Family Affairs and other matters

I’m not sure what I was thinking, but in a moment of madness, about 6 months ago I booked a table to have tea at the Ritz for my daughter’s birthday. I’ve always wanted to do that and it seemed like the perfect opportunity – in my head I had imagined that my Grandmother, my mother, my daughter and I could go together to celebrate not only my daughter’s birthday but the fact that four generations of women in our family are still alive. However, in reality, my Grandmother is a bit too mad and my mother is a bit too busy looking after my father (who is back in hospital for the 5th time). Anyway, my Grandmother and my mother would have spent the entire time pointing out that the total cost of the tea was more than their respective first houses.

Instead, my daughter chose a friend and her mother to join us. We had a splendid time – drinking tea from fine bone china tea cups, eating cucumber sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and jam and then more sandwiches and little chocolate cakes and mille feuille (sp?) and macaroons until I blew up like that tick in the post I wrote yesterday and felt supremely sick.

The photos really didn’t do the event justice. But look at those sandwiches! How beautifully cut are they? (and clearly gold-plated):-

Not that I needed any icing on the cake, but on our way home, whilst crossing the road THE QUEEN drove past us – we knew somebody was on the way, there were flashing lights and police on motorbikes, but we literally could have touched her. The girls were HUGELY excited.

The shame of it was that to top off what must have been two of the most well known British institutions, we managed to add a third…. my poor friend discovered that her wallet had been stolen on our journey in and somebody had already tried to use one of her cards.