There were some very kindly donated biscuits and teddy’s from Sharon in Perth, they were lovely and were eaten in super sonic time, the biscuits not the teddy’s, ha.  Katy was here to help I would be lost without her. We managed to raise £50 so a good day all round. The money has been paid into my justgiving account if you would like to have a look how the fundraising is going take a look @ http://www.justgiving.com/MICHELLE-ANNE-WEBSTER

Anyway, the party was yesterday.

It was utterly awesome.

It was particularly awesome because it turned into rather a private party.  Not because not enough people turned up, just because we managed to sell enough tickets to our friends and family, all of whom were desperate to attend, that we knew everyone who came.  It was lovely.

Mrs. Roody did us proud.

As you might expect, it was a tad unusual.

The drinks for example, came in test tubes:

These cakes:

turned out not to be cakes at all.

No. They were sandwiches. The pink icing was actually cream cheese. The flowers were tomato jelly, and the inside was a ham sandwich! They were delicious.

If you didn’t fancy an upside down cake/sandwich you could just have regular sandwiches:

Well, green egg and ham sandwiches made with green bread.

Or how about worms in dirt?

which was fruity, jelly spaghetti with chocolate shavings.

Here is a picture of Mrs Roody making chocolate mousse frozen with liquid nitrogen:

The children were then given tiny toothpaste tubes which actually contained caramel sauce, which they could squeeze in patterns all over their mousse when it was frozen.

It was lots of fun.

I forgot to take pictures of the purple bubble gum cake with purple jam, and the Hello Dolly Cake which came in layers of lemon, lime and orange sponge with purple icing.  I was too busy poking food into my face at those critical junctures.

I did manage to snap some shots of the final ice cream choices of the day going down a treat though:

This one was blue bubble gum flavour replete with large, pink bubble gums the shape of gob stoppers stuck into it.

There were no complaints.

None at all.

We had the best time.

Mrs. Roody not only gave us a brilliant, brilliant party which we will never forget, but also raised £80 for FSID.

We are truly grateful.

Three cheers for Mrs. Roody.

Hip Hip HOORAH!

Hip Hip HOORAH!

Hip Hip HOORAH!

Bev over at Confuzzledom had her party yesterday.

It was a roaring success.  All the Yorkshire Parkin was decimated.

The carrot cake is now nothing but a fond memory – sigh…

And a great deal of tea party fun was had by all.

Bev has told me that she will be doing her own blog post about this when she has had a chance to tidy up the debris and scrape down the kitchen, so I will let her fill in the details for you and just provide you with a link.

The best thing would have been being allowed to join the tea party, but as flights to Germany are a tad out of my budget at the minute, this was not to be.

The second best thing was having a wonderful friend to host it on our behalf and put £90.00 into our Just Giving account for FSID.

Thank you so much.

xxx

Bev over at Confuzzledom is working hard to get everything ready for her English tea party this afternoon.  I have it on good authority that as well as Yorkshire Parkin she is making some carrot cake.  Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Carrot cake is one of my all time favourite cakes.

She is also going to decorate the tea party room with quotations about tea and tea parties.  I think this is a fantastic idea. I really hope she has her camera at the ready. This blog has been rather picture light recently and it would be excellent to see some shots of our first international party.

Mrs. Roody is also gearing up for her big event on Monday.  It made the local paper, The Hinckley Times, which is fantastic. I am not sure if they are sending a photographer to take photos of our bloated forms, lolling about stuffed to the gills with goodies, but if they don’t I will do my bit and step up to the plate and the camera.

Although I can’t vouch for the lens not being covered in icing, or whatever amazing things Mrs. R is cooking up in her kitchen of wonder.

Obviously, it’s a bit late to gate crash Bev’s party, and you will need your passport.

But if anyone wants tickets to Mrs. Roody’s extravaganza you can call and book them by following the advice on her website.  They are £7.50 each, and believe me, it will be £7.50 well spent.

‘You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.’

What a great guy…

I am still finding crushed Skittles in the grouting from Tilly’s party.

Tilly is still in shock as to the amount of sheer effort involved in catering.

We are glad that the next few parties are not our responsibility.

Our lovely friend Bev over at Confuzzledom has scheduled her English tea party for 9th July and is already making Yorkshire Parkin.  I will be absolutely fascinated to find out what the German friends she has invited make of Yorkshire Parkin.

I lived in Germany myself for a few months and I don’t recall ever having come across anything remotely like it.

It will certainly be a cultural talking point.

I never used to like fruity cakes and breads when I was a child. I couldn’t see the point of them. They smacked of health, due to the inclusion of fruit, and they were invariably too dense, and/or covered in marzipan, which I loathe.

I couldn’t quite understand why, when faced with the choice of chocolate cake or fruit cake, anyone would want to eat fruit cake.

As I hit my late teens I had a slight fruit cake renaissance.  I discovered what my mum calls ‘cup of tea cake’.  This is a fruit cake made with the addition of a mug of tea (no milk), to the mix.  It works beautifully, and even though I don’t like tea either, I love cup of tea cake.  When I was at university my mum used to post me them in cake tins wrapped up in brown paper and string.  I used to absolutely love going to the Porter’s Lodge to get a parcel, and find a cup of tea cake waiting for me.

At the same time I was also discovering Welsh fruit cakes, which was handy as I was living in Wales at the time.  The Welsh have two fruity specialities, Welsh cakes, which are kind of like a flattened scone full of raisins, and Bara Brith, which is a version of cup of tea cake.  Yum.

And then there was my friend Kate, whose mother used to make a fruit cake filled with so much alcohol, one slice could put you over the limit and render you unfit for anything other than lolling about giggling.  Despite the potency of the cake it was not dark like, say, a Christmas cake, and it didn’t have too many currants in either. I hate currants in fruit cakes.  Why anyone would want to voluntarily eat a wizened, crunchy currant, when you could have a plump, juicy sultana or raisin was utterly beyond me.

So I became a tentative fan of fruit based baking.

After that there was no stopping me and I progressed to Danish pastries. Mmmmm.

In my early twenties, a boyfriend and I went to York for a weekend.  Although we did not end up in the famous Betty’s tea room where they make a fruit bun par excellence, known as the Fat Rascal, we did end up in a traditional tea shoppe where they served a local delicacy of fruit cake served with wedges of Yorkshire cheese.  It was suprisingly delicious.

Mostly surprising.

I am thinking that the look on Bev’s guests faces when faced with Parkin will be similar to mine when confronted with cake topped with cheese.

I am hoping for photos.

There are lots of worthy causes to give your money to, of that we are all too well aware.  We hope you can spare some for us though, and come to Mrs. Roody’s party.  You will not be disappointed, and I swear to you that there will never be a more fun way of raising money for a fantastic cause.

This picture is just to whet your appetite. These are the magnificent creations Mrs. Roody comes up with on a normal day.  What will she make for us on a special tea party day?

The mind boggles.

The mond biggles.

etc…

Mrs. Roody is being rather tantalising at this stage of the game.  She has given us the name of her party:

Frizzle, Whizzle, Freezy, Wheezy, Tea Party

It is on Monday July 4th.

Other than that, all other details are shrouded in a veil of secrecy.

We are not even sure what time it will be.  I will find out and let you know.

If you are free, you should definitely come.

Nothing short of death will keep me away.

She promises that it will be utterly out of the ordinary, and like nothing you have ever experienced before.

Knowing Mrs. Roody I know that this is not an exaggeration.

It is etched in my diary.

In Blood…

I am still feeling awful, but hopefully coming out the other side of things, and I must tell you about Tilly’s party, which she had yesterday.

It was supposed to be a rainbow themed party.

That wasn’t entirely successful for several reasons:

• It was the first tea party Tilly has ever organised and I don’t think she quite grasped the scale of what she had decided to take on until she was half way through it. Consequently some things had to go to the wall due to time pressures, and rainbow themeing was one of them.
• She invited seven twelve year old girls to the party and asked them to come in colourful clothes.  A couple of them rose to the  challenge. The rest were more reluctant.  Colourful is not a desirable thing for the average pre teen being pursued hotly by puberty.  There was  a great deal of grey and black clothing and long fringes.

Nevertheless it wasn’t too bad for Tilly’s first attempt.

She really did do everything herself.  She spent Wednesday evening baking cakes and making ice cream and biscuits.  She made cookies and cream ice cream which went down a storm.  I know this because I caught one of the party goers licking the sides of the ice cream carton.

She did not have time to do all the cakes she wanted.  She finally finished cleaning the kitchen at half past ten on Wednesday night and fell into bed like a zombie.  On Thursday she couldn’t do anything because we had after school commitments, so whatever didn’t get done stayed undone.

She wrote me a shopping list. She prepared the table.  She sorted out all the people who had food allergies or who were vegetarians. She really worked very hard to include everyone and make sure that everyone was happy.

On the night in question I decided that I was getting too stressed as she galloped around the kitchen at 4.15 p.m. with a cucumber in one hand, panicking.  My stress was affecting her, and the party was due to start in fifteen minutes.  I told her I would be in the lounge if she needed me, and then I bailed.  I thought it was the kindest thing to do.

That seemed to help a lot.

Although the party was raucous, and extremely loud, there were no breakages, no fights and everyone seemed to have a good time.  The only time I had to emerge from the lounge was when, as predicted, Oscar needed the toilet and could not get his Batman costume off unaided.

Everyone very sweetly gave donations for FSID, which was what the party was all about in the first place and she raised £8.00, which is good going for a children’s tea party.

Afterwards she was really sweet.  Absolutely tired, indignant that people had thrown sweets at each other, and amazed at how people regularly host parties without having a nervous breakdown.  She confessed to me that it was all rather stressful, and that having to worry about everyone and look after them, meant that she hadn’t really enjoyed it as much as she had hoped.

Bless her heart.

I don’t think she will be aiming for a career as a society hostess when she grows up, but the fact that she put so much effort into this thing means that to me, her donation is all the more important.  She earned it with blood, sweat and tears and sheer hard work.

Well done Tilly.