire - Sunday 29th December 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Angela Rothbury</div>
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Olivia Rothbury</div>
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A beautiful clear winter day and, as the sun began to set, we drove the very familiar road towards Leeds, turning off half-way to follow the winding drive through the woods to Hazlewood Castle. It is a gorgeous setting and somewhere I have hoped might feature in the odyssey, and provided an excellent location for another important reunion tea. This time we came to meet Angela, my Latin teacher, and a huge influence from my school days, and her daughter Olivia, who was briefly my colleague at Leweston.</div>
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The earliest records of buildings on the site are found in Domesday Book, which relates that Sir Mauger the Vavasour resided in the Hall of a Thane at Hazelwood (which is just a lovely phrase to type - these opportunites don't come often enough). The Vavasour family, in a feat of impressive continuity, then lived here until the early Twentieth century, with a Thirteenth century scion applying to the king to be allowed to crennellate and fortify his manor, which made it officially a castle. Parts of the original castle remain, augmented over the centuries to form a mixture of styles and adjoining buildings that are a very attractive conglomeration. It is an idyllic setting.<br />
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The family remained Catholic following the Reformation and the Castle remained in Catholic hands even when sold in 1908. In 1971, having been sold to Carmelite Friars, it became a retreat house. This was its use when I first knew of the place as a teenager. We were told at school that they had amongst their relics the skull of St Luke Kirby, the martyr after whom our form was named, and there was talk that we might visit it, although sadly that was never achieved.<br />
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The Castle was sold again in 1996 and was renovated to become a country house hotel.<br />
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We took tea in the library, book-lined with Jacobean dark wood shelving, and a fire burning in the stove at the base of the baronial fireplace.</div>
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Tea was very pleasant, sandwiches, scones and clotted cream and a nice selection of cakes, including a fine tarte au citron. Paul felt it was a little ungenerous - only one type of sandwich per person, one scone and small cakes, however, in their defence, I think the standard of the goods was high and it was very reasonably priced - I certainly had eaten very well and thought that all aspects rated highly on the Ryan tea assessment scale.</div>
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Paul rolls up his sleeves for serious work:</div>
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Olivia (the younger) opted for toast for which she gave an entirely positive review.</div>
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As mentioned above, Angela was my Latin teacher at Notre Dame High School in Leeds from when I was thirteen. She taught me both Latin and Classical Studies for A-level and inspired in me a great love for both subjects - I am very aware as a teacher myself, how much she influenced the way I teach, and how I understand learning. She was also always enormous fun, and it was really lovely to spend time with her again today and to enjoy her excellent company.</div>
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I say she taught me throughout my time at school, but there were a notable few terms when she was away on maternity leave - I remember, when we were told the news that she had a new daughter called Olivia, thinking 'what a lovely name' - then stored that thought away for future consideration.</div>
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Somw twenty years later, a couple of years into the Graduate Assistant scheme at Leweston, I was really excited to see that one Olivia Rothbury had applied - it was immediately clear from her application that she had to be the person I suspected. Having professionally handed over the decision-making to other colleages, I was delighted that she turned out to be obviously an outstanding candidate and came to join our team. Inevitably, perhaps, a chip off the old block, she is a natural teacher and we were very lucky to have her. </div>
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I remember it was particularly entertaining, and a unique experience, to be able to unnerve an interview candidate by saying "actually, we have met before - I babysat for you when you were two..."</div>
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Angela has only recently retired from Notre Dame and so it was good to catch up on news and to hear how much things have changed there now. Both Rothbury ladies were exemplary tea companions and I am so pleased they were able to join us.</div>
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Thirty-First Tea - Thirty-First Year</h3>
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Mothers and their Olivias</h3>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-57400210647659579732013-12-28T13:51:00.003-08:002013-12-28T13:58:49.184-08:00Tea the Thirtieth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures</i></div>
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<i> which attend a wintry fireside; </i><i>candles at four o'clock, </i></div>
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<i>warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, </i><i>shutters closed, </i></div>
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<i>curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, </i></div>
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<i>whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.</i></div>
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Thomas de Quincey</div>
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<h3>
36 Well House Drive, Leeds - 26th December 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Jean Thacker</div>
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Margaret Griffith</div>
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Time for tea at my Mum's, in the house where I grew up. We moved to 36 Well House Drive in summer 1988 and it was the home of my late teens.<br />
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A suburban semi of no great architectural beauty, but an important formative place for me.<br />
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Tea on Boxing Day was a great opportunity to add festive joy to tea and indulge in gingerbread and other Christmas baking experiments.<br />
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Lemon drizzle cake (perhaps not strictly Christmassy, but my favourite cake, and baked in a novel tin and glittered, so it definitely counts!)<br />
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An opportunity to try out new Ikea cutters for 3D biscuits<br />
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Iced Christmas biscuits, Mars Bar 'munch' and some very lovely brownies made by Olivia<br />
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Of course, it wouldn't have been afternoon tea without scones and clotted cream so Mary Berry's recipe came back into its own. Foolishly I forgot the strawberry jam but we had lemon curd and blackcurrant jam as options, which were pleasing if not ideal.<br />
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Saucer crackers were pleasing...<br />
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...if a little difficult to pull.<br />
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The quality of the jokes was predictable<br />
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And some people thought it was appropriate to gesture with them - tsk!<br />
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It was lovely to be able to use my Grandma's tea service for tea (bought by my Mum for my Grandparents 25th wedding anniversary in 1959, my Grandma having always longed for a rose bud tea set). When I was a child this was something only ever brought out on high days and holy days and it is a clear mark of this being a 'proper' tea party.</div>
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Another significant artefact for the occasion was our family teapot - bought by Margie before I was born the teapot (with it attendant hot water jug, milk jug and sugar bowl) - for me it is in a way the archetypal teapot for all its seventies styling.<br />
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<b>Thirtieth Tea - Thirtieth Year</b></div>
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Margie is my Godmother and is more 'family' than many relations. She and my Mum met when teaching in Liverpool in the mid-fifties and have been close friends ever since. She has been a crucial support and provider to our family over many years - she took me on my first trip to London, took me to Austria and Venice, read AA Milne poems to me more times than any adult should have to, and was a key figure in my childhood. </div>
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The best part of sixty years of friendship and they're still smiling...</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-43724537357222459762013-12-20T15:01:00.000-08:002013-12-20T15:07:15.312-08:00Tea the Twenty-Ninth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>Now cheer the fire and close the shutters fast, </i></div>
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<i>Let fall the shutters, wheel the sofa round,</i></div>
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<i> And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn</i></div>
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<i>Throws up a steamy column and the cups</i></div>
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<i> That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, </i></div>
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<i>So let us welcome peaceful evening in.</i></div>
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William Cowper - The Task</div>
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<h3>
Bettys, Ilkley - Friday 20th December 2013</h3>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Jean Thacker</div>
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Mary Taylor</div>
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Another tea, another Bettys - and frankly, why not, when they do it so well? This time we came to Ilkley with my Mum and a very special family friend, Auntie Mary, enjoying the scenic drive over from her home in Harrogate, with its winding roads skirting the dales and the final stretch affording an excellent view of Ilkely Moor and the Cow and Calf rocks, as you enter the town.<br />
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Ilkely is somewhere I have always enjoyed visiting. The Cow and Calf constituted a very exciting trip out when I was a child, and once I earned the status of driver, with its attendant independence, it was somewhere I often drove out to with friends.<br />
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Bettys is located in a very typical West Yorkshire stone building and, whilst like the Northallerton branch, its fittings are more recent that the classic Harrogate and York establishments, it has the signature elegance of the company, and a definite air of early twentieth century tea room chic.<br />
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Tea was as excellent as we have come to expect. I particularly recommend the brioche french toast with bacon, which was glorious. Auntie Mary was very pleased with her rarebit scone, and Olivia also with her now customary bacon muffin.</div>
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After the savouries, we then were able to summon the cake trolley, which was an exceedingly pleasing vehicle. Notice the size of Olivia's eyes as she anticipates cake joy.<br />
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Meringue with fresh fruit was the most popular choice with Paul, Mum and Auntie Mary all opting for that, and giving it unequivocally good reviews (Paul claims that it constituted four of his 'five a day' and was practically health food). Olivia had a slice of a very attractive glossy chocolate cake, but if this odyssey has taught us one thing it is that she reacts unpleasantly to nuts, and after a second mouthful it became clear that these were included among the ingredients (Note Bettys: this is something that you probably ought to indicate) - however, a glass of water helped stem the swelling, and a supply of chocolate from Grandma's handbag provided some compensation.<br />
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My eye was caught by a platter almost hidden on the bottom shelf, which was piled with festive fondant fancies - and the delicate mistletoe embellished cube that I received, as well as looking pleasingly elegant and simple, was absolutely delightful - light vanilla sponge, icing with smart crisp edges but a delightfully fudge-like texture, and effectively restrained jam and buttercream filling - quite perfect.<br />
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Auntie Mary and Uncle Ken are incredibly important people in my life, not least because it was they who brought my parents together. Now that Dad and Uncle Ken are no longer with us, I can only assume that they are wreaking benevolent havoc together somewhere in the Elysian fields. Best friends from their days training to be Methodist ministers, they were most definitely kindred spirits in creativity, spirituality and mischief. Among other exploits they liked to wander the streets of Manchester walking their imaginary hippopotamus, O'Brien - with one of them calling to passers-by to clear the way while the other clung on to the invisible tether. Whilst obviously missing them very much, they both enhanced our lives so much that we cannot but be grateful and joyful to have been part of the fun.<br />
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Auntie Mary was an excellent and discriminating tea companion and we all had a very enjoyable and relaxed afternoon.<br />
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Seeing how important this long friendship remains, is very special and I hope that I am still having tea with some of those of you who have joined me recently when I am in my seventies.<br />
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Twenty-Ninth Tea - Twenty-Ninth Year</h3>
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The Ilkley branch also featured the usual delightful shop, heaped with beautifully presented if rather expensive items. You can buy a Bettys silver teapot if you have £220 to spare, and add to it a silver salver and cake stand if you want to recreate the whole experience at home. More dangerously tempting are the shelves of cakes, biscuits, and glass cabinets full of cakes and pastries. Fortunately eating a substantial and satisfying tea does give you strength to avoid these blandishments and walk nonchalantly through the shop.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-14377298336193456662013-12-17T15:20:00.000-08:002013-12-17T15:24:23.489-08:00Tea the Twenty-Eighth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<i>Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. </i></div>
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<i>'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, </i></div>
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<i>'so I can't take more.'</i></div>
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Lewis Carroll</td></tr>
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Bettys, Stonegate, York - Tuesday 17th December 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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) </div>
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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.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Twenty-Eighth Tea - Twenty-Eighth Year</h3>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-43069872013847405282013-12-15T10:35:00.004-08:002013-12-15T10:44:19.536-08:00Tea the Twenty-Seventh<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUB_U3NCskJ7HfIioM30AybZ7I0t3lxlFIKNEW6S-gMbAOCb6tztqMhDEN1cm-RBeROXlimb7VhJKzz_WQ5R4zZckiOFWxOhR6hOgkb5DI75EKP66KE__kKqtW8BREQdgm72DTrKBkTc/s1600/IMG_0034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUB_U3NCskJ7HfIioM30AybZ7I0t3lxlFIKNEW6S-gMbAOCb6tztqMhDEN1cm-RBeROXlimb7VhJKzz_WQ5R4zZckiOFWxOhR6hOgkb5DI75EKP66KE__kKqtW8BREQdgm72DTrKBkTc/s320/IMG_0034.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, </i></div>
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<i>being offered to persons that have already dined well, </i></div>
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<i>it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, </i></div>
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<i>and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment.</i></div>
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Jean Brillat-Savarin -The Physiology of Taste</div>
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<h3>
The Eastbury Hotel, Long Street, Sherborne, Dorset - Saturday 14th December 2013</h3>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Roger An Grows</div>
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Jo Ellis</div>
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Paul Ellis</div>
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Rachel Greaves</div>
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Rosie Monaghan</div>
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Amelia Monaghan</div>
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Verity Monaghan</div>
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Maggie Nightingale</div>
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John Willetts</div>
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Lu Worrall</div>
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Sophie Worrall</div>
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Another long anticipated tea, in a special place with a group of very important people.<br />
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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. <br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Lu passes the sandwiches<br />
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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...<br />
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The younger ladies enjoyed a table to themselves.<br />
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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...<br />
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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Twenty-Seventh Tea - Twenty-Seventh Year</div>
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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.</div>
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Not forgetting the important site of historical importance that is Mr Ryan's former classroom (lower windows)<br />
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Towards the end of the afternoon behaviour did begin to lapse.</div>
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Miss Ryan forgot all about deportment</div>
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Mr Willetts thought it was acceptable to attack his wife</div>
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and I, apparently, revealed something scandalous to Rosie<br />
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Still, as Maggie's very splendid card points out, we had a panacea at the ready<br />
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Just a very happy day!<br />
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-41542584498665981942013-12-08T14:54:00.001-08:002013-12-08T15:12:06.602-08:00Tea the Twenty-Sixth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<i>Is there no Latin word for tea? Upon my soul, if I had </i></div>
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<i>known that I would have left the vulgar stuff alone.</i></div>
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Hilaire Belloc</div>
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Horsted Place Hotel, Little Horsted, East Sussex - Sunday 8th December 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Debora Downing</div>
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Lynn Varley</div>
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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.</div>
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DD and Lynn are very fine colleagues, who were clearly going to be excellent company for a country house afternoon.</div>
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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.</div>
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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).</div>
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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.</div>
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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).</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Twenty-Sixth Tea - Twenty-Sixth Year</h3>
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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.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-70189434466690472232013-10-30T16:09:00.002-07:002013-10-30T16:19:58.937-07:00Tea the Twenty-Fifth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.</i></div>
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Ralph Waldo Emerson</div>
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<h3>
Palazzo Parisio, Naxxar, Malta - Sunday, 27th October 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Patricia Cassar Torregiani</div>
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Mary Cassar Torregiani</div>
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Our friendship with Patricia is another that is rooted in Lourdes. We met on our pilgrimage after Patricia came to Oxford for postgraduate Law studies. It was lovely then, in more recent years, when Patricia brought Mary with her, and our daughters became friends too. It hasn't been possible for us all to meet there for the last few years, but we have been saying that we should get together for quite some time now. When I first began to plan a list of possible tea places, I rather tentatively put 'Malta?' but didn't really think it was a practical possibilities. Paul's new found enthusiasm for air travel, however, found him browsing flights in the summer and so a plan was hatched for an October half-term trip.<br />
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Then and now...<br />
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<h3>
Palazzo Parisio</h3>
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Of course, the first thing I did, once the possibility of the visit became real, was to message Patricia and tell her to start thinking about tea locations. Her choice was very pleasing indeed. On the Sunday in the middle of our five day stay, Patricia and Mary took us to the Palazzo Parisio in the village of Naxxar.<br />
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Built in the 18th Century by one of the Grand Masters of the Knights, Antonio Manoel de Vilhena, it was bought from the Parisio family in the 19th Century by Marquis Guiseppe Scicluna, and remains still in the possession of the same family, who now run it as a restaurant and wedding venue. The elegance and opulence of its design has been maintained and developed, and it is a very stylish location. <br />
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We took tea in the garden - October in Malta is a very different experience to October in England - and enjoyed a peaceful and attractive setting (all the more pleasing and surprising given the bustle of the roads immediately outside the palazzo). Olivia and Mary took advantage of the freedom to roam from time to time, and Patricia, Paul and I relaxed over tea, beneath the canopies looking out over the fountains and low hedged sections of the garden.<br />
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The traditional afternoon tea was very satisfying, with good sandwiches (perhaps cut a little larger than some, but this is a very minor quibble). Olivia and I suffered our, now familiar, disappointment at the news there were only fruit scones, but as it turned out they contained so little fruit that we enjoyed them very much - and so, what others might mark as a failing became a considerable positive for us.<br />
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The range of cakes and pastries were good - I swiftly bagged the lemon meringue and was not let down. Brownies, Battenburg cake and the strawberry tart that Paul enjoyed, all contributed to a good palate of pleasingly varied colour and shape. Olivia and Mary opted for chocolate cake instead of the full tea (although this did not stop Olivia pilfering scones from her parents) and this was also very tasty and not too heavy, which is not an inconsiderable achievement.<br />
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In an interesting Mediterranean twist, tea was served in cafetiere-style glass affairs, whilst Paul's coffee came in what can only be described as a teapot.<br />
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It was a lovely tea and there was little left over...<br />
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Delightful company, good food and beautiful surroundings, rounded off by a fine evening stroll along Valletta's waterfront<br />
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Worth travelling 1700 miles for any day.<br />
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<h3>
Malta</h3>
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Malta, with its smaller sisters Gozo and Comino, form an archipelago in the Mediterranean some 70 miles south of Sicily. Lying more southerly than some of the northern coasts of Africa, this is the furthest south any of the Ryans have been and will quite clearly be the southernmost tip of the odyssey (Interesting to note, given my tendency to bandy that noun about in this blog, it is often claimed that it was on Gozo that the nymph Calypso held Odysseus in her thrall for six years - we naturally took the opportunity to visit her cave whilst in the vicinity, and enjoyed the additional benefit of its proximate sandy beach).<br />
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The islands have a remarkable history, encompassing extraordinarily developed neolithic settlements, with vast and complex temple sites the earliest parts of which pre-date Stonehenge and the building of the Egyptian pyramids by over a millennium; playing host for three months to St Paul, who was shipwrecked here en route to Rome; dramatic and often violent attacks from different powers wishing to secure them; rule by the order of the Knights of St John (more commonly known as the Knights of Malta) who were an extraordinary and unusual power of early modern Europe; under the rule of Britain from the early19th century, they suffered bitterly under German and Italian attack in World War Two, famously the whole country being awarded the George Cross for their bravery under this attack and the pivotal role Malta played in the defence of the allied forces in the Mediterranean; and now, independent since the early 60s, as a recent member of the EU finding their own European voice. As such a history suggests there is a wealth of interesting and impressive sights to see.<br />
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Coming from a Britain where the Autumn was turning distinctly cold, it was an additional treat to be in warm sunshine (to wake in the night needing to switch on the air con, rather than the heating...), and to gaze day after day on the deep blue waters of the sea - as a child growing up on the northern verges of Europe I had always really felt that the whole idea of sea being blue was a romantic nonsense (we all know the sea is slate grey, after all) but here it is an entrancing reality.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Twenty-Fifth Tea - Twenty-Fifth Year</h3>
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Ceremonial</h3>
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A day of contrasting ceremonial experiences:<br />
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Morning - high mass at St John's Cathedral in Valletta - the usual 'full works' - Latin, polyphony, chant, incense, unusually high biretta quotient and exceptional use of two thuribles, in order to cense the consecration sconces with reasonable speed, it being a special feast to celebrate the Cathedral's consecration.<br />
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At midday a visit to two Neolithic temple sites at Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, where we tried to fathom the possible rituals of early man. (The hectoring tone of the audio guide, as it persisted in demanding that we come up with our own theories about the use of the buildings, seemed rather to undermine the painstaking work of generations of archaeologists and historians).<br />
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Ending the afternoon, then, at that most civilised of ceremonies - the rite of the tea table.<br />
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-60331097411670818072013-09-28T14:59:00.001-07:002013-09-28T15:09:51.184-07:00Tea the Twenty-Fourth<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkeYg5eGy65EDhwfADmt7DsVhkJNW0RG5k-LL-jVQ4jyoMRwBr1o4c96XL8RvSqI6t16Sl2upBusFBiz1HYtE6EYv5eG3erDoO8wTz8xg9vhKm_X8SK1AqSD3nVyaQHZWfrMuXYznp5Q/s1600/IMG_7527.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkeYg5eGy65EDhwfADmt7DsVhkJNW0RG5k-LL-jVQ4jyoMRwBr1o4c96XL8RvSqI6t16Sl2upBusFBiz1HYtE6EYv5eG3erDoO8wTz8xg9vhKm_X8SK1AqSD3nVyaQHZWfrMuXYznp5Q/s320/IMG_7527.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
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<div class="p1">
<i>There is not trouble so great or grave that cannot be much</i></div>
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<i> diminished by a nice cup of tea.</i></div>
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Bernard-Paul Heroux</div>
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<h3>
Bettys, Harrogate - Saturday 28th September 2013</h3>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Jean Thacker</div>
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Kathryn Asbury</div>
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Iris Asbury</div>
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Gillian Kerrigan</div>
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A return to Bettys, this time to the original in Harrogate to celebrate the birthday of my Mum, Jean. The typical high standards and elegance of these very fine Yorkshire establishments were well maintained and we enjoyed a very fine tea in the company of some very special friends.</div>
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Olivia - joined by her mother, grandmother and godmother for the occasion. Kathryn and her Mum, Gillian, and eldest daughter, Iris, were excellent company and it was very lovely to have the opportunity to meet up with them mid-term on a fleeting visit north.</div>
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Bettys, Harrogate</h3>
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As I have recorded elsewhere in this blog, Swiss confectioner Frederick Belmont, established Bettys in Harrogate in 1919. Immensely successful from the start it was the beginning of a local legend and is still a place that people flock too. Only yesterday I overheard colleagues (who had no idea of my plans for today) at lunch in Sussex discussing a visit to Bettys in Harrogate in hushed tones.<br />
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It is still a family business and maintains its commitment to very high quality goods and service, and fabulous confectionery.<br />
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Today we sat downstairs in what in known as The Spindler Gallery - an elegant room where every alcove and wall is decorated by marquetry pictures from the famous Spindler workshop in Alsace - another reminder of Bettys European links. Continental scenes are accompanied by many specially created Yorkshire locations and it was very pleasing that we were placed below a very familiar vista.<br />
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One significant mystery is why the cafe is called Bettys at all. No-one actually knows, although there are thought to be a number of possible candidates for 'Betty' - which range from Elizabeth Bowes Lyon - later the Queen Mother; a manageress of Harrogate Spa, Betty Lupton, a local doctor's daughter who died of tuberculosis to a small girl who interrupted the first board meeting when the name of the tea rooms was being chosen. In the shop you can buy a book of stories which imagine who Betty might have been - never let it be said Bettys would miss out on a creative marketing opportunity.<br />
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Tea was all that we might have expected. Paul and Gillian chose the Yorkshire cream tea, and rated the scones very highly. The clotted cream and jam was copious and much enjoyed. Others opted for a range of toasted and sweet goods. I had my first pikelets of the odyssey and they were very delicious. This was followed by a raspberry macaroon with fresh raspberries, which was quite idyllic. Paul's only criticism was what he felt to be the excessive bitterness of the coffee, however those of us with the discrimination to opt for tea were well pleased with our beverages. </div>
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Mum enjoyed a rarebit scone and engadine cake (layers of meringue and hazelnut) and Kathryn a delicate frangipane.</div>
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Olivia so enjoyed her bacon muffin that it was necessary to order a second.<br />
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Perhaps the most exotic item, however, was Iris' gingerbread bat.<br />
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Beautiful silverware, elegant china and the discreet attentiveness of smart and helpful waitresses - all hallmarks of the Bettys experience - made for a truly lovely afternoon.<br />
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<h3>
Three Generations of Friendship</h3>
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Kathryn has been one of my very closest and most special friends since we were in sixth form together. At one stage in our lives we spent much of our time together and in and out of each other's houses. Our mothers were sources of advice, support, welcome and food at all hours and in many different situations. It has been lovely that in the years since we have both moved away from home, started families and had to maintain a more geographically distant friendship that our mothers have become very good friends who see each other regularly, and that whilst we can only get together once in a while our daughters love spending time with each other.</div>
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Twenty-Fourth Tea - Twenty-Fourth Year</h3>
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The Birthday Girl</h3>
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Today is my Mum's 77th birthday, and it has been lovely that we have been able to travel up for the weekend to celebrate with her. </div>
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Everyone feels their Mum is really the one who typifies the nature of the maternal role, but I know that it's actually my Mum. Thoughtful, resourceful, supportive, considerate, and utterly loving and giving she is a very good friend to many and lynch pin for her family. A teacher and musician, she has been a role model and an inspiration. Her strength and love has allowed me to become the person I am, and so it was essential that part of this odyssey should be celebration of her too.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-78747032443544085152013-09-14T15:41:00.003-07:002013-09-15T13:42:31.665-07:00Tea the Twenty-Third<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo507-b7dOp7wapnfKG7jIdwQyhMPEJjYJpj-Hrdfdjxu2bCm6MeHrdhOMgcPbAovziP-CtaA3uMfC5IFCGw46-McvrG4lgm4BY7MlUyg139rKHwWY93ChrS7vjohAbeTESsjU3CDzLDQ/s1600/IMG_7459.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo507-b7dOp7wapnfKG7jIdwQyhMPEJjYJpj-Hrdfdjxu2bCm6MeHrdhOMgcPbAovziP-CtaA3uMfC5IFCGw46-McvrG4lgm4BY7MlUyg139rKHwWY93ChrS7vjohAbeTESsjU3CDzLDQ/s320/IMG_7459.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort and refinement.</i><br />
Arthur Gray - The Little Tea Book, 1903</td></tr>
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<h3>
<br />The Savoy, Strand, London - 14th September 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Very Reverend Canon Peter Newby</div>
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Honorary Tea Takers</h3>
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Kate Taylor</div>
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Greg Ireton</div>
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The Savoy was the key place on my tea locations wish list, and, knowing this, the delightful Kate Taylor, sent to me for my birthday a voucher for a Champagne afternoon tea at said establishment. She is a very generous and generally marvellous person and ideally this tea would have been in her company, but the rather inconvenient fact that she choses to live in her homeland of Australia has made this rather tricky. Therefore I have decided that she and her boyfriend Greg should be awarded the status of honorary tea-takers for this occasion. We had their picture with us at the table and drank to them in the various high quality beverages on offer.</div>
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Built on the site of the thirteenth century Savoy Palace, The Savoy Hotel was built in the late 1880s by theatre impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It was London's first luxury hotel, and its innovations included electric lighting, en suite bathrooms and constant hot and cold running water. It was at The Savoy that Auguste Escoffier first came to eminence in the world of cuisine, and where he created many of his most famous dishes, such as Peach Melba, Melba toast and Fraise a la Sarah Bernhardt. (Although later in his career at the Ritz he was horrified by the rise of the hotel afternoon tea: "How can one eat jam, cakes and pastries and enjoy a dinner - the king of meals - an hour or two later?")</div>
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The list of emminent guests and performers at the hotel is extraordinary - just a few examples: George VI became the first reigning monarch to dine in any hotel at a private party here; Churchill liked to lunch at The Savoy with his war cabinet; Gershwin gave the British premiere of Rhapsody in Blue here, and when the hotel hosted a ball to celebrate the coronation of the Queen in 1953, the cabaret was under the direction of Laurence Olivier, Noel Coward and John Mills.</div>
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Always a byword for luxury the hotel was extensively refurbished from 2007 to 2010 (at a cost of £220 million...) and not only opulent and elegant it is now also unusually energy efficient and environmentally conscious in its running.</div>
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Afternoon tea is now served in the Thames Foyer (which leads to the striking Art Deco Thames Restaurant). This is a large room lit by a beautiful glass cupola which, before the refurbishment, had been covered since the Second World War. It is airy, light, comfortably elegant and provides very congenial surroundings.</div>
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Tea was very fine indeed, as one might well expect in such a place.</div>
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Decisions, decisions... Olivia gets to grips with the 31 varieties of tea on offer:</div>
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A 'first course' consisted of sandwiches and scones, which were replenished swiftly at our whim. The scones were exceptionally good - in the odyssey so far, I think only Brown's can compete on this score. My only quibble was with the bread for some of the sandwiches, which had some pungent seed in it, which gave it a rather aniseed-y taste, and was not really to my taste. The following cakes and pastries, though, swiftly made up for this. Instead of a further cake stand the waitress brought a large tray of elegant rows of some six or seven different petit fours, for us to choose as many as we would like. The chocolate mouse with salted caramel shortbread was particularly lovely, although the raspberry and chocolate macaron was a close second. To finish a smiling waiter then brought the cake trolley with three different large cakes, to cut slices at our discretion.</div>
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Escoffier was right to be concerned. I am not sure if I will need to eat again for some days now.</div>
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I would also like to commend the rococo tea strainers which I was most taken with - sadly it didn't seem the done thing, though, to attempt to smuggle one out in my handbag.</div>
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A pianist playing in the central filigree pergola was a pleasing ambient detail of the afternoon, and despite her expression of intense boredom, she played very well. Gershwin, Scott Joplin, Bach - these were all pleasing reminder of different people and times in my life. A piano solo version of David Bowie's "All you young dudes" was slightly more surreal in this context, and when she struck up Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' I did nearly choke on my sandwich. It certainly was an interesting element of the whole experience.</div>
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Once again we had excellent company for tea, this time in the person of our friend, Peter, whom we have known since he became the chaplain at Oxford just after we went down. He is someone else who we got to know though going to Lourdes. Incredibly important in key events of our family life, he was the principal celebrant at our wedding and baptised Olivia, as well as being a good friend and our very generous host on some fantastic Italian holidays, most recently inviting us to join him this August for a marvellous 'Newby Tour' in the Marche.</div>
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Twenty-Third Tea - Twenty-Third Year</h3>
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More really should be said of Kate. We met in January 1997 when Kate came to England to be a graduate gap student at King's Bruton, the school where I had begun my teaching career the term before. She is most definitely a kindred spirit and a very special friend. She is clever, funny and creative and travelled from Canada to be my witness at our wedding. She has now for years been very happily settled back in Australia, and whilst we have never met Greg, we can only assume that, given he has the combination of good taste and dubious sanity to chose to spend his life with Kate, he must be a very good thing - we would really loved to have had tea with them but Paul says I can't fly to Australia just to do this so we will have to put up with this compromise.</div>
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Kate always does a great line in birthday cards so my Savoy voucher was accompanied by this:</div>
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The staff at The Savoy had clearly noticed the birthday greetings on the voucher and so I was one of the ten people in the restaurant that received the celebratory treatment - the pianist struck up the familiar tune and a phalanx of waiting staff glided to appropriate tables with adorned plates - I didn't feel any need to tell them my birthday was seven months ago, after all this is simply another of my many celebrations - hurrah!</div>
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Thank you lovely people of Melbourne for this very fine experience!</div>
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It was also a throw away comment of Kate's that 'you ought write a blog' that inspired this record of the odyssey - she is responsible for much...</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-88331645709492448082013-08-24T12:55:00.001-07:002013-08-24T13:23:25.833-07:00Tea the Twenty-Second<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
A man who wishes to make his way in life could do no better </div>
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than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.</div>
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Sydney Smith</div>
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The Old Government House, St Peter Port, Guernsey - Saturday 24th August</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Bronwyn Henderson</div>
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Philip Henderson</div>
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Agnes Henderson</div>
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An end-of-summer visit to the lovely Henderson family to pay homage to its newest member, provided the opportunity for a Channel Island tea. Back in February, a birthday scroll from Bronwyn and Philip had invited us to tea at The Old Government House, so this has been long anticipated.</div>
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Guernsey is a great place to visit and we have enjoyed several trips and much entertainment since Bronwyn came here in 2005, including a rather fabulous wedding in 2011 and now the excitement of meeting Miss Agnes. Bronwyn and I have been friends since she arrived at King's, Bruton in January 1999, and tea has always been an important feature of our socialising - she is one of those people around whom I visualised the whole 'tea odyssey' concept so it is particularly good that, at last, we are taking tea together.</div>
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The Old Government House (Guernsey's only five star hotel - Philip's tourism fact) began life, in the late 18th Century, as the residence of the Governor of the Bailiwick. It was only 1858, however, that it became a hotel, and so has now been such an institution for around three times as long as it had its Government House function. An interesting hotch potch of buildings, inside it is elegant and comfortable, and we had a well-appointed corner for our enjoyment.</div>
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Tea was of a highly creditable standard. It was generous in proportions and there was a wide range of both cakes and sandwiches.</div>
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Paul felt the sandwiches lacked daintiness, but especially enjoyed the chicken, almond and mayonnaise number, which was cut in a pleasing roundel.</div>
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The scones were a very nice flavour, but a little chewy and not as light as some. Olivia felt they would have benefitted from being warm, but the clotted cream and jam were plentiful and they were a very enjoyable tea staple.</div>
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Service was pleasant and initally swift, but might have been a little more attentive over the time we stayed - we had to request fresh tea, etc, and whilst they were happy to bring a box for us to take away cakes we were left to fill it for ourselves.</div>
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<h3>
Additional Liquids</h3>
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Bronwyn and I opted for the augmented 'Bellini tea' and respectively enjoyed our peach and strawberry Bellinis. </div>
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Agnes opted for a more milk based repast.</div>
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<h3>
Agnes May Jessie Henderson</h3>
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Born on 4th June 2013, Agnes is not only the youngest of the tea takers to date but also the only one who wasn't even born when the odyssey began. </div>
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Even very small ladies dress up for tea - getting ready is half the fun...</div>
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She is, of course, the primary reason for this visit to Guernsey, as the daughter of very dear friends. We were so delighted for Bronwyn and Philip when she arrived and then deeply honoured and very joyful to be asked to be her Godparents. </div>
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Agnes seems to be taking the situation in her stride and is resigning herself to what this might mean.</div>
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She was an exemplary tea companion, with a very high cuteness quotient.</div>
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It can all get rather tiring though</div>
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Twenty-Second Tea - Twenty-Second Year</h3>
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Tea making people generally happy:<br />
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-44603445972290359932013-08-18T15:30:00.003-07:002013-08-18T15:37:40.600-07:00Tea the Twenty-First <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAmGvaL6qVrF9xDdME8dUIOeDDIUnq1kIHfe5qUU1WK7gdgur7rNaOTSr_CiAW41TxyMkdCyNSvxDfHDdqPN-XkpxRFfhhSvURuJs1LsqLfgIVARTGByLBop23fvXC8oFs5RwJPoe4Tow/s1600/IMG_6975.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAmGvaL6qVrF9xDdME8dUIOeDDIUnq1kIHfe5qUU1WK7gdgur7rNaOTSr_CiAW41TxyMkdCyNSvxDfHDdqPN-XkpxRFfhhSvURuJs1LsqLfgIVARTGByLBop23fvXC8oFs5RwJPoe4Tow/s320/IMG_6975.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.</i><br />
Ralph Waldo Emerson</td></tr>
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Betty's, Northallerton - Sunday 18th August 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Lucy Matheson</div>
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An impromptu tea on a pleasingly impromptu day. We read in the newsletter at St Wilfrid's this morning that today there was to be the annual pilgrimage to the Middlesborough Diocesan shrine of Our Lady at Mount Grace, Osmotherly. After summer visits to Lourdes and Walsingham it seemed only appropriate to take the opportunity to visit our most local Marian shrine. Our weekend guest, Lucy, was, fortunately, easily persuaded of the virtues of such an outing, and so we made out way up the A19 and to the lovely chapel, high on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors, with its stunning views across the Vale of Mowbray to the Pennines. Mass there was wonderful and it was very good to catch up with some Ampleforth brethren. </div>
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We subsequently made our way down to Northallerton in the vague hope that there might be the possibility of a cup of tea. The typical broad high street of the country market town was well supplied with shops, and to our great delight this included a branch of Betty's, which was still open at the tail end of a Sunday afternoon.</div>
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I have written about Betty's elsewhere in this blog (Tea the Eleventh) and, given the consistent high standards and congeniality of this splendid Yorkshire institution, other establishments will almost certainly feature in the odyssey. Northallerton did not disappoint. Whilst not quite the extraordinary Art Deco extravaganza of central York, it is located in a pleasing substantial, traditional building which has been sympathetically extended into a bright and most attractive tea room at the back. The menu is extremely varied and very enticing (only fruit scones though... tsk). Lucy and Olivia opted for warming toasted goods (Cinnamon toast and toasted muffin, respectively) whilst Paul and I partly solved the difficulties of choice by choosing two cakes to share.</div>
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Everything was beautifully prepared and presented. Paul has declared the strawberry cheese-cake the best he has ever tasted, and the strawberry meringue was both elegant and delicious. Service was very friendly and efficient, and whilst the milk jugs might have been just a little on the small size, they were swiftly and cheerfully filled at our lightest whim.</div>
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Lucy finally overcame her Betty's jinx - she has been thwarted at attempts to visit all of their tea rooms, and so this was quite momentous. Here we have photographic evidence of her taking photographic evidence of finally achieving this.</div>
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The location provided something for everyone, and Olivia found a suitably edifying item among the newspapers to which she gave serious attention.</div>
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Twenty-First Tea - Twenty-First Year</h3>
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Our Lady of Mount Grace</h3>
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The Chapel of Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, is on a site to which pilgrims have travelled for over six hundred years. Originally a chapel built by the the Carthusians of Mount Grace Priory in the valley below (dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and St Nicholas), and for many years a hermitage, it remained a place of pilgrimage even in the midst of the religious persecutions of the Tudor period. Ironically it fell into neglect and disrepair after the emancipation of Catholics in this country, but was rediscovered and rebuilt in the twentieth Century. The annual Middlesborough Diocesan pilgrimage to celebrate the Assumption began in 1958, and is a very special event in this historic place.</div>
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A wonderful summer afternoon, ending in a splendid tea - what could be better?</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-12260007332985907902013-08-17T15:47:00.001-07:002013-08-17T15:48:55.660-07:00Tea the Twentieth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>You have arrived at a propitious moment, coincident with </i></div>
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<i>your country's one indisputable contribution to </i></div>
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<i>Western civilisation - afternoon tea.</i></div>
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Hugo Drax - villain of the film 'Moonraker'</div>
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Saturday, 17th August 2013 - Mulberry Hall, Stonegate, York</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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David Bednall</div>
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Today marks half way towards the 21st anniversary of the London congestion charge, and also to the birth of Olivia. A good day for the half way tea, then. After some very entertaining summer travels, also a very pleasing opportunity to enjoy some end of holiday time in York.</div>
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Mulberry Hall is essentially a china shop, situated in Stonegate one of York's older and most picturesque thoroughfares - it sells much more that that though, crystal, silver, cookware, jewellery - many lovely (and, correspondingly, expensive) things, (alongside many more dubious (and, disappointingly, expensive) things). The building is typical of its 15th century origins and is attractively higgledy-piggledy, both inside and out.</div>
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If you can make your way up one of the narrow winding staircases, and through the assault course of sloping floors and (very) low beams without toppling any of the multitudinous displays of fragile and pricey goods, you will find the cafe. This has been in situ for many years and was a place that I came as a child and teenager with family and friends, and of which I have very fond memories. </div>
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The nature of the shop being as it is, the china here has always been rather finer than that of the average cafe, and the current silver stripy affairs are very pleasing, not to mention the very satisfying teapots.</div>
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It was very fine to share this tea with Dave Bednall, an old friend from Sherborne, who was serendipitously involved in the RSCM summer school here this week. In his entertaining company we reminisced about choir tours and concerts past, caught up on news of mutual acquaintances and reflected upon the genius of Alan Partridge. He is a very talented organist, and increasingly emminent composer, but of far more cachet to Olivia, the son of Mrs Bednall, one of her first piano teachers.</div>
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The menu offered many pleasing items - and whilst there was only 'cream tea' rather than full afternoon tea, there was easy opportunity to augment with sandwiches/cakes/baked goods of your choice. Olivia and I took advantage of this to incorporate toast and muffins which we particularly enjoy as a tea element.</div>
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(No prize for identifying which school name Paul was saying as this photograph was taken...)</div>
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The lack of clotted cream was the most serious weaknesses of the repast, and the scones, whilst pleasant, might have been a little lighter, but, that said, it was most commendable and in a very congenial setting.</div>
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Dave's inimitable assessment of the occasion as 'richly jocund' seems only fitting.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Twentieth Tea - Twentieth Year</h3>
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<h3>
York</h3>
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We bought our house in York in August 2009 - a step on the housing ladder and the opportunity to have a bolt hole away from boarding school life. It was one of our better ideas and both the house and the city have both become a much loved home despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that we cannot be here all the time.</div>
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York is beautiful and historic, a city large enough for an interesting and varied culture, but small enough to walk around and feel comfortably familiar very quickly. It is a wonderful place to visit, to live in and to think longingly about when you are deep in the middle of another fraught term in the South East.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-62877365238834441962013-08-04T14:58:00.000-07:002013-08-04T15:05:35.232-07:00Tea the Nineteenth<br />
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<i>Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? </i></div>
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<i>How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.</i></div>
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Sydney Smith</div>
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<h3>
The Randolph Hotel, Beaumont Street, Oxford - Sunday 3rd August 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Nicola Thomas</div>
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Martin Rist</div>
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The very fine celebrations of the Broome Saunders' birthdays brought us to Oxford, and provided the opportunity for another Oxford tea. It was inevitable that The Randolph should feature in the odyssey at some point (and, yes, I know some hotel chain think that just because they own it they can change its name to incorporate theirs, but I refuse to give in to the barbarians) and it was a very civilised setting for a lazy Sunday afternoon. </div>
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'The' grand hotel of central Oxford, situated opposite the Ashmolean Museum in the centre of this most beautiful city, it has long represented elegance and style. We came here today with our friends Nicola and Martin - who are always civilised and stylish, and therefore exceptionally appropriate. Nicola and I met as undergraduates at Oxford, and indeed we came to The Randolph (with Lucy and Sophie), on 8th February 1994, to have breakfast here to celebrate my 21st birthday, so it was only poetic justice to drag her back again.</div>
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Tea was served in the drawing room - a high ceilinged, typically elegant affair looking out over the Ashmolean. The walls are arrayed with Osbert Lancaster's paintings illustrating <i>Zuleika Dobson</i>, and the room is tasteful and reposeful, with its well-stuffed armchairs and sofas in autumnal shades of sage green and burnt orange, around the impeccable white linen on the low tables. All very pleasant.</div>
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There were a couple of initial qualms, however. The china was a little chunky, perhaps rather too 'catering' for our (now very exacting) taste, and whilst offering an alternative to sugar may be thoughtful, there is really no excuse for paper sachets of proprietary sweeteners to surround the sugar bowl. It also rather concerned us when the waitress, from whom we had ordered a drink of water for Olivia, asked me if we wanted more than one 'tub'. Fortunately when it arrived in was in glass rather than Tupperware.</div>
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These quibbles apart, it swiftly became a very high calibre experience. The service was discreetly attentive and the the tea itself was very well supplied.</div>
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I consider wonkiness of the cake stands to be a rather attractive suggestion of frequent use. </div>
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The tea was very generous, beautifully presented and most delicious.</div>
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We all rated the scones very highly. They were clearly very freshly baked and were beautifully light. Martin commented on the very fine contrast between their slightly crunchy crust and the very pleasing softness within - or as he philosophically put it - they were 'an armadillo rather than a Dime bar'. The option of lemon curd, as well as the traditional strawberry jam, was also a successful addition to the tea table.</div>
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The selection of cakes were especially pleasing: perfect Opera cakes, little subtly flavoured Mango layered sponges, fruit cake, a raspberry pannacotta, and, my personal favourite, fabulous miniature lemon meringue tartlets, with crisp pastry, smooth Italian meringue and a beautiful fresh lemon filing.</div>
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Olivia was not entirely enamoured of her chocolate brownie (her purist soul afflicted by the caramel drizzle and the addition of ice-cream), but fortunately Paul and Martin were able, manfully, to finish it for her.</div>
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Add to this, a good choice of sandwiches and a plentiful supply of tea, and The Randolph more than held its own very well in the provisions stakes.</div>
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Nicola, sadly, did bring shame on her family by forgetting to use her tea strainer, and having to do some reparatory fishing...</div>
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On the other hand, in her defence, the tea strainers were rather utilitarian stainless steel 1970s numbers, and not particularly pleasing. Another area for development...</div>
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Built in 1864, named because of its proximity to the, then new, Randolph Gallery in the Ashmolean, The Randolph is one of Oxford's fine Gothic revival buildings. This had been a matter of some debate, as the City Council had wanted a Classical design to blend with the Regency styling of the rest of Beaumont Street. The Gothic design was therefore kept relatively simple and is similar to the Oxford University Museum and Oxford Union Building. It is not surprising to discover that its architect, William Wilkinson, also designed many houses in the north of the city, and the arched windows seem a very Oxford idiom.</div>
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Inside any restraint in the styling was dropped - Gothic doorways, painted wood work, designs on the carpet - if you like it (as I really do) it's quite fabulous. Even the hand dryers in the Ladies are in their own splendid Gothic recesses.</div>
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Nineteenth Tea - Nineteenth Year</h3>
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A most enjoyable tea, with delightful company, in a setting that I would like to inhabit more often.</div>
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Nicola examines her options</div>
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Olivia ensures that none of the decorative icing sugar goes to waste</div>
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Martin delicately enjoys a scone/armadillo</div>
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Paul, less delicately, consumes a sandwich</div>
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Sarah peers, with trepidation, around a cake stand</div>
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To give The Randolph all the credit that it is due, we must also report that when the bill arrived they had undercharged to the tune of one tea. When Paul raised this with them, they insisted that this was the bill they had given us and therefore that was what we should pay - very gentlemanly - bravo.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-50104551475513972972013-07-28T05:29:00.000-07:002013-08-04T15:21:14.987-07:00Tea the Eighteenth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<i>If you are cold tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. </i></div>
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<i>If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.</i></div>
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William Gladstone</div>
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Cafe Riviera Sol (formerly 'La Terrasse'), Lourdes - Wednesday 24th July 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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Mary Clare Doran</div>
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Alex Farmer</div>
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Simon Johnson</div>
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Roseanne Kay</div>
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Kitty Kay</div>
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Gillan McGrath</div>
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Sandra McNally</div>
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Helen Merrington Rust</div>
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Andrea Pass</div>
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Fleur Willson</div>
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I have been coming to Lourdes with the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Lourdes Pilgrimage for sixteen years (with a few years off for small child related activites), and Paul started some two years before, thus this pilgrimage is a hugely important part of our life. So, despite a strong suspicion that France might not easily provide afternoon tea as we know it, it was very necessary that some type of afternoon celebration featuring at least a cup of tea and some cake should be part of the odyssey.</div>
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Despite the fact that our week in Lourdes is extremely busy, there always seems to be a reasonable amount of time to sit in cafes and catch up with others after the work of the day. The 'Terrasse' (as it shall forever be, however hard the owners might try to make us think otherwise) is an old favourite and a place associated with much entertainment and friendship (it was also the place we discovered that a five-year-old Olivia had her first wobbly tooth - a place of significant omen, then...)</div>
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With its large eponymous terrace overlooking the river, with stunning views up to the fort, it is an attractive setting some way removed from the busy streets. It is very popular and can get very busy, but a group of us who could make it foregathered after those of us working in the baths had finished the afternoon session, and found a long table free - the cabinet of cakes was promising and the taking of tea 'a la Francaise' could begin.</div>
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Our pilgrimage group is very diverse and over the years there have been people who are constants - the longest standing has, I think, been coming for 47 years; others who join us for one or two visits; some who come back after long breaks, but always it is a great community, where everyone is equally part of the group, and the friendships formed here are very important to many of us. Some people you only meet once, others you only see this one week each year, but the bond we share remains particularly powerful.</div>
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We all work, in different capacities, for the Hospitalite Notre Dame de Lourdes, which runs the sanctuaries and facilitates the visits of both large pilgrimages and individual visitors, and runs the ceremonies of the shrine - there to serve those who come to this very special place. Whilst generally tiring, often menial, regularly inexplicable and occasionally bizarre, this work is enormously rewarding and genuinely a great privilege.<br />
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Having tea here with some of these friends (and with the 'ghosts' of fellow stagieres and Terasse-regulars-past hovering on the air) was very special indeed.<br />
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Attempting to recreate an English afternoon tea would have been folly, but the delights of French patisserie helped to make up for this. The Tarte au citron and Tarte aux pommes were both much enjoyed by those who chose them, and for others crepes provided a pleasing alternative.</div>
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A few of us did drink tea, and this now brings me to one of my most serious concerns about the French nation as a whole - tea bags. Why do French tea bags contain so little tea? What is the point of this? Even when you buy Twinning's English Breakfast tea here you are on feeble ground. It is a great sadness to me, and, given that the meanness of Ryanair baggage allowances meant that I couldn't stuff my suitcases with adequate supplies, it has been a week of 'not getting enough decent tea' - the sadness of leaving Lourdes this morning was much alleviated by being reunited with my kettle and tin of Taylor's Yorkshire Tea - palpable relief. To return to the afternoon in question, however, by steeping the 'lipton yellow label' for twice as long as advised and with some judicious squeezing, it was pleasant to enjoy something approaching a proper cup.</div>
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Others made the (possibly more sensible) decision to seek alternative refreshment.</div>
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Cyril</h3>
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The 'Terrasse' does not maintain its popularity in Lourdes due to the bonhomie of its waiters. Our waiter for tea, Cyril, provided no contradiction to this. To find that he had actually to take an order for a drink and a cake for each person at the table, seemed to be something of an affront, and he took little care to hide his displeasure. I have been served by him before and noticed a certain surliness in his countenance, but he built on this by developing what might almost be described as a snarl, and employing a less than sensitive delivery technique - note below how Sandra is delicately shoved out of the way as Cyril fulfills her extremely unreasonable request for a crepe.<br />
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Eighteenth Tea - Eighteenth Year</h3>
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Lourdes</h3>
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On the 11th February 1858, in a cave beside the wide river that ran down from the mountains, Our Lady appeared to a young girl, who was searching for firewood with her sister and a friend. Bernadette was a sickly child, who came from a family plunged into poverty and distress. She had little education and was the type of person that it was very easy for others to dismiss. The lady appeared to Bernadette eighteen times between then and the middle of that July, and spoke to her on many of those occasions. She brought a simple message of prayer and repentance, drawing people closer to Christ, and she spoke to Bernadette with great respect and love, which was astonishing to this simple girl. </div>
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Eventually, and for a number of reasons, Bernardette came to be believed by many. At the later apparitions crowds gathered to witness her blessed state of ecstasy. The parish priest, and in turn other church authorities, were finally convinced when the lady answered Bernadette's question, as to who she was, with 'I am the Immaculate Conception' - this was a doctrine only very recently professed by the church and one that this young country girl, who could often not even repeat the basics of her catechism, could not have heard about.</div>
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During the apparitions, at the direction of Our Lady, Bernadette discovered a spring at the back of the cave that was not previously known, she also asked Bernadette to go to the priests and ask them to build a chapel and come to this place in procession. Soon miraculous healings began to be attributed to the place and thousands of pilgrims flocked to the cave. The first church, now the crypt of the main basilica, was completed in 1866.<br />
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Lourdes is one of the most visited Marian shrines in the world, and people come from all over the world, some seeking healing, but more to come to this place where for a short time heaven and earth intersected, and which continues to have a powerful and profound effect on those who come. Because of the healings it quickly became a place of special recourse for the sick - not simply, or even primarily, to come in expectation of physical healing (although the church has recognised sixty-nine 'miraculous' healings, where after extensive investigation there is no physical or psychological basis for the cure), but a place where they experience the power and love of this special place. The sick and the weak are those who are most important in Lourdes and in the large pilgrimages it is the main function of the able-bodied to serve and support them.</div>
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I never really wanted to come to Lourdes - like many others my only experience of the place before I visited was plastic water bottles (in the poorly copied shape of a nineteenth century pious statue with screw top crown), or glow-in-the-dark statues, flashing grottoes and sentimental hymns - I was fundamentally uneasy about this type of personal revelation and mystery. Yet without any real knowledge, understanding or conscious desire, I still decided one year that I would go, and like many others, found that call to Lourdes to have been one of the most important in my life. As a place it challenges my aesthetics, my personal preconceptions, it asks me to do things that I would find almost impossible elsewhere and at its heart, beyond the tat and the superficial, it has shown me more about faith and love than almost any other experience in my life. A chaplain to our group once described coming to Lourdes as like taking hold of a spiritual live wire - I think that is the best last word.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-17476624026803031582013-07-19T11:46:00.000-07:002013-07-19T11:46:19.647-07:00Tea the Seventeenth<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.</i><br />Japanese Proverb</td></tr>
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Knockranny House Hotel, Wesport, County Mayo - Wednesday 17th July 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Olivia Ryan</div>
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An invitation to Aidan's wedding gave us an excellent opportunity for an Irish tea. The Knockranny House Hotel is where tomorrow's wedding reception is to be held and is where we are staying. It has a fabulous location perched above Westport, lying on Clew bay facing out to the Atlantic and with stunning views of Croagh Patrick. Apart from anything else, it was about time that Olivia finally visited the land of her passport.<br />
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After the usual traumas of flying with the family airline, it was lovely to arrive at a very comfortable and well appointed hotel. We had booked tea in advance and a table was laid for us in the bay window of the bar, with the most spectacular view. It will almost certainly be the only tea with a view of the Atlantic. As we sat we watched the clouds scudding across the blue sky over the bay and rise and fall gently over the top of Croagh Patrick itself.<br />
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Tea was delightful. When we arrived we were ushered to what we were assured is the best table and our very friendly and obliging waitress, Sinead, won significant points by showing that she knew we had ordered plain scones and assuring us that the chef had just made them for us (Watch and learn, Weetwood...). The scones were very impressive, light and soft in the middle, with an almost biscuity crunch to the crust. Sadly no clotted cream, but that is probably not in such ready supply so far west, so we will let that pass on this occasion. Paul spoke with particular praise of the sandwiches, and they were a good range, presented on some very tasty soda bread, which was a nice Hibernian twist.</div>
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The cakes were highly commendable, especially a delicate mango cheesecake. I would have liked to have eaten Olivia's, which she spurned, but was just too full.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Seventeenth Tea - Seventeenth Year</h3>
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Croagh Patrick and Clew Bay</h3>
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The dramatic conical peak known as Croagh Patrick, and also as The Reek, has been a place of pilgrimage since pagan times, but its history as Ireland's holy mountain dates from from St Patrick's forty day fast on the summit in 441AD. Pilgrimage in his honour has been a tradition ever since. It is said that it was from the summit here that he banished the snakes from Ireland, ringing his bell to lure them to throw themselves from a cliff edge. </div>
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A modern chapel on the summit is still visited by hundreds of pilgrims and walkers of all ages and conditions, and this variety is really striking. Sadly we didn't have the time to climb all the way up, but after tea we drove out to Murrisk, the village below the mountain and set off some of the way up the path. We ended up going quite a bit further than we had initially planned, despite our lack of really appropriate footwear, (at our optimistic estimate) got about a quarter of the way up. Even from this point the views across the bay, dotted with glorious green islands, were stunning.</div>
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After our brief exertions we made our way a little further along the coast to a spit of land out in the bay where Bertra beach faces the expanse of the ocean and dabbled in the edge, wandered along the beautiful firm sands, whilst dodging the several hundred jelly fish who had joined us for the occasion. A lovely way to digest a very fine tea.<br />
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Now we're really looking forward to celebrating with Aidan and Maria tomorrow - a most pleasing Irish sojourn.</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540223953293462115.post-32000539617781838212013-07-08T12:30:00.000-07:002013-07-30T02:54:15.283-07:00Tea the Sixteenth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnWay_R-qeCueE53_wwxUVOlHO3B1Gy5H1nry9AXAVTTgRyk7brJEjDulLYrqECzx9D7HImRselBoJ4LnsIUNWi81ZpRzZcxiTen4EHOrPGO63a9Fg_-vZ6lGZ6IYyCsfLHH3qqmlnEE/s1600/IMG_5922.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnWay_R-qeCueE53_wwxUVOlHO3B1Gy5H1nry9AXAVTTgRyk7brJEjDulLYrqECzx9D7HImRselBoJ4LnsIUNWi81ZpRzZcxiTen4EHOrPGO63a9Fg_-vZ6lGZ6IYyCsfLHH3qqmlnEE/s320/IMG_5922.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<i>Just tea for two </i><br />
<i>And two for tea,</i><br />
<i>Just me for you </i><br />
<i>And you for me alone.</i></div>
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Irving Caesar - from 'No, No, Nanette'</div>
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<br />Weetwood Hall Hotel, Leeds - Saturday, 8th July 2013</h3>
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Tea Takers</h3>
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Sarah Ryan</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">13th Wedding Anniversary Tea</span></h3>
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On a slightly less sunny 8th July in 2000, we came here to Weetwood Hall for our wedding reception. The key feature of said reception was that it should begin with afternoon tea and only once fortified by this important meal would we inflict speeches, cake cutting and the like upon the assembled throng, who would then later recover over dinner. I vaguely remember getting my first cup of tea as Mrs Ryan, and seeing the conservatory set out with scones and other necessaries, but in the excitement and sociability of the day, I didn't really have a chance to appreciate the tea provisions.</div>
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The Brasserie and conservatory were a pleasant, if undistinguished, setting and little has changed. Today we sat in the conservatory - it was either a choice of the garden, where we couldn't hear the piped drivel, or indoors, where the hum of the ring road was less audible, so we opted to suffer crooning, easy-listening pop.</div>
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Our relationship with this site of one of the most important celebrations of our life is not one of simple unalloyed romanticism - the fact that they threw away most of our wedding cake, and literally dropped the top tier in with a carrier bag of presents, has always lent a certain Fawlty Towers-esque charm to our memories of the place. They were not to disappoint today - having rung in advance (twice) to order plain scones they failed on this and the terrified waitress giggled hysterically at our request for ham sandwiches without mustard - I am assuming that the chef of whom she spoke with breathless anxiety is of the meat-cleaver-wielding disposition. Add to that a waiter who poured hot water all over the table and we were pleased to find that plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.</div>
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Note, on the picture below (taken in the selfsame Brasserie), not only the extreme youth and apparent mania of bride and groom, but the care with which the hotel have constructed the cake - I am quite sure that those two pillars (front left, both levels) are really meant to be upside down...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCJ2zro3O4PNasNriwbTPFhjwELmIw8kYBsIVm00gFlTQkgrGYIUeerADY0x6dClB-OQ6pRwRlSSX56PASDAAlnuRmBXFPS3H005gt5u8qRy4xeuUthN41wsR8htjjFFIE3Rb3_Wwa5VQ/s1600/Cake+portrait+mad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCJ2zro3O4PNasNriwbTPFhjwELmIw8kYBsIVm00gFlTQkgrGYIUeerADY0x6dClB-OQ6pRwRlSSX56PASDAAlnuRmBXFPS3H005gt5u8qRy4xeuUthN41wsR8htjjFFIE3Rb3_Wwa5VQ/s320/Cake+portrait+mad.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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It must be conceded, however, that today's tea was very generous. Two large cake stands presented scones, profiteroles, brownies, flapjack, the first appearance in the odyssey of Yorkshire parkin, and a vast amount of sandwich. The cakes were very good and the sandwiches also (although I could have been happier if there hadn't been prawns present). </div>
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The hotel had also made the (always flawed) decision to serve the scones ready split, jammed and creamed - partly, no doubt, out of embarrassment at the lack of clotted cream. This is a serious failing in the serving of afternoon tea, and I don't really feel that any type of cream worth its name should slice like this...</div>
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Nevertheless, Mr R declared them pleasing and we certainly both ate very well. We also had a very entertaining time, mostly making less than charitable jibes at the the continuing ineptness of the hotel staff.</div>
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<h3>
Weetwood Hall</h3>
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The oldest part of the buildings that make up Weetwood Hall is mid-Sixteenth Century, but the core of the old Hall was built in 1625, and features an attractive and elaborate plasterwork ceiling that is exceptional of its period. During the First World War the house was requisitioned as a convalescent home for officers, then in 1919 was bought by Leeds University and became a hall of residence for women students. It remained a university hall until the 1990s, and indeed one of the guests at our wedding, Julia Elton, had lived here as a student (enticed, as she certainly would be, by the aforementioned Jacobean ceiling).</div>
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Sixteenth Tea - Sixteenth Year</h3>
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Wedded Bliss</h3>
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In response to the sentimental posed wedding ring photos beloved of many commercial photographers, we present our happy marital tribute of the clenched fists of experience:</div>
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Forced to admit it though, we have been really rather happy...</div>
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I even wore my wedding earrings for the occasion</div>
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Happy Anniversary, Mr Ryan - let's go back for our 26th and see how they can disappoint us then...</div>
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SMRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10605708401260201451noreply@blogger.com0