afternoon tea

The Queen of Teas

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 5 Comments

DSC00951

“Afternoon tea should be provided, fresh supplies, with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes, etc., being brought in as other guests arrive.”  ~ Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Several years ago, when I was still toiling away every working day in an office, chained to a desk and a telephone by a headset cord and staring at a computer screen with dry, unblinking eyes, I was delighted to learn that the office space next door to ours was being turned into a tea room. Continue reading →

Oh those magnificent period dramas!

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 5 Comments
Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle

Shortly after I arrived to live here in the UK the fourth series of Downton Abbey began and with a hint of smugness I looked forward to watching the new season months before my American friends and family would be able to do so. It was with some lingering resentment and a great deal of curiosity that I sat down to watch that first episode on ITV, for it had been only a few months previously that I’d thrown down my knitting and stomped out of the room at the end of series three feeling seriously miffed. After they killed off two of my favourite characters, and the second one right in the last moments of the show, I declared myself to be over, done, finished. From that day forward Downton Abbey would be dead to me. Continue reading →