tea service

After my adventures in lemonade making on Saturday, I woke up early on Sunday to finish preparing my contribution for afternoon tea with the ladies. I can't remember the last time I felt inclined to bake something (I went through a brief phase of making pâte à choux a few years ago) and instead elected to make some classic tea fare, otherwise known as the cucumber sandwich. Plain jane, but tasty enough.

The other ladies in attendance brought a sampling of other goodies. Hostess Sarah provided the location and variety of teas, one which was famous for curing English gentleladies' afternoon lowness of spirit. Crystal brought salted caramels in individually wrapped boxes so we each had something to take home. Lisa made some great brownies which I unfortunately don't have any nice pictures of. Elize made a duck egg quiche with salmon and Leanne made a gorgeous looking (and tasting) fruit tart with berries and mascarpone cheese.





I'm a little bit jealous of the light in the bungalow, because it makes it so easy to photograph inside during the afternoon. Pictures have a nice glow to them, something which is quite a bit harder to accomplish in my north-easterly facing apartment.

Tea-time was a quiet little affair... like the series of Leanne below, we spent the majority of the afternoon quietly sipping, savouring and smirking (I made more than my share of bad jokes).





Following my tea date, the gentleman and I ran some errands before investigating the mayhem of the mayfair hotel demolition. At some point in the afternoon part of the remaining wall had collapsed during the final stages of the demo, crushing the scaffolding that covered the sidewalk on Jasper Avenue. The Mayfair had been vacant for a couple years and was being demolished to make way for a new housing complex (all rentals) with street level commercial units including zip car rental. The collapse of the wall was apparently rather spectacular (as far as I know no one was hurt) and continued to draw a crowd as the demo crew worked to clean the debris from the road. Had the gentleman and I been home at the time of the accident we would have been sure to hear the most monstrous crash. Alas, we only got to see things as they were close to being cleaned up.




We capped off the evening with dinner on a patio and a visit with the gentleman's parents (also to photograph the sunset from the balcony of the dream apartment). Weekend successful.