A Right Royal Do

Argh, not having the internet is killing me I tell you. I will sort it out, I will I will I will. But until then you'll have to bare with me. I have now joined the modern world and got a phone that allows me to browse the internet but it has a tendency to spaz out when it comes to commenting so although it might appear like I have disappeared I swear I haven't, I'm still here!!


So without further ado, and in follow up to my last post about my plans for a Royal Wedding tea party, let me tell you how it all went.

I was up from 7am on Thursday morning until about 2am on Friday morning getting things ready and there were about four nervous breakdowns but I got there in the end. There was, as predicted, far too much food, but I sent people home with piles of cake and I'll probably put myself in a diabetic coma before the week is out.

Now I know what you all want to know. How did the Union Jack battenburg turn out?

Luckily I have a sense of humour about it now.

The instructions told me to only add a little bit of blue food colouring to the sponge mixture or it would turn green. I duly only added a little bit. And it turned green. I actually managed not to cry, although I did throw a spoon across the kitchen. Luckily for me all was well, I was officially ahead of schedule and I had time to try again. So I cracked eggs and measured out flour and beat everything together and added even less blue food colouring than before.

And I got a mint green cake.

I really did flip out at that point. The trouble with being anally retentive a bit of a perfectionist is that when small things go wrong I have a tendency to go into complete meltdown because now everything won't be perfect. 


I couldn't make yet another sponge so I downed tools and went to my appointment at the hairdressers. There we had a chat about it and he told me that when people come in wanting their hair dyed blue they have to first bleach it and if even the slightest trace of yellow remains in their hair then the hair goes green. Aha. Basically it's all the fault of the eggs and butter. I'm at a loss as to how I would get it blue, I couldn't have used less food  colouring than I did. My sister has suggested food colouring paste instead, but who knows, I can't say I'll be repeating it soon.

Home from the hairdressers I decided to just forge ahead anyway. I would just have a green union jack and pretend there was an eco theme to my tea party and dare anyone to laugh at me.

It is massively fiddly. It's every bit as fiddly as it looks but the good thing about it already being kind of ruined meant that the pressure was kind of off and if it messed up, well it messed up. But I mean it still looks like a Union Jack - right?!

And at the end of the day it tasted good so whatevs people.

But I still had a light green sponge spare. That was not on the itinerary. Luckily a friend on Facebook gave me an idea and a quick trip to the greengrocers and some more buttercream icing later I had another Union Jack going on.

Mini round of applause for me, I'm calling that a save.

I had plenty of decorations to put up thanks to some birthday presents and Poundland which provided some tacky bunting.

And see the fireplace? That's the cross-stitch pattern I was working on before from Mr X Stitch remember? Yeah I didn't get around to framing it unfortunately, but thanks to some clothes pegs and a fireguard I think it turned out alright.

I got up bright and early on Friday morning to do the last minute bits and bobs, including laying the table and last minute hoovering. I was so keen, I was ready by 8.30am and felt very antsy waiting for people to show up.

This table is one of my favourite pictures ever, I don't think I'll ever get bored of looking at it, it is beautiful to me.

And because I can't get enough of it, I took a photo from a different angle too.

And hey, who knew coronation chicken was so easy to make? I was almost convinced to buy some in a jar but I'm so pleased I didn't because it was easy and bloody scrummy, in ma belly. I'll be making this again.

My royal wedding commemorative mugs went down very well - I used some to house some daffodils for decoration and all the others were out on a stand and I asked people to choose their very own mug to have their tea in.

We oohed and aahed as we saw the dress and we discussed all manner of things - like at what point Prince Harry was going to crack on to Pippa Middleton.

I had been concerned that there wouldn't be enough booze to go around but I realised I'd made a slight miscalculation. Two of my guests were pregnant and all the others bar one were driving. So I went from panicking about there not being enough, to being able to bathe in pink fizz if I wanted to.

After the carriage ride and the balcony kiss people started to drift off home. As I said, all were driving and all had other halves who may not have wanted to come to a tea party to watch the Royal Wedding, but still wanted to spend an extra bank holiday with their girlfriends/wives. We're all growing up you see!

All in all? A success, I very very very much enjoyed hosting my first tea party. Although next time I might charge entry, it's pretty expensive to host one of these and put everything on yourself, the total bill came to over £50. Ouch. It'll be a lean month for the rest of May!

So I guess the next one is the Diamond Jubilee next year. Who's up for it?