Doing the glamorous thing

Today is a big day. I'm off to London with Mum and sis for a girls day of extravagance. Around noon we'll be on the London Eye, which is huge for me because I have a terrible fear of heights.

Hopefully I'll be so distracted by taking photos that I won't be terrified :-)

Then we're off for afternoon tea at Brown's hotel, which is where Agatha Christie set Bertram's Hotel. I'm very excited. The dress code is rather smart, no jeans, and as the weather has turned very hot that meant a shopping trip yesterday to source me a suitable outfit that I won't overheat in. I'll be very stylish in linen.

If this is anything like Claridge's tea, we're going to be stuffed with finger sandwiches, scones and cake and we'll slosh as we walk from all the tea. It's going to be epic :-)

( Cut for Avengers fic talk )

Time to run! Must pretty myself up and catch a train :-)

Yay tea!

*flump*

London was very hot. My feet are three times larger than normal.

It was great fun, though :-) The Eye was great and I took tons of photos. Must transfer them to my iPad tomorrow.

Then we stopped for a cool drink because we had a couple of hours before tea. That was followed by a wander in Fortnum and Mason to see how the other side lives (and because they have air con) to kill more time.

Tea at Brown's was amazing. It's in a wood paneled lounge in the hotel, very discrete and comfy. They bring you a menu to chose your tea from and then you just have to make the decision between traditional tea, healthy tea (pfft!) or champagne tea.

We opted for a traditional tea which meant a beautiful stand with plates of finger sandwiches, scones and pastries with big pots of cream and jam plus our selected type of tea. And they keep replenishing the plates whenever they get low, so you unconsciously eat so much food. I lost count of the scones and sandwiches I ate. I never get proper scones with jam and cream in Canada so I was taking advantage :-) My sister worked her way through sampling all the pastries and my mum loves sandwiches, especially egg ones. They did come round with a trolley offering us slices of Victoria sponge, but we'd rather filled up by that stage! It's so elegant and lovely, definitely a treat worth doing.

We've now done Claridge's and Brown's. So mum and sis have decided that we have to work our way through the Dorchester and the Savoy over my next few visits so that we can properly assess and compare. You don't have to ask me twice!

I'd say that I enjoyed it equally as much as Claridge's. The sandwhich selection worked slightly better for my pescetarian sister (only two meat in the five flavours) but Claridge's had a longer tea menu. The plus point to Brown's is that they didn't refresh my teacup every time I put it down so I drank a reasonable four cups of tea as opposed to ten. Thus although I'm very full of scones and sandwiches, I don't slosh as I walk :-)

If people are planning to do tea at a posh hotel in London, I'd definitely advise skipping the Ritz and going for one of the hotels I've mentioned :-)