Olde English Tea

I've just been to an Olde English Tea. It's an annual fundraising event, run by a local church. It was most enjoyable, and it made me realise something I hadn't fully realised before. We English have a lot to live up to. I knew that Americans like our accent, and I knew that many of the older generation are somewhat fascinated by the idea of the monarchy. But, oh my, if this event is anything to go by, the image they hold of life in England is truly refined.

The occasion was one at which Miss Marple would have felt at home. Piano music tinkled away in the background. Tea was poured from large, elegant silver teapots on silver platters. The food consisted of small sandwiches cut into dainty circles or squares, and tiny cakes, and morsels of tray bake, and little pieces of fruit precisely displayed. There were mice made out of a cherry dipped in chocolate for the body, with a chocolate head, pointy nose and all, and ears made out of flaked almonds. The cherry stalk was the tail. What imagination! Everything was beautifully presented on plates, with doilies (can't remember when I last saw a doily), and a small vase of flowers in the middle of each one. Flowers were everywhere, actually. On each table in white teapots-turned-vases, in huge arrangements down the centre of the buffet table, either side of the pathway as you walked into the building.

I have no idea how many people they serve in the four hours that it runs, but it will be several hundred. Mostly ladies, and all very smartly turned out, with many in hats. Hats! "Like an English wedding" someone told me.

You'll be pleased to hear I didn't let the side down. I tried my best to look elegant and glamorous, but in an English way. I'm going to have to digress here, and tell you about the dress I wore. I've had it for 15 years (I just worked it out) and for most of those years, it's been hanging in my closet for old times' sake because, let's face it, who can fit into a dress they wore 15 years ago after three pregnancies and the onset of middle age? But ha, there has to be some hidden positive in cancer and chemo, and guess what, I am now lighter than I was 16 years ago, and it would seem pretty much as slim. I was so excited when I tried it on and found it fit, and it kind of compensated for the black and purple toilet brush which is my head these days (I never did go back to the hairdresser; I know, I know, I should have...)

Anyway, yes, understated English elegance was the look I was going for, which involves a lot of tummy sucking in, I can tell you, and walking as if you have a book balanced on your head. I tried to talk in my finest accent, and shower little droplets of British English into the air. It was the least I could do.

You'll be glad I didn't spoil the ambiance by letting on that there were a few little wrinkles in the Englishness. The event took place between 10.00am and 2.00pm, so not actually teatime as we know it. The tea was served with a slice of lemon with a clove stuck in it. Delicious, I'm sure, but not traditionally English. There was milk and sugar available, but it wasn't milk. It was cream. (I hear your small gasps of horror from across the ocean). There was a choice of tea or coffee (coffee... I know... sacrilege). And the drinks were served in glass cups - proper teacup-shaped cups, not mugs - but without saucers. Alas.

But it's the worst kind of expat who is a pernickety spotter of faults in this way, so these things are just between you and me and a gatepost standing by a verdant green meadow somewhere deep in rural England. And let's face it, if they were really going to recreate an English tea, it wouldn't be flowers and hats and delicate food and refined chatter at all, would it now?