High Tea.

I have been trying to make a tea cosy a month for this year’s challenge and I never thought a tea cosy would present itself in Jerusalem, but it did!!  My host took me and several other ladies out for High Tea.  Where do you go for High Tea in Jerusalem?  Well to the Olde English Tea Shoppe of course!!!  Yes I jest not, there really is an English Tea Shop!  A tea shop with a twist.  It has chandeliers….

Bright aren’t they?! Beautiful silver tea strainers…

Yes, they serve tea made with loose tea.  Trays of tea cups and milk jugs and bowls…

Shame about the sugar packets, but can you see the cake fork?  Then came the tea pot…

with it’s cosy.  It was crocheted – I had a good look – with charming little tassels around the bottom and the top.  But it didn’t have holes for the spout and handle, it had splits and it just plopped on the top of the pot!  Definitely one to make.  The best bit was yet to come.  Remember the cake fork?  I bet you are expecting cucumber sandwiches and cake, well… voila!!

The bottom two tiers are the sandwiches!  Each one a work of art.  Cream cheese rolled in freshly chopped herbs with salmon twirls on top.  Biscuity bases – savoury of course – with shredded vegetables built up like meshes.  Sweet touches with fresh peaches cubed and placed delicately in the centres.   It was amazing!!  Then there were the sweet bites on the top tier.  Little ginger stars, the taste of the fresh ginger was out of this world!  And the scones, served with little tea cups of cream and jam… mmmmmmmm!

And as it came we sang songs.  Anything to do with tea – Tea for two, and I’m a little tea pot, both songs and others, sung with gusto by all twelve of us!! Before we started our treat we also sang our thanks with Shabbat Shalom.   I said it was an English Tea Shop with a twist!!

I turn to you.

My quiet time this morning was 2 Corinthians 1 verses 3 – 11, and how God will help us through our difficult times.   It reminded me of an old Mel C song ‘I turn to you’.  While it wasn’t a Christian song it held a Christian response for me.  It helped me to focus on the only One who could help me through a period of depression.  There were other songs and visual things, but these words always brought a smile to my face.

‘I turn to you, like a flower turns towards the sun,

I turn to you for you’re the only one.

When I ‘m upside down, you turn me right way up.

I turn to you. I turn to you.

I may not have quoted the words correctly, but that is how I remember them!  Sorry Mel  C.!  So to people like Bill Oddie, who are suffering from depression at the moment, I give you a little plate of sunshine!!

Flowers always make me smile and the bunches that I received the other day are still blooming!  The tulips gave me the inspiration for the icing colour.  Take care.

Side tracking!!

Yesterday was a potttering around day.  A little bit of this.  A little bit of that.  You know the sort, you start one job and then get side tracked into something else?  I was supposed to be doing housework, and yes, I did the washing – all three loads of it! – and I even ironed it all!  It was nice to be able to put it out on the line to blow in the sunshine!  But the hoovering and dusting, I am afraid got a lick and a promise as I was side tracked into making these.

Something for tea!

A plateful of love!  Yes I know it wasn’t Valentine’s Day!!

And then these little moments – thank you Lucy, again!!

So which would you have done?  The cleaning or the making?  No competition really!

Problem solved!

I have finally finished the piecing for the top of my mini quilt and in so doing have decided to use both the yellow and the green to edge it.  The actual binding will be in green as I have the most of that particular fabric and the hue is heavier.

Hope you agree about the green.

I have learned a lot making this, particularly about cutting and precision of sewing.  My next big learning curve will come when I quilt it.  Do I do it by hand or machine?  Do you use the same thread to do either method?  Food for thought!  Talking of food I made some melting moments the other day.  A moment on the lips weeks on the hips!!

Oven Delight

A month ago my new cooker arrived and I have been baking to my hearts content, in the knowledge that something edible will come out.  Now you may think that isn’t unusual but when you have been without a thermostat for five or six years it is!!  So I thought I would share one cooking moment with you!

Weighing in – I still use lbs and ozs! The volcano is building!

The lava is flowing!

All present and correct.

The brewing begins.

And VIOLA, eat warm with lots of butter! Yum yum!