A Very English Affair...

For those of you that follow my blog (and if you don't, why don't you follow my blog?... you will just have to fill in some of the blanks or read back a bit.... LOL) you will recall that we English girls (I use the term 'girls' very loosely as you will note from photos) decided to put on an afternoon tea party to entertain the ladies (I use the term 'ladies' fairly loosely too!) in the compound.  OK... I will admit at this point that when the idea first came into being it seemed like the easy alternative to doing a proper cooking demonstration on English/British foods... well how was I supposed to know that the idea would grow and blossom into the full scale event that it did???  Oh but didn't we have fun... and I think the ladies did too!!

we transformed the compound restaurant (well, a section of it actually) into an English Tea Garden that the Queen herself would have been proud to visit and partake of a slice of gingerbread and a nice cup of tea.

I will state from the outset that this would not have been possible without my fav shop of all time... Big World!!  We bought heaps of roses for the tables and made net ties for the chairs with a rose in each...

Ping even made curtains for the event to give the effect of a country tea room.

We bought white cotton tablecloths (a Big World special at £2 each) and hung Union Jacks around the walls.

we made menus and tag books for each table, the tag books gave etiquette and rules on how to behave at an afternoon tea party.  As there was only one book for each table we decided that the fairest way to distribute them was to put a star on the bottom of one saucer for each table and the person who had the star got to take the tag book home with them.

Suzanne looking well pleased with her good fortune!!

This is a photo of the tag books... I forgot to photograph them properly before the big day... oops, sorry!

Maybe I can borrow one back...

We spent all morning dressing the room and making sandwiches and scones and shortbread and Victoria sponge and chocolate cake and cream puffs and banana bread and mini cupcakes.... and .... and...

and some bright spark (who moi?) found in, yes, Big World, sets of pink aprons and decided we may as well go whole hog and dress up as waitresses too!!

I think we missed our chosen careers!! LOL

and some altering went on.... the hats were originally large doillies!!

LOL, this is Ping who even had the napkin on the arm look going on!!

and I even made shortbread tea pots!!

and you really don't want to know what I paid for that 3 tier cake stand... it did not come from Big World and 3 tier cake stands are not readily available in Saudi Arabia  so come at a premium price!!

A lovely time was had by all... and now I have to get ready for the Naughty Mother's Day Lunch tomorrow... wrapping a gift for the riot of 'stealing' someone's present from them... gosh but its a hard life....