Crooked House Windsor

The Crooked House in England's royal and luscious Windsor is a beautiful and quaint tearoom brimming with charm.  Genuinely crooked like the famous leaning tower of Pisa, this is a really interesting and cute building, and well worth a visit once you've finished basking in the glory of the castle.

A beautiful building so close to the castle and surrounded by history, this place has a lot going for it before you even get to the tea.

Quaint and very snug, this is a place brimming with character with very sweet and attentive staff. Our waitress politely apologised for the lack of flowering tea and was very quick to serve. 

When our order did arrive we were delighted to see loose tea in a pot, but disappointed that it was metal. Some lovely chintz would have been just perfect. I hate metal teapots, they burn!

I had ordered Jasmine Tea, so the milk went to waste, which is always sad to see. I would have liked to have been offered extra hot water, but as this is a bustling venue with hardly any space in a prime tourist spot I can understand why I wasn't. 

The sandwich arrived just as ordered and the salad was lettuce tomato and cucumber (standard British interpretation) and luckily no dressing.

All in all a lovely experience, and reasonably priced for a tourist town.

Christmas tea anticipation

It's still November and I am officially sick of Christamas. Too much anticipation, too much pressure to buy fantastic gifts, and far too much need to comprise a list of 'proper presents' for family to buy from. Yes, I have THAT kind of Christmas. A Christmas that, despite being most definitely an adult, I must draw up a list of reasonably priced items for others to buy me.

I hate this for a number of reasons, firstly I don't see the 'christmas spirit' in treating your friends and family like personal shoppers. Secondly, I can buy these things myself. If I haven't it's usually for a good reason. So I will either have to wait an extra couple of months for something I really want, or receive something that I kind of wanted, but not enough to actually buy it.

But absolutely the worst part of all this, is that it makes me go out into the world and seek out things that I didn't even know I wanted. Then I have to sit and wait for them, hopefully, like the child I used to be. Grrrr.

So, why don't I share a little of that pain with you good folk? Oh yes, a great deal of the gifts were of the teatastic variety, don't you worry about that.

Let's have a look:

First up, the most excellent-looking Tovolo loose tea infuser for those busy peeps like me to use on the move:

Doesn't it look wonderful? It's like a teabag without the potential quality sacrifice. What luck! I hope it's not stupidly fiddly and messy to use, because bags are oh-so convenient. This needs to be brilliant or it will become one of may famous Dust Gatherers.

Next up the ridiculously delicious sounding Chocolatea

Oh yes, I said delicious, because this isn't some common or garden tea stuck to some dairy milk, which would be disgusting. Oh no, no stomach churning sickly cloying here. Or at least there'd better not be. This is Japanese Sencha and cacao nibs. Oh so sophisticated and only 2 calories! (I lied about the calories)

I also want all of the gorgeous tea-sets that are on the market at the moment. Every last one of them. But they are not on my list, because I am a grown up and I have realised that I have no space! :( Oh Santa, won't you bring me a lovely big house in my stocking this year? I've been ever so good.