Refreshing Tea in a tea set from the 1800's, lovely

You know, the more I think about the tea I had at the weekend at Anteaques, the more I just think, that was really, really lovely - it was.  Afternoon tea on a wet day, in a quaint teahouse, surrounded by antiques, listening to old fashioned French music, and chatting to the owners of this establishment who I think of really fondly because one of the owners and I like the same things and have great chats about the things!  I can't wait to go back, and either can Dexter as he has taken a liking to quality tea too, and Anders, well he is just such a tea Jenny anyway!   This is my favourite tea place in Edinburgh, and I think it works best from Autumn through to Spring as that is when you want to sit inside such a wonderful little find and it is only open Thursday through to and including Sunday.  So in my mind, I would suggest we had tea here if we were meeting for a virtual catch-up!

"So what's been going on"?, I would ask as I poured the tea!

When it was my turn (being polite I let you speak first!!!), I would go on to say the knitting I was talking about last week, I had gotten my head around, but now I was stumped on crochet!  Having bought a book on how to make these cool crochet robots which Dexter wanted to make with me, what appeared to be relatively simple, was clearly not simple enough for my blonde head and that after several attempts at starting one, I hate to admit, I gave up thinking it would be easier to knit the damn things!  I will attempt it again, but given I was already trying to complete one tough knitting project, doing another was clearly asking for trouble!!!

I would also say that I had started to do some photographs of Marvin and Carly for Christmas photo cards to send out this year, and had managed to do some at the weekend which I was quite pleased with (even if I do say so myself).  This photo shoot had captured Dexter's imagination too as he had gotten into the spirit of it all (not that he needs much encouragement to get all creative as he has a great imagination which amazes me every day).  Now the two of us getting into it with Anders throwing in the odd suggestion too (Anders has a great sense of aesthetics), my head was spinning with all the possibilities of stuff for us to make and talking about this has made me realise that the way to make sense is to write a list of what we should make for who and that way we would have a structure for what to do so thank you for being that kind ear to let me brain storm/dump as time was never on my side!

I would also say that the weather was really getting cold here, and that I even saw the first ground covering of frost.  Anders actually saw snow as he drove down south to his uncles funeral yesterday, which would lead me on to saying "that's the thing about Christmas, and every day for that matter, it is so important to love and live each and every day as you never know which might be your last".  This would lead onto me saying how yesterday I saw a horrific traffic accident on the other side of the dual carriageway to which I was driving.  I had never seen a car having had to be cut in half to release the people inside it which thankfully I didn't see.  They had been hit by a huge lorry, and my heart really went out to whoever was in the car and to their loved ones.  No idea if the people died or survived, but it looked really horrible with lots of police, fire trucks and ambulances about the place.  That would then lead me onto telling you about this other old cemetery that we visited outside Edinburgh which had really old Gothic style graves.

About now you would be saying, "this is cheery"!  To which I would laugh!

But then I would say, would you like to see something funny?  

Personal Rule no. 37:

"never ever say anything negative about someones baby".

Correct response to this scene is:

"what a beautiful strong jaw your child has and isn't he so handsome".

I would then ask "Would like to see my Marvin and Carly Christmas Cards"? or "the photos I took of some workmen"?  I would also say, there is still time to enter into my competition Competition Entry.  With that the tea would be finished, and I would skip off saying, I really enjoyed this and can't wait to come back here, I feel all refreshed and ladylike!

Soul Style and Sunday Stuff

So what do you do on a wet, cold and miserable day you might be asking, well we went to look at Greyfriars Church (as the rain stopped for a short time), and whilst I will post this up separately once I have gone through the pictures, one of the graves I thought I had to post today for any Americans out there.  It is of a person who died on the 4th July 1774, 2 years before American Independence!  This is not the oldest grave here, as this graveyard was founded in the 16th century, 1565 - but it did catch my eye!  More of that however on another day......

Tea served in this beautiful tea set from the 1800's.

After this we went for some really lovely tea in a great tea shop which also sells antiques.  The two guys who have this shop make lovely scones and cakes and the variety of teas is just fantastic.  Now that is a nice thing to do on a Sunday don't you think tea in fancy cups and cake - yummy.

The cake on the middle tier is the nicest Macha cake we have eaten ever, ever, ever!

Here are some of the antiques below that are in the tea shop which you can buy, or just look at.

This picnic hamper even has the original tea set and also kettle which you heat over a burner how quaint is that!

After tea, we drove to Arthurs Seat to take Marvin and Carly for their second walk of the day, as we drove back I saw this antique shop and had to jump out as the window display was just incredible.  

I mean, just look at these boots!

When I went inside, I had to ask about the boots in the window because they were amazing, and it turns out that they belong to the guy who has this shop.  They were not for sale but were used to entice people in.   In fact not only that but they were an old pair of the shoes he used for his Drag Queen act (which explained what he was saying) and he gave me one of his leaflets.   I thought this was fantastic and it was not the response I was expecting which we both just laughed at and made this find all the more interesting.  As I looked around his shop, who did I spot but Mr Puff!  I couldn't believe my eyes - yep another Mr Puff!  This therefore had to be destiny so I bought him and now I have a twin for the original Mr Puff - I would like to have some fun with that!

Mr Puff 2 - Destiny!

I loved this antique shop especially as it just such a lot of character and you could see that the guy who owned it loved it too from the way he spoke about it and the treasures inside it.  He had a great eye and the objects inside it were interesting.   I love finding places like this which are fun to have a good rake about in.  The fact that the guy was also really lovely and interesting telling me that he does shows all over the world just made me smile, especially as I had just seen the episode of Ugly Betty with all the Drag Queen acts.  

So, for those of you who have become regular visitors to my wee site, as mentioned last week, I have decided to do a piece every Sunday dedicated to "Stuff", objects that I come across that I think are interesting.  But given the weather was cold and wet here, our whole day turned out to be one where we were exposed to lots of interesting old "stuff" which tied in with Sundays in the City.  Just to wrap up however here are 2 last photographs of interesting stuff.  One is a Chinese pair of dolls from somewhere around 1900 - 1930 I think!  Don't know anything about them really other than they are really old and beautiful so if anyone out there knows about them, it would be great to hear about it as I don't and I just thought they were interesting.  What makes me smile when I look at them is that they are clearly friends, and being dolls, they must have brought joy to the child who originally owned them.

Lastly, there is the "Liberace telephone" - It just made me laugh when I saw it and I had to put it on the blog as I thought it might make someone else smile too.  Hope you like this and please feel free to leave me a comment it is always nice to hear what you have been up to.  It's good to talk after all especially to friends.

If you like really pretty Scottish Landscapes, then perhaps you might like a chance to win one of 3 Historic Scotland calendars which shows you some other beautiful Scottish landscapes.  If you are then click here to enter!  It is open to worldwide entries.