A Christmas treat

I went out with my girls yesterday for a Christmas afternoon tea treat.  It's not often that we can all spend some time together as they are often busy with work and children so it was nice to spend an hour or so chatting and of course eating cake.

We chose a cute little tea room not too far away, none of us had been before but the reviews were good and the menu sounded lovely.

To start the was a cheese charcuterie board

Followed by the main event.

Stevie had a vegan version as she has recently been advised to be as dairy free as possible, while our tea looked and tasted lovely the vegan choice was a little disappointing.  They were aware of the none dairy request at the time of booking and appeared very accommodating on the phone saying that all their cakes were baked in house so it wasn't a problem, but that's not what they served. 

Another sore point was that they had no decaff coffee, not very good for a cafe really. 

But as I said, the rest of the tea was very nice, none of us managed to eat it all and took home what we couldn't eat, me and Mark will be having what I bought back for tea today.

Storm Darragh blew in over-night on Friday so Saturday was wet and very windy all day.  Driving to our afternoon tea was a bit scary, we saw a few trees that had come down and power cables swinging wildly, lots of debris and mini floods, thankfully not many cars on the road.  Joanne's power went out just before she set off and a tree had come down in her street, by the time she got home again another four trees had come down, so now her street isn't passable from either direction, and today she is still without power with people being told It may not be on until later tonight and a total of eleven trees have now come down.  Nice lot of fire wood for anyone who wants to collect :-)

We got off lightly, the only damage in our garden is a fence panel blown out and things knocked over, the wind has done us a favour and blown the rest of the leaves off the grass and to the top end of the garden, that'll make collecting them easier, when I'm able to get out there 😊  It's still windy and wet but not as bad as yesterday but there will be a lot of clearing up everywhere over the next week or so.

Hope you are safe and dry where you are and not suffered too much storm damage.

-X-

13th December - Christmas afternoon tea

If you have been a follower of my blog for a while you will know that I am a lover of afternoon tea.  We have had afternoon tea at some posh places, The Dorchester and The Savoy being two of my favourites, it's so nice to sit in beautiful surroundings and do something very English, like being in an Agatha Christy film, and so very civil, without the murder mystery of course, lol

    As all places of enjoyment are closed at the moment we couldn't book our traditional Christmas afternoon tea this year, :-( 

But where there's a will there's a way, right?

We had one delivered :-)

It was from the same place that Joanne ordered us our VE day celebration afternoon tea, which you can read about Here

We had it at our house so that Jenny and Joanne could have a 'kid free' afternoon.  I laid it all out on the coffee table in the front sitting room and we sat and watched a Christmas film.  Not quite the posh surroundings of the Dorchester or the Savoy but we had a lovely afternoon chatting and having a laugh, I'm so glad we didn't let this tradition go this year, it's been such a lovely afternoon, I really enjoyed it.

I am quite stuffed now though, I think I've had my fill of cake for a while.

Here are today's lovely advents.

 Mary's comment on yesterday's post made me smile, I didn't even think when I mentioned face mask that we now all associate a face mask with something we wear when shopping.  I bet you thought, why is she going to wear a face mask in the bath 🤣🤣

Of course it was the face beauty treatment, sheet mask variety, not the virus protection face mask variety🤣

I hope you have had a lovely weekend and the weather hasn't been too bad.  (it's rained none stop here today).

-X-

A mixed bag of catch-up

I'll have to start April off with a round up of March as time just got away with me, so grab yourself a cuppa it's a long one with lots of photos :-)

Christmas ornament stitching

I got two stitched ornaments done for March.  The Santa one you saw on my previous post and this one from Country Cottage Needleworks

Frosty Forest "Snowy Deer" 

I must confess that I really didn't enjoy stitching this one at all, I don't know why, I just didn't.

I left out the detail in the snow at the bottom and also left out the little confetti snow flakes.

I like it now it's done, although if you look close at the snow at the bottom you will notice that I must have picked up the wrong white at some point because it's a different shade in some places!

Birmingham NEC Craft Fair

A couple of weeks ago I went with my daughter, Joanne to the NEC in Birmingham for the Creative Craft Show.  This happens every March and I haven't missed one for years.  However, over the years it has become less about stitching and more about card making, scrap-booking and sewing.
  There are very few stalls catering for cross stitchers now, which is a shame, but I did manage to pick up a few charts that I liked.

Another purchase from the show was related to this book I'd bought for the bargain price of a fiver from The Works a couple of days before.

I was really happy to find out that Cool Crafting, (where you will find all things related to Luna and friends), would be there.  Their stand was very popular but I did manage to wrestle my way in to purchase a pack which included everything to make lovely Luna :-)

I can't wait to start making this, I've already copied and cut out the templates from the book but I want to get a few things out of the way first so that I can give it my full attention.

There were some yarny purchases in March too.
The third Literary and hand dyed yarn society package from Dandelion & Dogwood arrived.

I'm not a fan of sparkle so when I opened the parcel I was a tiny bit disappointed, (sorry to sparkle lovers) I'm sure it will knit up lovely though.  I suppose that's a risk you take when you sign up for these things, you can't guarantee that you will love every package.  I won't sign up for the next three months as this was rather expensive I thought, these past three months were a Christmas present to myself :-)

My April mini's club yarn arrived from Lay Family Yarn and oh my goodness I love it!
The guest dyer this month was Nora George.
Look at how lovely they are, I'm really happy with this parcel :-)

Sunday was Mother's Day here in the UK and the girls treated me to afternoon tea at the Laura Ashley Tea Rooms in Birmingham as one of my gifts.

If you have been a reader of my blog for a while you will know that we do love to have afternoon tea and have tried many places over the years including some 'posher' places like The Savoy and The  Dorchester in London, (which were both lovely by the way).  The Laura Ashley Tea Rooms looked lovely, decorated nice and bright and all the tables had beautiful white tablecloths, but, the afternoon tea was not the best.  

We were told that we could have a re-fill of finger sandwiches but no waitress came back to ask if we would like more, likewise with the tea and coffee, we had to get up and go to ask someone for more drinks, so service was not up to much.  Me and Joanne had Earl Grey tea and I had to ask the waitress to check if that was what we had because it really didn't taste like any Earl Grey that I've ever had, (and I think I've tried just about every make out there!).  Although the cakes do look nice on the photo they were not brilliant and the scones were cold and very dry.  

Perhaps others were more wise to the service and food than we were because there were only 3 tables in use all afternoon, not really what you would expect on Mother's Day.   So I'm afraid it's a thumbs down from us for this tea room :-(

We had some really sunny weather again last week so I spent quite a bit of time in the garden and gave the grass it's first cut on Thursday, I must say that our garden is probably at it's best in Spring, we have loads of Daffs thanks to the previous owners and last year I planted both early and late Tulips, so although one lot has finished we still have some to come.

The Forsythia is on either side of the garden and really brightens everything up

The Pieris has grown really big, I compared it to some photos I took a few years ago and it really has had a growth spurt!  This variety is a Forest Flame.

I've still got some leaves to get rid of, I've filled the compost bin and our green bin but still have a leave pile the back corner of the garden, (out of sight), our first green waste collection of the year is late this time, not until the second week in April so the leaves will have to stay where they are until then.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday and as Mark was at work I spent all afternoon sitting in my little blue house stitching and listening to my book, bliss.

Speaking of books, I read five books in March, the best one I think was The Perfect Child although I also enjoyed listening to Getting Rid of  Matthew.  Jane Fallen's books are quite easy to read or listen to, not very deep or meaningful, but can be quite funny.

So, that's about it for the goings on in March, we have a busy April to come, a wedding, two birthdays and of course Easter. I have chosen my April Christmas ornament to stitch but there is some knitting I want to get done this week so I probably won't start that until next weekend.

If you made it to the end, thank you for indulging me :-) if you didn't and only skimmed through that's ok, I understand not everyone is interested in all that I do :-) Either way I wish you a happy April and I'll hopefully be back sooner with a shorter post rather than later with a mega long one :-)

Take care

-X-

Mums blanket and cake!

I managed to finish the blanket I was making mum for Mother's Day and I'm happy to say that it was well received, hopefully it will come in useful for her keeping the chills off.

I can't remember if I mentioned that the yarn was James C Brett Marble Chunky, which worked up really quickly and was really lovely and soft after a quick wash and a soak in fabric softener and I love how the variegated yarn looks in the V stitch too.

It was Mother's Day here in the UK on Sunday, I had some lovely gifts from the girls and a treat of afternoon tea, (which was part of Joanne's present to me) although all the girls came too.

It was at somewhere we hadn't been before, Stanbrook Abbey in Malvern.  Such a beautiful place, inside and out, and the sandwiches and cakes were delicious, we all came away feeling stuffed!

The selection for 2 people

I hope that you too were well and truly spoiled on Mother Day.

Until next time
-X-

How Much Can You Fit Into One Weekend?

We had a lovely time in London at the weekend, although Saturday it rained for most of the day by the time we went to have afternoon tea it had cleared up. This time we sampled the delights at Fortum & Mason and came out completely stuffed, lol, because I've been trying to eat more healthily it's been ages since i have eaten cake - but it was wonderful! Not such a 'dressy' place as we went to last time but that was OK. I think it's just so decadent to dress up and have afternoon tea! not something that we do very often so it feels very special.
This was our little appetizer, bread sticks with cheese & pesto, salmon and some sort of pastry we couldn't quite work out what but decided it was a 'posh' sausage roll.

We opted for the afternoon tea which consisted of a selection of rolls and finger sandwiches and a lovely selection of cakes, together with a glass of champagne and a pot of tea each.

We had to go for a walk afterwards to work some of it off!

Sunday we caught the train to Hampton Court and spent a great day out, and the weather was kind to us. I was really looking forward to this visit being a recent convert to Tudor novels and everything Henry VIII and i wasn't disappointed, If you are English you will know that usually it cost a fortune to get into these Historic places, although lovely they may be. We spent all day at Hampton Court and the admission was only about £14 absolute bargain! there was lots going on from jousting to demonstrations in the Tudor kitchens, which i must say had THE biggest fireplace i have ever seen - and it was alight. We took advantage of the headset (no extra charge) which gave us a guided tour of everything inside.

Walking to the entrance of Hampton Court Palace

The astronomical clock which is in base court & is 400 years old. This clock has been mentioned a few times in the book I'm now reading so it was nice to place it.

The Grand Hall
Which was lined with the most amazing tapestries

The Palace from the side showing one of the beautiful gardens. Jenny liked the fact that it was symmetrical!

This is a newer part added on by William of Orange.

Apparently he wanted to knock Hampton Court down and start again!
Thank goodness he didn't!

Fancy having this view from your back door!

On Sunday evening we had a table booked at the Ivy, this is the place to celeb spot, not much to look at from the outside is it?

Very nice inside though and the food and the service was excellent, unfortunately we didn't spy any celebs :-( They have a policy of no cameras or mobile phones in the restaurant so no photos of our food!

To round off our weekend we went on a walking tour of Westminster Abbey on Monday morning - if you are ever in London and thinking of doing this tour it's well worth it, our guide was great very knowledgeable, and quite funny with it. I didn't realise so many people were buried there including Henry VII, Elizabeth I & Mary Tudor (Mary & Elizabeth are buried together, strange as they were complete opposites!)

So, how much can you fit into one weekend? well quite a lot it seems! I'm glad i booked yesterday off work to recover, i was, as they say, knackered!!

Hope everyone had a fun Bank Holiday, thank you for stopping by and all your wonderful comments, i really do appreciate them:-)