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Champagne and Cocktails in Old London Town





My fantastic friend Ms James (blogger of 1001 fun things to do in Aberystwyth, Cocktails at Dawn and Fat Ninja Girl) organised a surprise weekend for me the other week. I was to be at her house for 7pm Friday evening when all would be revealed; all I was told was bring an overnight bag, dress smart casual with fairly smart but comfortable shoes and a pair of dresser shoes to change into.

Full of excitement that Friday work couldn’t pass quick enough and when 3 o’clock eventually ticked its way around I was ready to sprint out the door and whiz home. Not knowing what to expect I was a bit perplexed as to what to pack. I decided to have a shower and mull it over. With bags then packed and shoes at the ready I headed over to Ms James abode. On arrival I was greeted with an envelope which inside contained the details of the wonderous weekend ahead. It began that evening with drinks in our local as it was a gorgeous warm evening then back to Ms James’ for delightful little munchies, more wine and a film.

Silly us really we stayed up until about 1am and then had to be up at 4am to catch the train to Cardiff and then the bus to London. We arrived fairly early in Cardiff so decided to get a cup of tea and the only place open at that time was unfortunately McDonalds. Still it did the job and we headed over to catch the bus. It was packed I thought it might be quieter that time of the morning but it really wasn’t, so much so we were separated and had to spend the journey next to strangers. As Ms James had planned a lovely breakfast for us we decided that once we got to London we would find somewhere nice to sit and enjoy it.

We arrived into London and headed for a park we thought we knew, unfortunately we couldn’t find it but enjoyed our Bucks Fizz and fruit salad breakfast outside the Tate, which was lovely, and the sun was peaking through the trees and it was lovely and warm. After our breakfast we had a look around the Tate and then headed off to find London Dungeons. The tube was a bit of a mess that weekend and so there was a lot of walking around in between which we didn’t really mind as we were taking in all the sites. We got to London dungeons and were disappointed to find that the queuing time was 1hr ½ and the tour around took 1hr ½ and so we didn’t have time. Instead we headed back to look at Borough Market and it was fab, really bustling so many different sights, sounds and smells. The variety of different food you could purchase was outstanding even Greedy Goats Ice-cream. We enjoyed a sit down and a people watch before finding and booking in to where we were staying.

Once booked in, freshened up a little and settled we got ready to depart for our Champagne afternoon tea which wasn’t far from where we were staying either. We arrived and got shown to our lovely booth seat with bolster cushion which we both loved (it’s a women and cushion thing lol). Once we had settled into our seat we got brought the champagne, followed by the tea and out luxurious cake stand with delicate sandwiches on the top consisting of ‘Severn & Wye’ Smoked salmon, ham and mustard, egg and cress and cucumber and cream cheese. Underneath this layer were three gorgeous looking scones, two without raisins and one with and to accompany that clotted cream and jam. The final layer had a delicate slice of Victoria sponge and a slice of chocolate cake. Well Considering it didn’t look very much it filled us up very well. We were slightly disappointed with the tea, we asked for a pot of Assam tea for two and it was tiny, you could just about get one cup each out of it and we were expecting at least a little pot like that each. That said the experience was charming and I would definitely recommend it. I have the joy of going on another afternoon tea later this month and I shall no doubt be comparing the two.

Feeling nice and full from our spectacular champagne afternoon tea and slightly merry from the bubbles we headed back to where we were staying to get ready for out evening out. This started with a great bar in Shoreditch called Calloh Callay Bar this is known as somewhat of a speakeasy, we were not fabulous unfortunately to be able to go to the supposedly fantastic bar which was through the wardrobe to sample it but we did get a seat in the main bar area and sipped our fabulous cocktails. From here we went to a Coney Island 50’s party in the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club this was great, people were all dressed up, you had different stands you could go to and win a prize, there was plenty of dancing, a man playing a saw and a transvestite tarot reader. I was absolute rubbish at all the stands, but Ms E James won a prize and I got a fake tattoo.

The next morning we were up early again, planning on having a delicious breakfast in a little café we had seen the day before which had advertised it was open for breakfast 6-11, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there, so we had to make do with Starbucks which seemed to be the only one open apart from things like McDonalds. It did the job and filled our tummies for the journey home.

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