Mr. Toast's First Annual Christmas Tea

This afternoon will be special. Mmm, also known as Mr. Toast, my ex-pat blog friend in Colorado, is welcoming each of you to a Christmas tea.

Singing Christmas carols and songs will be enjoyable...............always fun with a group of friends. Come on, don't be shy, nobody cares if you can't carry a tune or hit the high notes.

We Brits are almost always 'tea-aholics'. Ingrained since birth, we are drowned in it from early morning until afternoon tea time............then later a quick stop at the village pub for something a wee bit stronger in the evening!!!

So dear blog friends, grab your warm sweaters, wrap your muffler around your neck, pull on tall boots, and throw on a toasty warm coat............hop a plane, ride the rails, buzz over on your snowmobile, roll up in a trusty 4-wheel drive.........but be sure to head for Aspen, Colorado where Mr. Toast will have a crowd of merry bloggers ready to join in the fun at tea time.

The warm and wonderful party outfit I will wear to tea, complete with wrist warmers - it looks perfect for chilly yet stylish Aspen.

Tables are set with special china cups and saucers. Teapots are steaming in their holiday themed cozies. Silver spoons and delicate cake forks add shine and say, "stir me, dig in". So many goodies to taste, holiday foods we save especially for Christmastime to nibble, munch, bite into and say, "Yummy, that's so good, worth waiting for all year". I know the candles will be burning brightly welcoming one and all to tea.

I carefully carried my special teatime treats across the miles last night. Luckily an old bearded guy in a bright red suit let me use his sleigh as he doesn't need it until Dec. 24! The journey was chilly and the reindeer, although friendly, kept trying to nibble the treats!


The British sherry trifle. Bottom layer is spongecake spread with raspberry jam and soaked heavily in good cream sherry. Real thick homemade custard, no instant pudding allowed here. Freshly whipped heavy cream topped with sliced, toasted almonds and strawberries. So absolutely fabulous, and it's not only made at Christmas - any time during the year when a really wonderful dessert is needed for a celebration, a Brit can whip up one of these beauties - our Mums taught us well!!

Beside the promised trifle, I also brought along this yummy chocolate no-bake torte - quite easy to make, rich and delicious, and any leftovers (that's a joke) keep well in the 'frig....................................


.....................and one more very English cake, always served with tea, the Victoria Sponge. This recipe every school girl learns in her first year of home economics - but it doesn't always turn out looking this good - I'll be honest, mine didn't!!

So hurry over to visit a fun and talented Englishman at his blog Hot Toast and Jam. He'll be waiting to pour you a cuppa and you'll enjoy meeting other bloggers who love tea. Let's celebrate the season with warmth and friendship.

*******

Teatime Tomorrow.....

Aspen, Colorado

....................I'm invited to Mr. Toast's first annual Christmas Tea. Imagine, a real British holiday tea right here in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Today I'm busy packing my warm clothes, making my teatime goodies and tonight I'll be on my way to Aspen...............IN MY DREAMS of course!!!

Hope you'll stop by too - there should be lots of yummy food, the very best warming English teas to sip, lots of fun caroling and meeting new blog friends.

Want to share in some pre-Christmas spirit before the rush?

See you for tea in Aspen tomorrow.

The Highway Home

A late Autumn evening. One major holiday over, another quickly approaching. Driving the highway toward home as the sun goes down. Clouds turn orange and pink behind the leafless trees. I love to see a deciduous tree's 'bones' when the leaves have been whisked away. Thoughts cross my mind.......will there be gentle snow or diamond hard ice coating these branches come Winter? Will the squirrels' nests remain safe as the North wind blows?

The road is straight, the traffic light, the sunset gentle........home creeps closer as miles fall behind us. I knit a few rows, read a few pages until the light dims. We chat about the last couple of days. The bright lights of the great city where we first met - visiting family and friends even older than us, wondering how many Thanksgivings remain for each one of us. It was lovely sharing stories of the days long ago.

Traveling I-95 South toward North Carolina.

The journey home was the destination.

Thanksgiving in Alexandria

This afternoon I strolled along King Street in always interesting historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Walking feels good following a celebratory meal.

The day started off with thick fog and changed to dreary, misty rain, but despite the dampness, colors were still there.

I love this street with quaint old buildings leading gently down to the Potomac River. Now the home of restaurants, coffee shops, an elegant hotel, the weekend outdoor market, and shops with inviting windows, it still wraps one in history during a stroll along the brick sidewalks.


Sometimes when I return here shops have changed......today was no exception. This beautifully decorated home and design shop, new to me, grabbed my attention and was my favorite. Of course it was closed due to the holiday. All I could do was press my nose against the glass and sigh.

Taking photos through windows often result in nothing but blurs and weird looking images. Sometimes though, the reflections of the goings on in the street make very beautiful scenes.

Inside these windows, now dressed for Christmas, were the most beautiful chandeliers, furniture, statues, candles, and ornaments. It was like peering into Aladdin's cave.

A sign on the window says that everything will be on sale tomorrow! Can I persuade DH to brave the 'black Friday' crowds tomorrow? Take a left to Old Town prior to a right turn back home to North Carolina? The weather forecast is gloomy, cold, wet and windy............what shall we do? We also plan a quick, if that's possible, stop at IKEA.

What a quandary if I have to choose.........beauty from an Old Town shop, bargains from the big box store!!!!

A Thanksgiving Message

t this time of year, when we give thanks for the many good things in our lives, I feel compelled to write to all of you who have followed my blog for almost three years. To you, I offer special thanks for being friends I can count on, and people I enjoy interacting with. To those of you whom I've had the extreme pleasure of meeting in person ~ and this year there have been several ~ I sincerely hope we meet again next year because it was such fun.

I've refrained from making this blog a soapbox for either personal or social issues. For me this is a journal in which I can express my love for the beauty of Nature, the pleasures and decoration of house and home, the garden and its glories, the preparing, cooking, and of course eating, of healthy and delicious foods, and love of family and friends. I enjoy sharing images of my travels to places many of you will visit some day................just be sure to keep them on your wish list. Some of you have interests totally opposite to mine. You may not even have the desire to travel far from your comfy homes, and this is just fine. I love the fact you still stop by to look at my images, read my words, and leave a kind comment when you have time.

My wish for a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with family and friends goes out to all of you, and, as this busy holiday season arrives, I wish you and your loved ones good health, much happiness, love and kindness - it's really that simple.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

It's all in the numbers.............

Do you have a special number?

This is mine 77


I lived in just two houses growing up in England...........well three if you include my grandma's flat where I spent my first few years along with my mother during WWII. There, we apparently scurried to the lower floor and hid under the stairs when the air raid sirens sounded........and stayed until the 'all clear'.

When my father came home from the Royal Air Force, we moved to the '40's version of modular housing, cute little cookie cutter homes, lining curving roads on an 'estate'. Built by the local government, using prisoner-of-war laborers, they provided much needed post-war housing. That house no longer stands, being replaced by newer, modern homes some years ago. The number of our house was 17.

We moved to the next house, just a 10 minute walk from No. 17, when I was 7. Our new bungalow was (is) number 77. My fondest memories are part and parcel of that little brick bungalow. Sold some years back following my mum's death, I still stop by when on a trip home. To catch a glimpse of the brass numbers by the front door is to remember all that happened from age 7 to almost 19 when I emigrated to America. Fond memories all and brought close to my heart when I see the number 77.

Linen towels ~ old silver candlesticks ~ four Mason's Oak Shape antique plates (marked 'first designed in 1813') ~ brass number 77. All from Sleepy Poet Antique Mall, Charlotte, NC

At the Sleepy Poet I found this brass number. It was beaming out at me from all the treasures in Janna's 'Artsy Fartsy' booth and I had to have it...........after all it's MY number.

Sharing beauty................

Remember me showing you this gorgeous vintage sideboard/buffet recently? A grand piece, displayed at Revival Antiques here in Raleigh, NC during their Holiday Open House. My friends, photographer Dorothy Blum Cooper and artist Bobby Cooper from Louisiana, who moved to North Carolina following Hurricane Katrina, are restoring a beautiful historic home. They saw my post, came to town, and have purchased it! This is great news. I can't imagine a more perfect home for this beauty, or a nicer family to care for it.