We spent a delightful few hours last Saturday afternoon in the company of 19 guests, including very special guest Ms Marmite Lover herself, enjoying a summer's day in the garden first for sewing (little lavender bags in the shape of houses to take home and hang around the house somewhere) followed by a vintage tea party inside at the dining table. 

The menu included: finger sandwiches with cheshire cheese and homemade red onion chutney, coronation chicken and rocket, egg mayonnaise…

We're a secret vintage tea room, but we also deliver and host afternoon tea party events for all sorts of occasions and we've been nominated for a national award, so we'd love all our supperclub and secret tea party friends to vote for us if you have a moment! You just…

Some pics here of our christmas crafternoon tea party last weekend. Too big for my house, we had to hire a village hall for an afternoon of sewing dangly tree ornaments and enjoying a festive afternoon tea. Quite a few friends came together, a few mums were brought along, everyone had a hugely sociable and relaxing, yes relaxing (at christmas?!) time together. We're…

Here are our guests at our secret Crafternoon Tea Party last Saturday, after a hard hour's sewing they deserved a slap-up afternoon tea didn't they?! We chose a new location this time, a really delightful village…

Menu is here

Simply had the best time on Sunday serving up 30 afternoon teas with crafts at a really unique venue. Back-breaking but loved it. We'll be doing lots more in 2013, more unusual venues, more themes, more cake...Here's a blog post about it (with pics of our amazing venue) from Oooh Betty:

http://ooohbetty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/a-secret-christmas-crafternoon-tea-party.html

Thinking that secret tea parties in my home for around 10-20 guests were getting a little easy and boring (that's a joke), I decided to rent a village hall with a friend and really go for it! It wasn't perhaps as easy as we'd thought selling 50 tickets but we did it in the end and it was an incredible amount of work but great fun. We'll do it again next year. The theme was Vintage and we had five hand-picked stalls for added interest. Jane had dressed the room amazingly and I think our…

Held my first secret crafternoon tea party on Sunday with a local craft studio French Knots. Guests first made a brooch with vintage fabrics and buttons with help from Jo Johnston, then moved onto the tea table for afternoon tea to be served. Lots of chatter and enjoyment around the craft table, then munching. Was a good, productive afternoon and we'll definitely…

Hmm what to bake?

First stop is on the front of Sainsbury's current magazine and is a recipe from the wonderful Dan Lepard who writes on baking for the Guardian every Saturday. It's a Blackberry and Cinnamon cake, bursting with whipped cream and blackberries. How autumnal.

Secondly, in a nod towards Christmas, a chocolate orange cake. Two layers of moist chocolate cake decorated with whipped orange frosting and Terry's chocolate orange segments (chef's children desperately…

And virtually no photos by me. Tried to bribe a couple of photographer friends to come and take photos in return for heaps of cake, but to no avail, how very strange. Next time...

Fortunately bakelady found the time to photograph some of the sandwiches and cakes and the photos are contained in her blog http://bakelady.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/tea-cake-journey-day-2/

Sixteen…

A new afternoon tea club launches in South Manchester...

Five year old son and husband evacuated to Head over Heels play area in Chorlton, followed by digging at a friends allotment. Teenage daughter and 12 year old son hiding upstairs. My mum ready to wash up, in fact we couldn't give her the plates fast enough (she even read the Sunday papers during one lull). Friend Kate flower-arranging as guests arrived and ready to photograph proceedings, act as general scivvy, add moral…

It's Manchester's very first secret afternoon tea club and what better day than our one-off royal wedding bank holiday, 29th April 2-4pm. We're aiming to please everyone, whether you've watched "the wedding" or whether you're escaping "the wedding". So don't expect street party style bunting. Do expect a picture-perfect table laid with vintage tablecloths, china, cutlery and cake stands. Don't expect wall to wall TV coverage on in the corner of…