Anyway, after the church bit of the christening, which I guess IS the actual christening!) we went to the Strathaven Hotel, (Strathaven is where I grew up and some of my folks still live there) for high tea.  I spent a good hour thinking, out loud much of the time, ‘now, why have I never had high tea before’.  My sister insists that I have but I really can’t remember.  High tea consisted of a main course (gammon steak in my case, other options included fish and chips), served with a cake stand full of little slices of tray bake cakes, scones, pancakes and bread and butter all washed down with lots of tea or coffee. 

Then came the pièce de résistance!  A plate groaning with homemade meringues sandwiched with fluffy soft whipped cream!  My sister and I managed not to resist several of these (each!!).  Be honest, could you?

I am ever curious about traditions and etiquette (particularly of ‘polite’ society) and had to look up the origins of high tea and found that the UK Tea Council describes it thus:

For the working and farming communities, afternoon tea became high tea. As the main meal of the day, high tea was a cross between the delicate afternoon meal enjoyed in the ladies’ drawing rooms and the dinner enjoyed in houses of the gentry at seven or eight in the evening. With the meats, bread and cakes served at high tea, hot tea was taken.

After all that food we crashed out in the lounge of the hotel where thankfully there were no other customers as 20 of us, including 4 excited children, would have soon scared them away.  We spent the rest of the day catching up, playing with the kids and taking lots of pictures of Erin in her christening gown with various family members.  I still can’t work out why she vomited on me 3 times over the weekend though!  I’m not that scary!

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with my folks, watching some football (yes, really, I watched some of the World Cup) and getting some of my hook-a-long blanket done.  In the process I competled my first full cycle of all the colours!  Yee ha!!!

I read a lot of crochet and craft blogs and often people refer to it being too dark to take pictures of their works and waiting for an opportune time.  I am no expert in photography so wasn’t too sure what this was all about, thinking hte flash made up for it - until I was able to take the pictures below in my sisters garden.  Don’t the colours look great?  Don’t I wish I had a garden and didn’t live in a flat?  Yes to both!!

I have now started on the second round of each colour now and I am jolly well delighted with it; the neatness, colour order (despite all the pondering).  Can you spot the little mistake?  I am going to handsew two little imitation crochet stitches in to put it right.

Now I’m back in Manchester to the same old wondering, as I sometimes do, why I live so far away from the people who are most improtant to me!!  Ah well, such is life!

So I thought what better time to write about the goodies I got in Yorkshire (all those weeks ago) while I’m sitting under a blanket with a cuppa.

I have two sets of loveliness to report.  I think I’ll start with tea.  I had been really excited about visiting Harrogate, not least because it is the home of Betty’s Cafe Tea Rooms!  Purely by coincidence (honest) we ended up parking just near Betty’s so headed there first.  As expected there was a long queue and everyone was saying there was up to a 45 minute wait.  It’s no secret that I love tea, but balanced with my hatred of queueing, I was not going to wait. We decided to have a look around Harrogate and return. 

After a good look around Harrogate, including trips to Duttons for Buttons and Cath Kidston (see below) we returned to find the queue just as long.  There was only one thing for it… pop into the bakery and take some goodies home.  Here are the things I got:

A lovely lemon cake, tomato and herb loaf, Betty’s Tea Room Blend tea and a cotton Betty’s bag to carry it all in.  Yum!

And then there was the Cath Kidstonshop.  I have never been in one of her dedicated shops before, only the section in Selfridges nearby at the Trafford Centre (which is virtually my local shops!).  I have never particularly thought of myself of a fan of Cath Kidston, but my heart did skip a happy beat when I saw all the colourful and flowery loveliness in the shop.  I just couldn’t resist.  I am ashamed to say I have yet to do anything with the lovely things I bought (back the the aforementioned busyness I guess).

So what did I get, well, a pretty little selection!

I got 2 pieces of gorgeous cotton print fabric (I had a really hard job choosing which ones as cotton print fabric is my favourite of favourites, especially little repeat prints), a set of matching tins, a little butterfly brooch and a little green glass salt and pepper pinch pot.

I plan to use the fabrics just for myself.  How selfish is that??!  I think I might crochet some cushion fronts and back them with these fabrics.

I must be getting into the Cath Kidston thing as I have since bought her Sew book too!  Not had the chance to make anything yet, but it comes with the pattern and fabric for the bag on the cover, so that seems like as good a place as any…

Prior to our week away we said we didn’t mind what the weather was like as Caveman would take his guitar, I would take my crochet and along with a pile of books we would be snug as bugs.  And that’s just what we did.  Real fire, curtains closed against the wind and rain, tea and cake, a big bag of yarn and crochet hooks and my lovely chap – all the things that make me happy in life.  I’m quite a simple girl really!

We did venture out a few times and I have some lovely purchases to report.  But in the meantime here are a couple of pictures to whet your appetite and to make me wish we could have stayed forever.

It is a sprawling mixture of all sorts curios spread around rambling grounds with everything from old bikes and typewriters to fairground rides and crumbling angel statues.  All of which you can buy and take home for your garden.  There are also plant of course, and old doors, plant pots, archways, pillars, benches…. I could go on!

But this pales into insignificance compared to one thing: The Tea Rooms.   And with the tea there was knitting, yes really!!  I’ll get to that in a minute.

The tea room is mainly outdoors in little huts and gazebos.  We were lucky enough to get one of the huts which was really cosy and had funny little tree trunk type seats!

As we were deciding what to choose from the menu there were all manner of huge plates and bowls of food passing by.  I expected these were to share and didn’t for a minute think one of these would be put in front of me. 

I ordered Willowpool Dream Delight – cream, strawberries, creme Anglaise and crushed meringue.  Wow it was massive!  I like my grub but there was no way I could have managed to eat all of it and even Caveman couldn’t finish it after his own cake.

They also used the most charming mismatched china with lovely teapots and tea cups.  I feel inspired to start a new collection!

Now, I’m sure you’ll be wondering where knitting comes into all this.  Well, I’d been sitting at the table for about 5 minutes before I even noticed the cute little knitted sugar bowl cover!!!  So it was only a little bit of knitting amongst all the intrigue at Willowpool, but even the tiniest piece of knitting is still knitting!

As the shop was quite busy we chose a few cakes to take home, in a box tied up with ribbon, where Caveman produced the most beautiful tea set and we had tea in the garden!!!   We had (clockwise from top left below) a Kylie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Mint Royale and a Barbara Windsor, which was my personal favourite as I just love lemon.

The cake was light and fluffy and tasty with rich, sweet icing.  Kylie and Priscilla had raspberries through the sponge which was really yummy! 

And just 10 minutes later it was almost like they’d never been there…