Tea for Two

Look at me, I'm back already!

I've decided to try really hard to write more often here at the blog, because among other things it's such a great way of preserving memories.  I'm one of those people who sometimes hears a story from a friend or relative about something that happened decades ago and has absolutely no memory whatsoever of the event.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  My baby sister was recently reminiscing about a night we spent together when I was in college (that would be back in the Jurassic Period, or thereabouts).  It was such a sweet story--a great sister bonding moment kind of thing--and I really wished my jumbled brain had held onto the memory of it the way hers had.  Maybe if I'd had a blog back then, I'd have written all about it and the memory would have stayed fresh forever.

And before I go on--lest you think the reason for my lack of recall has anything to do with alcohol consumption, it doesn't!  My sister and I were not at a bar that long-ago night; we were at the International House of Pancakes.  (Eating trumps drinking--always and forever.)

I suppose my almost-sixty-year-old brain is only going to get worse at retaining memories as the years go on; so before this one--about a recent girls' day out with the first young lady to marry one of our sons (the first girl to join our all-boy clan)--has a chance to fade, I thought I'd preserve it forever in a blog post.

This past Wednesday, my darling daughter-in-law and I met up in our little VA town (which is only about 17 minutes from the house she and son #1 are renting).  We did a little browsing and buying at the quaint downtown shops, and then we stopped in at Miss Minerva's Tea Room, an establishment that has intrigued me ever since we moved here not quite a year ago.  Peering through its windows, with their lace valances, I'd see the flowered chintz chair covers, damask tablecloths, and vintage-looking teapots, cups and saucers, and think, "I've got to have a proper English tea here someday!"  I thought it would be so much fun...

...and I knew just the girl who would love it as much as I did.  After all, she does something called "Teatime Tuesdays" with her homeschooled girls, where they have treats and drink from tea cups and listen to her read classic poetry aloud.

Well, the experience most definitely did not disappoint.  What a perfect place to go for lunch on a girls' day out!

After you are seated at Miss Minerva's, you are invited to go to a back room and pick out some accessories to wear while you have your tea: there are hats, scarves, beaded necklaces--even tiaras--to choose from.  We had fun trying on the various hats, before settling on these beauties.

She looks great in hats and rocked every style she tried on.

I, on the other hand, felt a little silly in mine and ended

up trading it in for a smaller vintage number with no brim.

Miss Minerva's is an old-fashioned kind of place, filled with soft pastels; but the colors are not dull and muted there.  I just decided to give my daughter-in-law and myself an old-timey, sepia-toned kind of look in those photos. I thought it was fitting, given our surroundings.

Miss Minerva does not approve of my shenanigans, obviously.

I just love this super-girly place, I really do (while at the same time realizing that I shouldn't put my husband through the torture of coming here with me--I love him too much to make him do that!).

There were dozens and dozens of specialty teas to choose from; I chose a hot cinnamon spice tea that tasted like Fireball candies and my daughter-in-law chose pumpkin spice.  We each got our own personal china pot filled with our selections and did our very best not to waste a drop of the deliciousness.  It really was delicious--and I'm a coffee person, not a tea person, so that's saying a lot.

Speaking of deliciousness...

We sipped our tea (pinky fingers raised, of course) while we feasted on a variety of little tea sandwiches, strawberries, mini desserts, and blueberry scones.  There was also jam and clotted cream to put on the scones.  It was divine.

I kind of wish I'd taken more pictures, because it was all so lovely--like something out of the pages of Victoria magazine.

And I think our older granddaughters would love it, too.  (Miss Minerva's even offers a "Wee Tea," with bagel bite pizzas and chicken fingers instead of tea sandwiches.)  I think they should come here with Grammy for their birthdays, as a special one-on-one treat.  Perhaps I can even convince their beloved Papa to tag along; after all, he's a total softie when it comes to his grandkids.  He might even drink tea for them--or at least pretend to.  And we did see some men's black top hats in Miss Minerva's back room, so...

Just as I'd like to have some precious one-on-one time with each of my grandkids, I'd like to do so with each of my daughters-in-law, too.  This place might not be everyone's cup of tea (get it?); so I don't know if this is where I should take the other girls.  But this lovely tea for two was absolutely perfect for this particular daughter-in-law and me.