The "Main Event" is now fast approaching! I knew my family had the big day covered (more about that later) but I also wanted to celebrate with my friends. I had always fancied afternoon tea at Claridges but my husband is not the biggest fan of fancy sandwiches and cakes so this was not something to do with him.
As you can imagine, Claridges do not encourage big parties, even of ladies of a certain age... well more likely definitely, haha! I managed to persuade them to let us be a party of twelve rather than their normal maximum of eight by telling them how mature and well behaved we would be. I think we conducted ourselves roughly within this remit as they kept encouraging us to buy more Champagne and let us keep the table on for way longer than we were expecting!
The food was exquisite and tea and champagne( Claridges don't serve Prossecco!)were flowing freely and it was so lovely to spend quality time with some of my favourite people.
Our waiter was amazing. Very discreet and not at all fazed by a group of middle aged women despite the fact he was only , at most, in his early 20s. He even came and sought me out on a return visit many months later to welcome me back. We must have made some form of lasting impression and hopefully it was a good one!
There was a slight disaster on the way home which looking back was very funny. We made our way back to Paddington Station by way of two taxis with the aim of getting a particular train. Unfortunately, we were dropped at two different entrances and the first taxi back were waiting for the second before boarding the train which was due to leave imminently. Taxi two decided to get back off the train just as Taxi one boarded from the other end and we watched them leave as we were prevented from getting back on the train by a rather jobsworth guard. All was well in the end with all parties finding their way safely home.