The cup of tea party on the 28th June.
What a lovely day – apart from the rain showers! It was so nice to see everyone and the event certainly got to us – because we even gave free tea and scones to people who didn’t get any questions right on the blog – that’s generosity for you! There was some spice tea from India on offer and the strawberry jam was homemade by brother-in-law Bob from America. We managed to serve tea until about 6pm, then the crowd got nasty and the bar had to open!!
There was also another visitor from America – click the picture and look closely, that’s the outsourcer been fed scones by sister Ginny and plied with tea by Shirley. Paul and I in the background doing our best smiles!
Here’s the Outsourcer again collecting her spoils. Somebody must have told her it was cold in England because we definitely think she’s overdone the whole pink knitwear look!
This is Rory celebrating his victory over his dad Peter. We just couldn’t figure out how he’d won because I’ve never seen dom’s played that way before!
Suzanne and Alyson are chatting in the background, meanwhile in the foreground an argument is in full flow as Jenny and the outsourcer dispute who should have the last cup of tea.
Three regulars of the blog! Paul Sandersfield on the left, Didge in the middle and ‘Un Big One’ (brother Ron) on the right. There were three Ron’s here on the day – just in case you’re confused: Ron Elves (Suzanne's Dad), Ron Hodgson AKA Bomber (my Dad) and Ron Hodgson Jnr AKA Un Big One (my brother).
In the background (seated) that’s Mam Elves and sister-in-law Nicola Elves. Alyson on the right and Jenny getting into the tea again on the left. Andy and his son Sean also to the left. Sean made the tragic mistake of taking on Ron, Andy, Bob and I at garden quoits – he was left scarred for life (see later)!
Hovis on the left (aka ‘boy in the bubble’) looks on as Ginny reminds Paul of how many cups of tea she won compared to him.
Jenny demonstrates the ‘down in one’ method of dispatching a cream scone as her partner Andy (sconeless) can only imagine what it must taste like. That’s Ron Elves in the background organising the garden games.
This is my Sister Paula from Manchester trying to decide which cake to spend her well earned ‘free scone answer’ on. Although we were only going to provide scones, an English high tea is never really complete without a proper array of the sweet stuff. Apart from the scones all the other cakes were made by our guests – ooh what a lovely lot you are!
Poor Sean – having been in the final of the quoits competition six times and loosing on every occasion he just couldn’t take it anymore and the tears started flowing (click on the picture -you'll see what I mean) off camera to the right, four adults are laughing and celebrating doing the ‘congo dance’ around the rose bushes! Shortly after this picture Sean was again, taking up his season ticket discount price seat on the last train to ‘Loserville’
This is Mam Elves at the laptop doing a great job of narrating the Blog. In the background that’s Sarah, another good friend of ours. John Jones is in the hot seat getting ‘blogged’. In the background the Outsourcer is seated waiting to answer any questions the blog readers may have.
Ron Elves showing us all that too much tea does not stain your teeth, sharing a cuppa with Un Big One. That’s our good friend and Rory’s Mam in the background, Lynn.
This is Janet, Lorna (not usually reknowned for drinking tea!!) and – yes Jenny again!! All good friends of ours.
After fifteen scones and eighteen cups of tea, Jenny’s party looks like it’s just about over – but she was determined to have what she won so she ‘battled’ on.
Here are some of Suzanne’s w-w-w-w-work (such a difficult word to say) colleagues, Fiona on the left, then Ailish who has now left Sunderland and sissy Ginny.
On the right is sister-in-law Pamela Hodgson and next to her, looking like she’s sucking a lemon, that’ll be Lindsey Loo, our niece.
Sister Poll on the left, nephew Ryan at the back (AKA Dave), Auntie Jean quaffing some coffee cake and Mam Hodgson on the end (provider of said coffee cake). The outsourcer is busy keeping a check of who has what.Thanks to everyone who came along - we had a great time and we hope you did too. Look out for the last blog entry: 'Epilogue of the Blog' which I'm busy writing and will be on the blog in a few days time.
