Mrs Birks Blogs

So, it's Summer again. Readers of this blog will know that the summer fills me with joy! It doesn't matter about the weather or what we get up to, just the feeling of having free time and being able to cuddle the children when I like is enough...although the odd bonus nap is always appreciated too! We have been lucky this year in that family members have treated us to several weekends away - Centre Parcs (my goodness, I was excited!) and a lovely stable conversion in Ross-on-Wye - so I don't really feel like we're missing out by not going away for weeks on end, despite all the hotdog leg pictures on Facebook! (Ok, maybe I am a bit jealous).  What we are doing is spending a very exciting week in London being total tourists.   We are staying in Greenwich, house sitting for my Sister-in-Law whilst she is away (not that she really needs us to!).  From such a fantastic location we should be able to get out and about without having to make sure we get back in time to

Afternoon tea is now a thing.  In fact, I think it has been a thing for a long time but, as usual, I've been late to the party.  But what a wonderful thing it is!  At the risk of becoming a 40th birthday bore, I wanted to tell you about my visit in March to Selfridges for a afternoon picnic tea. Afternoon tea is such a perfect thing.  Not lunch or dinner but an extra meal in between and it has a little bit of everything - cakes, savouries and of course tea.  With ours we also opted for a couple of glasses of champagne (did I mention it was a special occasion?) which made it extra decadent for a Tuesday afternoon.   We 'took' our tea at The Balcony, a restaurant at the top of Selfridges in the Bullring but we had done a significant amount of research beforehand and I also liked the look of the Gentleman's Afternoon Tea at Hotel La Tour which also threw a scotch egg and pork pie with mustard into the mix.  We found that prices for afternoon tea started from around £20