Afternoon Tea at The Goring in London

My sister and I are passionate tea drinkers and once or twice a year we go to Afternoon Tea at one of the luxury hotels in London.

This time around it was the turn of The Goring hotel in Belgravia.  

 At the time of writing it is the holder of the British Tea Guild Council's top London Afternoon tea award and the award of excellence and we weren't disappointed.

Supposedly, it was The Duchess of Bedford who invented the whole concept of having afternon tea right there in the hotel back in the 1800s.  Good for you Duchess!

The 5 star Goring hotel had an elegant and relaxed feel, set in a beautiful lounge with soft heritage leather chairs and golden lamp light....

The china was beautiful and we both wished we could take the tea cups home...

 Along with a selection of sandwiches and pastries we selected the 'Goring Afternoon tea' which was a blend of assam and darjeeling...

and the 'Fortnum and Mason's Royal tea', a blend of assam and ceylon.

After tea we visited the garden which had a lovely 1920s croquet lawn...

We ended the day with a trip to Fortnum and Masons...

I purchased some chai tea and some ceylon tea and assam tea.  Now I can brew my very own  'Royal Blend' at home!

The two girls thoroughly enjoyed their trip too getting up to mischief...

Here they are greeting a statue of Jeremy Goring who founded the hotel in 1910...

I am currently working on a new line up of girls to be released soon...

Here is a sneak preview...

UPDATE - SOLD OUT

or my ETSY SHOP (though I tend to keep that just for clothing patterns nowadays).

If you would like to receive notification of when and where they will be available, you can sign up to the email notifications in the sidebar.

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Thank you for visiting as always,

Susannah x

the holder of The British Tea Guild Council’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award and The Award of Excellence, - See more at: http://www.thegoring.com/food-drink/afternoon-tea/#sthash.JwNHpLwN.dpuf

the holder of The British Tea Guild Council’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award and The Award of Excellence, - See more at: http://www.thegoring.com/food-drink/afternoon-tea/#sthash.JwNHpLwN.dpuf

the holder of The British Tea Guild Council’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award and The Award of Excellence, - See more at: http://www.thegoring.com/food-drink/afternoon-tea/#sthash.JwNHpLwN.dpuf

the holder of The British Tea Guild Council’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award and The Award of Excellence, - See more at: http://www.thegoring.com/food-drink/afternoon-tea/#sthash.JwNHpLwN.dpuf

A trip to Provence

"By the fields of Provence where lavenders sway,

Honey bees gather and butterflies play,

Where laughter and love is all that one knows,

Meet Verity Hope and Amelie Rose..."

I've just come back from a delightful trip to Provence where inspiration swept through every breath!

My goodness it's beautiful in the South of France...

Anyone for rosebud tea?

Heavily inspired I have redesigned this blog:

www.verityhope.com 

with the new range of dolls shortly to come out.

www.verityhope.com 

 Meet 'Verity Hope'....

 and her younger sister 'Amelie Rose'...

 Two sisters growing up on a lavender farm in provence...

I'm showing a selection of images from the newly designed

www.verityhope.com

so do pop over quickly and let me know what you think...

feedback is always welcomed and most helpful.

www.verityhope.com 

 

www.verityhope.com

This is Pippi Lapin...

And beautiful laurier soaps adorne this stall in the market square...

 I do hope you enjoy these images and they add some sunshine to your day!

And once again... do take a look at the newly designed

www.verityhope.com

Follow Verity Hope dolls on INSTAGRAM

Thank you for visiting,

Susannah x

Afternoon Tea Celebration

It has been quite a season of festivities hasn't it and I must admit I do rather like it once the New Year is finally with us and things get slowly back to normal.  

A quieter more peaceful pace is how it should be, don't you think?

However there was one more celebration to do! .... my Sister's birthday! 

and what better way to celebrate it than having Afternoon tea at...

Fortnum and Mason

It was only two weeks ago (at the peak of the Christmas squeeze) that I was there celebrating my own birthday celebration there.... well, we Ladies must treat ourselves mustn't we...!

We had a table in the 'Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon' on the 4th floor.  So very elegant and utterly alluring as one sweeps up the winding side stairs.  Heading there, I couldn't resist this delightful little bar of soap so beautifully packaged...

Back in the tea salon my Sister and I chose the 'Queen Anne' and "Smokey Earl Grey' teas to begin our Afternoon.

The Queen Anne tea is a blend of Assam and Ceylon teas and the latter a wonderful combination of Bergamot, Lapsang and Gunpowder teas.  I much preferred the Smokey Earl Grey but not surprising since it contained my favourite Lapsang Souchong.

We also selected to sample the Keemun and Chai.  The first was a heavier malty classic tea rather like a nuttier Assam and as I blend my own teas especially Chai, all the time at home, it was interesting to compare my humble recipe with that of the 'Masters".  

I nearly always drink chai with at least 50% warm milk (sometimes all milk) and I add some sugar.  I first got into this warm spicy way of drinking tea whilst living out in India a few years back, it almost became addictive waiting for 5pm when the Chai boy would come round with his huge jug of the warm blend.  Surprisingly very refreshing in the hot Indian sun.

Anyway, back to London!... Leaving very full and satisfied, we headed down to the first floor where of course all the teas are beautifully on display....

You can purchase tea by weight or in pre-packaged boxed and tin caddies...

What a heavenly site to the eyes!

And of course one can't leave without a few little goodies! 

I shall certainly be blending my Earl Grey with Lapsang from now on!

Have a wonderful day and may you make yourself a nice cup of tea at some point...

Susannah x

What we need...?

Does anyone feel they need a change in life?

There are some areas of my life that I want to change. It's not easy, sometimes we're put in situations because of consequences that are 'MAYBE' out of our control... well I don't really mean 'we're not in control of our lives', I suppose what I really mean is that, I like to think we are put in certain situations because:

Jane Austen

1. Either we're meant to learn something...

2. We're there to help someone else...

3. It's part of our current karma...

After all... it's not always about 'US' is it?

Verity Hope and little Sister Amelie

We can of course break through our karma and not be subject to it, but it takes a lot of volition, an incredible amount, and sometimes the hardest part is RECOGNISING what it is we're supposed to be learning...

ME!

You may of course disagree with all this... PLEASE COMMENT

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Fabien Lapin, Pipi Lapin, Millie, Amelie, Verity Hope

But one thing is for sure...

Sometimes... SOMETIMES... no matter how hard we try... life takes us in a completely different direction to what we THOUGHT we wanted...

It's not about what we WANT...

It's about what we NEED....

An embroidery I did for 'Verity Hope and the honey bees'

An extract from 'VERITY HOPE AND THE HONEY BEES'

'Ask Verity Hope her wish of a treat
And swiftly she’ll answer “it’s natural and sweet!”
Then point to a mass high up in the trees
The incredible hive of the wise honey bees'

'Follow Your Heart'... and it will guide...

Your thoughts and experiences on this subject?

Susannah x 

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