York Tea Party - an Official Report from sconeside...

Well, yesterday was the day... Actually is was a day, Saturday, but this Saturday was The Day of The York RNA Afternoon Tea..


And what a tea!  Into the York Guildhall (impressively filled with tables decked in pink, white and floral tableclothes, with table centrepieces of roses and that white stuff that nobody can spell),

A typical table. Picture courtesy of John Jackson, who thought to document these things...

 filed members of the RNA who had made the journey north.  Still linked by their ropes and hampered lightly by their pitons, they tethered their huskies outside, kicked the snow off their boots and came inside.

Another picture by Jobn. Huskies not pictured, although you can see the Pic n Mix table

Of course, one glass of Prosecco later, the filing stopped and a general uproar began as everyone found themselves a seat, a cup and began the general chat associated with such occasions, which is  now known as the 'RNA Hubub' and is probably audible from space.

We were called to order by Lynda Stacey, whose idea the whole thing was, and who masterminded such things as...well, pretty much everything, although I was mostly in charge of the catering and cheques, because of my affiliation with food and all things sticky.  Anyway.  Lynda kicked us all off, although not literally because she was wearing nice shoes.

This fascinating picture of Lynda and the back of Milly Johnson's head, was by me. You can tell, can't you?

Kelvin Woolmer said grace, for what we were about to receive, and out came the sandwiches.  Loads and loads of them.  These were then followed by the Quiche and Savouries Course. and then cakes..

many, many cakes.  In the background you can see the scones, jam and cream lined up waiting to go.. bowls of clotted cream!  BOWLS of it....

Between cake and scone courses, we were treated to a fabulous talk by the adorably lovely Milly Johnson, who gave us an only slightly scandalous look at the way Northerners are different from Southerners (and it's not only in their entirely appropriate use of 'eh oop' and way with pigeons).

Milly Johnson, again photographed by John. Because I had some lovely shots of the back of her head.

Then there were scones, much conversation, more tea drinking, and people helping themselves to bags of pic n mix sweets to take home for those Left Behind, to assuage their guilt.

Plus John managed to capture a rare moment in history - the Choc Lit inaugural Hokey Cokey club dance-off, where Rhoda Baxter, Henriette Gyland and I were shown the rules by Mel Hudson, while Kate Allen demonstrated in the background the correct art of 'putting one's left hand in'.  I like to believe that, on the journey home, the entire membership of the RNA who had attended the said Tea perfected the art of Shaking It All About.