Teacups clinked while friends chatted over finger sandwiches and delicate pastries, and I just sat there taking it all in.

My old (she’s not actually OLD, she’s only twenty-seven) friend Desz sat beside me. Her flower hat balanced perfectly, at a slight angle, on her perfect little ringlets. She’s such a sweetie.

She told me about her time in Africa and time spent roaming the countryside in England. In Africa, she had to avoid drinking milk or eating dairy products. She was there for three months. So, in England she went to a tea house and poured the cream thick. Jazzed that she finally had dairy, like clotted cream and milk in her tea, she literally went to town. And she says she became so sick. Poor girl. I noticed she drank her tea plain with no cream or sugar.

My friend Adrianne is traveling this fall to London & Paris with her family and she’s already booked her tea time. She named the places, but I can’t remember where.

My cousin, Bruni, is not really into tea. But she sat across from me grinning ear to ear, saying how “we’ve got her hooked” and how cute everything was.

Here are some pics from my afternoon tea at The Grand Tea Room on Grand Avenue …

My cousin Kelsie …

Desz and I …

My nieces had fun with the hats …

Also, my mama & Aunt Lindy came. We’ve talked about opening a tea room exactly like this one, but agree that it’d be a tremendous amount of work.

Afternoon tea is such a lovely way to relax and wrap oneself cozily into a melancholy delight.