I have the place to myself for two weeks: I can eat what I like, I can cook whenever I like [earlier than usual], I can watch shows on TV that I like, I’ll have no distractions, no obligations, I’ll have all the time in the world, I can be me… So I promised myself to cook Chinese over the weekend, simple but beautiful and tasty dishes: egg fried rice and fish. And I’ll finally bake that chocolate cake next week which has been on my mind for a while already. I’m gonna indulge myself and treat each and every one of my six senses [yes all six *hehe*].

I also decided today that I’m gonna book afternoon tea for my birthday. Why? Because I deserve it and I want my birthday to be special this time. But that’s not the only reason, I want to try all the wonderful things this country has to offer and especially things that are cultural, from pub grub to afternoon tea at Claridge’s. Last week I went to another car boot sale, MvdM., CS. and AS. came along as well and it was fun to have a look around. To me it’s about the atmosphere, the chatty friendly people, joking about the things they sell, their happy attitude.

It was cold that day so two hours later we went to the local greasy spoon/caff to have a proper breakfast. One that would normally serve a quick recovery from a decent hangover. I don’t like greasy food that much and I try to eat as healthy as possible but I really can’t resist a nice breakfast twice a year. My birthday was mentioned and I told them that I would really like to have afternoon tea that day and I asked MvdM. if he ever had one. MvdM. moved here about eight years ago but never had afternoon tea. How can you not have had one in all those years?

So this is why I decided to have it for my birthday and since you need to book twelve weeks in advance I will call next week to make reservations and make sure that I’m allowed to take pictures [not allowed at the Ritz, yes silly…] I want pictures of cakes, pastries, scones and sandwiches. And hopefully tea will be served in beautiful flowery tea cups with shiny golden rims. According to the Claridge’s website the introduction of afternoon tea, a quintessentially English tradition, is credited to Anna, Duchess of Bedford, in the early 19th century.

Now that was your history lesson for today. I’m off to call my mum, she sent me a pretty card last week and to my surprise I found a copy in there of an article that was published in a well-known Dutch magazine. An interview about her… my mum in a magazine. I can’t help but feeling proud and it made me realise that I miss her. For now I’ll leave you with a picture of lunch that I prepared a while ago: smoked salmon and cream cheese soufflé with crispy garlic/red onion bread [own recipe with secret ingredients: it’s in the details baby *hehe*].

All this talk about food makes me hungry…

I so want this tea cup… ‘only’ nine pounds each

Lunch…