Tag: tea

afternoon tea at fortnum’s

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Fortnum and Mason, London

One afternoon while in London I took my Mum for tea at Fortnum and Mason, on Piccadilly. It was an early treat for her birthday, something festive to do before Christmas. I took her there once before years ago (I think the prices were about half what they are now) and have wanted to take her again for ages. It’s up in the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon, though to get up there you need to brave the packed store full of Christmas shoppers and squeeze into the tiny elevator. It’s lovely though, and I still put Fortnum’s among my favourite London shops. During the pandemic for Mother’s Day I ordered a hamper for my mum and another one for my mother-in-law which had to be shipped over to California, they do really nice tea and cake hampers. Piccadilly at this time of year, the start of December, is even more crowded than usual, but I don’t mind. It means London’s doing alright. We walked about a bit looking at expensive cars in the Lotus showroom (they had Ayrton Senna’s old F1 car), expensive jewellery at Bentley and Skinner, and expensive glassware at the Lalique store in Burlington Arcade. I took the opportunity to draw Fortnum and Mason from across the street, as during Christmas time the whole store is made up to resemble an advent calendar. As you may know, I have a long history of making advent calendars so the idea of turning an entire building into one makes me happy. A lot of people were stopping to wait for the little statues of Mr. Fortnum and Mr. Mason to come out from the ornamental clock and tell us what time it is. Fortnum and Mason dates back centuries, 1707 in fact, the time of Queen Anne, Fortnum being one of the Queen’s footmen. I sketched for a while as my Mum looked around some shops, and by the time I was about done there was a woman who had set up a little camera on a tripod to film herself talking about the Bible and singing psalms, fair enough but when they get a microphone out and start going on about sinners that’s enough for me. Anyway it was time for our tea. We each got the regular Afternoon Tea with scones, sandwiches, cakes and tea, as much as we could eat and drink, and we ended up taking many of our cakes home with us and eating them over the next couple of days, they were quite rich and filling. We started off with a drink called a ‘turtle dove’, a kind of cocktail that was so good, a nice way to kick off Christmas. For tea I had the Afternoon Blend, Mum had the Queen Anne. I think, I can’t remember now. I think I had a couple of different types actually. I had to draw the teapot and cap along with a cake that looked like a present. When we were done I spent more money downstairs picking up a few things here and there to bring home for family, but I could have got so much nice stuff. My Mum bought a nice Fortnum’s ornament for my wife (when they wrapped it, it was like that scene in Love Actually with Rowan Atkinson and Alan Rickman), and I bought chocolates and tea and fancy greeting cards. I bought a lot of fancy greeting cards on this trip, Britain does the best ones, by far. So that was our tea at Fortnum’s, a nice treat and a very festive thing to do before Christmas.

tea at Fortnums

go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on

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when i blew up the kettle
This is a true story about when I blew up the kettle (accidentally) when I was nine. Probably long forgotten by everyone else, but something I remember every time I plug the kettle in. I drew this, my kettle and tea-making equipment, here in my kitchen in Davis, and it is part of the Pence Gallery’s ‘Teapot’ show, being displayed until the end of December upstairs at the Pence (D st, Davis: visit www.pencegallery.org for details). I do love a good cuppa tea. I don’t use a teapot (no point unless there’s a few of you) and I don’t do none of your fancy nonsense, just a working class cup of tea, thank you, lovely. Fortunately I can get my normal teabags here in America, so I can have my typical four or five cups a day. I would not have lasted long here otherwise. I remember being nonplussed when my American mother-in-law first came to England and remarked at how cute our little ‘tea station’ was (it was the kettle and jar of teabags), now I live here I know it’s not actually typical to have an electric kettle in every single household- in Britain and Ireland it’s so essential, we get a kettle before we get a bed or a roof or anything. A cuppa tea back home is a language we all understand. I won’t drink anyone else’s tea here in California either, not even in cafes, I only drink my own tea, made at home, perfect and unbeatable in every way. And when I discovered you can get chocolate Hobnobs here in Davis, well my cuppa tea experience moved a little closer to perfection. Now I’m just waiting for my son to get old enough, and that’ll be his job, just as it was mine. Hopefully, of course, he won’t blow up the kettle.

choc and awe

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milky way
A quick one; a cup of tea and a chocolate bar. My illustration friday entry for the theme of “sugary“.

The chocolate bar is a Milky Way, but don’t let that deceive you, British friends – American Milky Ways are nothing like our Milky Ways. They are in fact almost exactly like our Mars Bars. They also go very well with tea. The Milky Way/Mars Bar thing is one of many instances where our two cultures look different and call itself different things but are in fact the same. I can’t be bothered to name any others.

I got that mug at the Getty in LA. And you know what? I didn’t actually drink this cup of tea from that mug, I drank it from a different one, with my name on it. I just thought the colours and pattern would be better next to the milky way. I used to have a funny way of eating Mars Bars: I’d eat the sides first, then I would nibble off the top, and then the rest. A friend at college once gave me a king-size Mars Bar for ny birthday with a big note on it saying “eat it properly”.