The Tea Shop Diaries

Time on my hands

2009-11-17T15:52:00.002Z

So, this year has been a pretty busy one. First there was sorting the wedding out, then there was the Manchester International Festival, which took up a lot of my time, till July. Then in August agency work and other client projects, then the hen do, the wedding and honeymoon, and now in November, I'm bored.

I need to start doing my portfolio, but I'm not sure how to start it, so in typical fashion I put it off and off. I firstly need good pics, but its hard to take them yourself. The first lot were rubs, but MrTSD (official now) has a better camera I can use this time, well when I say better, I mean its not as good, but the functions are more basic. So therefore I can use them!

I just don't know how to do it, I mean so it looks good. So in true Tea Shop fashion I am waiting for divine inspiration. Might be waiting a while for that they eh?

In the meantime..... I wonder what people are up to on Facebook?

Adventures in marriage-hood

2009-11-04T15:09:00.002Z

Hi Tea fans.

Well if there are any of you actually still out there, or if any of you indeed care. here I am a bonafido married lady*. Marriage09(TM) went very well indeed, despite bad rain in the morning, which threatened us to be relegated to the rather unromantic setting of the Partners Room. Luckily, the wedding lady at the hotel is experienced in the art of lying, and told the registrar it hadn't rained all morning when she arrived. It had by then stopped and thanks to a handful of guests getting handful of worms off the path last minute so I didn't squish them with my princess shoes, it all went ahead outside in the gazebo.

Mr Teashopdiaries, was by all accounts, pretty emotional and nervous, before he heard my dulcet tones scousing up the aisle - hiya, ooh hello there, hi, hi (well we didnt have any music as God had struck the wedding ladies cd player down in return for her lying to the registrar). Completed by a roaring rendition of the guests humming 'Here comes the bride' the short walk of ten feet up the path to the gazebo took less than 15 secs. Just how I like it, now stop looking at me, haven't you people got anything better to do?

Whats seemed like 2 and a half minutes later, encorporating two readings where the voices cracked half way through and threatened a cry fest, we were married. Nice. To the point. Thats us.

Half an hour of photos up a mountain in the wind and we were on with the drinking. Meal went very well, speeches were excellent, though don't test me on the content, I can't remember any of it, except me forgetting to thanks the inlaws and give presents out.

Onto the sky candles which were the only let down of the day. Two members of staff, a nearly burnt down tree and 4 sky candles later, it was all called off. We still have a box full. Cheap to the nearest bidder if anyone wants them.

Next up was the band, provided by my dad and his mates. I knew that I would love it, but I was amazed at how much everyone loved them, seeing as its pretty old school music. Half of them got up and did 'keep dancing' tess and bruce impressions across the floor, and the rest joined in the Pack up your Troubles/Tipperary sing-off which was the surprise hit of the evening. All in all, the Trebletones went down a storm, and what lovely gents they were too.

Then came the wheels of steel, well the ipods of aluminium... and an embarrassing amount of gin later, I had danced the night away. Typically the pics from later on in the evening are not what you would call flattering, but hey I had a great time. God knows where my husband was, but I had fun.

Top the night off with an acapella version of ice ice baby by the Toastmaster and the wedding was complete. That was the hundred-and-thousand on the cherry on the icing on the cake that was our big day.

We couldn't have wanted more.

*loose sense of word

Single White Female

2009-10-05T17:15:00.003+01:00

Soon to be brown married one. Eek, double eek, and thrice eek.

Brown as in gonna have to tan-up otherwise people might think I have gone for an all in one bodystocking look wedding dress - "where does she start and the dress end?" will be the words on everyones lips.

So... this is it Tea fans.

In order of things worrying me at the moment, here are my top 5.

1. First dance - Mr teashopdiaries to-be is putting his head in the sand on this one, so no doubt it will be a truffle shuffle along the slippy floor till the three minutes are up.

2. Walking down t'aisle. A) I hope its not raining, so I can walk up the path and not the aisle. B) what if I i) cry b) slip or 3) go bright red. All of which are highly likely and not conducive to elegance.

3. Disco. It will be fine. Really happy with the DJ we have but we are hiring the gear off another dude and I just pray it all goes according to plan. Otherwise Tea fans (real ones not webbed ones) will have to chas'n'dave it up.

4. Hair. Nightmare.

5. Trying to not get pissed the night before.

6. Wearing heels

7. Wearing dress

8. Wearing white dress and drinking wine

9... oh sorry I was only doing top 5 wasn't I?

So, next time I speak I will have learnt the Haka in New Zealand having driven the length of it in record time... and will be back in Blighty looking forward to a first Christmas with my new husband.

Husband.

Hehehehe.

MIF09 ruins your life

2009-06-21T17:22:00.005+01:00

Hi Tea Fans. If there are any of you left, you might be glad to know that I am actually still alive and kicking despite my complete lack of blogginess.

We are heading swiftly to the start of the festival which will be on 2 July - featuring Kraftwerk at the Velodrome with a few blissful surprises in store, Its gonna be like totally MEGA! Thank God, my lovely marketing director sorted out a ticket for Mr Tea Shop Diaries to-be. Otherwise I would have never lived down not being bothered about going when the tickets went for sale and them selling out whilst we thought about it. Oops. Anyway all is well that ends well as they say in Germany.

Other exciting things that are going to happen this week are: The Festival Pavilion is going up on Albert Square, Quay House is being trussed up like a Halloween haunted house for Adam Curtis and Punchdrunks It Felt Like a Kiss, and Rufus Wainwright and Jeremy Deller are milling about our office. A pretty exciting time to be in Manchester at the mo.

And I'm going to see my first opera as well. Eeek.
In the meantime here is the dressing for it at the Palace theatre, done by my own fair mouse hand.

See you on the other side. I'll try and blog my way through it, but to be honest, 12 programmes in 5 days does not a happy equation make, so there might be even less time this week!

Red nose cakes II

2009-05-10T22:44:00.001+01:00

Red nose cakes II, originally uploaded by The Tea Shop Diaries.

And I gave them red nose face/noses this time....

Red nose cakes

2009-05-10T22:43:00.001+01:00

Red nose cakes, originally uploaded by The Tea Shop Diaries.

Not sure if you have seen these, but these were the cakes I made for Emmas 'lets have it a month early' Red Nose Day. We ate them all, and then I made some more the month after at the correct time.

I'm back - from outer space (not really)

2009-05-10T22:01:00.007+01:00

Well Tea fans, how sorry I am to have abandoned you for SO long. Apart from me having no camera to take pics of any of my amazing bake-ages, I haven't baked much at all, on account of me being so busy doing work for these people as well as doing all my normal work at night and at weekends.

Wedding plans are going well (thanks for asking) and the lovely Ruth at the fine cheese company in Bath, is helping us get the cheese cake we really want out of handmade artisan veggie cheeses they supply for weddings. Had the first fitting for my wedding dress with my mum, and its nearly there. Can't give away too much (anythingin fact) as Mr Tea Shop Diaries subscribes to this blog like a good supportive other half should.

And onto the cakes.

In order to ingratiate myself to my new colleagues (albethem short term contract ones)and also to bring some Monday cheer to the office, I promised them cakes. And cakes they shall get too. These beauties are not only lemon cakes, but they are lemon cakes, with crystallised ginger in them and a little blob of lemon curd in the middle. Topped with lemon buttercream with a mini jelly lemon and some lemon rind curls on the top, you can't get much lemony-er than them!!!

And, they all fit perfectly into my lovely new cake tin.

While I was at it, I threw together a quick tiffin, as its my speciality (apparently) but I buggered it up a bit and had to dry out the mix a bit with ground almonds as I ran out of digestives. Oh well we will see how nice it is in the morning when its chilled.

Till next time TeaFans, I bid you a goodnight, and hope I see you quicker than I did last time.

Apparently...

2009-03-30T12:40:00.003+01:00

my cakes are the reason that Darren has put on half a stone since I started going into their office. Well, even though I am glad that he likes my cakes so much I will not take responsibility for this.

No pics for a while now folks as my camera is still being 'fixed' at COMET. DON'T ASK!!!

The competition

2009-03-23T11:55:00.003Z

Popped into the (not) new (as its been open ages) cupcakery in Chorlton to sample some of their delights seeing as we never seem to be around when it's open. As it was a) Mothers Day and b) Sunday late afternoon, there was not the usual amount of cupcakes to select from, but also seeing as we had never had any before, it didn;t really matter.

They all looked fab, but we opted in the end for a Betty Page (chocolate and coffee), and a Mint Royale (chocolate and mint).

The presentation could not be faulted, beautifully crafted dollops of cream cheese icing decorated with glitter and chocs.

The sponge was fabulously light and the icing, just the right consistency to be melt in the mouth, but still hold its shape. No mean feat I will add as my last cream cheese icing slipped sideways off most of the cakes.

We were a little disappointed that the actual cake bit didn't reflect the nature of the cake a little more ie. coffee and mint in the chocolate cake, but we put this down to the logisitics of actually running a business as oppose to making cakes in your kitchen for your mates.

Anyway, all in all, a lovely Sunday afternoon treat in the guise of research.

Must write more blogs. Its been far too long Tea-fans.

More soon...

Fame at Last

2009-02-26T13:22:00.002Z

Check out my cupcakes and current status as 'baking goddess' on the Volcom site here

Volvom Cupcakes part 2

2009-02-17T16:48:00.007Z

Here are some (rubs) pics of the Volcom cupcakes at the party.

As if that wasn't enough

2009-02-17T16:21:00.003Z

I knocked up some of these on Sunday. Yum.

And tomorrow I promised Emma 24 cakes for her Comic Relief event on Friday!

Volcom Party Bakeathon

2009-02-17T16:06:00.010Z

Well Friday was the day I took a day off normal work of ~~staring out the window~~ design and took up role of Master Baker for a day. Phew it was HaRd WoRk!

After a frenzied morning, of cats, haircuts (for cat) and Asda shopping we finally started baking about 1pm. We did a rota system of one 24 cupcakes, followed by 30 biscuits, (Rpt) until we had about 54 cupcakes (because the size varied enormously!) and 60 + biscuits.

Round one ended in some rather thick set cupcakes. So we iced the bejesus out of them and no one was any the wiser.

Round two were rather lighter, but spread over the entire top of the muffin tray. So we trimmed round them with scissors and then iced the bejesus out of them and no one noticed.

Round three, were considerably better. Bright red as we had relented to the 'un' natural food colouring and just the right cupcake size. So we thought, what the hell and iced the bejesus out of them, and didn't think anyone would care one way or another about anything much, seeing as they were getting free cocktails AND cupcakes.

The biscuits were altogether easier, besides the recipe misinforming us re: the flour. So we just poured more in and they were very nice in the end.

Here are some pics from the baking session. More to follow of them 'in situ' when Matt gets them off his iPhone. I am currently sans decent camera as the battery is faulty in mine... and the new one has not arrived yet.

Its snowing!!!

2009-02-02T11:40:00.008Z

Big Wow.
I wonder how people in Scotland cope.

Now in other news, here are some more cakes that I have been up to this weekend.

The first ones are the black bottoms I made the other week, which I forgot to take a photo of before they were scoffed by the Fuzz boys.

They looked rubs, but were the most delicious ones I have ever made. (apparently).

The red velvet ones came out very well apart from the icing, which I didn't make thick enough. Oh well, tastes nice.

And the cookies were a bit weird as they were wheat free and didn't stick very well, they also contained ~~bee poo~~ honey so I'm not keen, though dipping them in choc worked well. The shapes were good though.

And in Asda yesterday I found silicone muffin cases 12 for £2 which was a bargain!

Still need to perfect a good biscuit recipe for the Friday bakeathon in a couple of weeks.

Love Cupcakes?

2009-01-29T11:31:00.004Z

Volcom Girls Marketing Manager Extraordinaire and friends to the Boodalls - Josie 'special thumb' Clyde, is throwing an Anti Valentine Party soon which we are pretty excited about.

Not only that, but I get to take a day off work and spend it baking and making black heart cupcakes and broken heart cookies for her event.

The black cake cases have been ordered and I am currently trying out a number of suitably non-romantic toppings.

Watch this space for photos soon!!

Window Seat

2009-01-29T09:59:00.002Z

This is why I always try and get the window seat on planes, because when else would you see views like this?

Almost makes it worth getting the 6am flight to Geneva with Jet2.

Oh no hang on a minute. No it doesn't.

Thursday Funnies

2009-01-29T09:56:00.002Z

A little email popped into my inbox this morning entitled.
Behold – the man who looks like a thumb.

They weren't wrong.

Whoops

2009-01-26T21:38:00.005Z

Thats Whoops as in 'Oh dear I really didn't mean to do that', not Whoops as in a number of noises made in joy.

It has been brought to my attention (thanks mum and dad) that I haven't blogged in a while. Sorry Tea Fans, I didn't mean to neglect you. The exact opposite in fact, I have been locked away in the kitchen (wearing my mums pinny that she made when she was
very young, which was a very long time ago) perfecting my cupcake and cookie cooking.

So until I can think of a rant/interesting fact for my next blog I will leave you some nice pics of my latest creations.

Christmas and Cupcakes

2008-12-29T22:46:00.002Z

Greetings and festive felicitations Tea Fans, and apologies to anyone who has missed my updates for the last few weeks.

In a nutshell, this is what I have been up to since we last spoke:

Shop, panic, wrap, install towel rail in bathroom, open proverbial 'can of worms' doing so, have no heating, heating reinstalled, towel rail hung.

Christmas do: drink, rock band, drink, meal, drink, dance, drink, dance, drink, dance, drink, taxi, vom(!), sleep.

Curry, Josie over from France, early morning city shopping, lunch, relax, chilli.
Friends, pub, drink, laugh, worry about tax return, drink more, lose track of time, sleep.

Drive to Wirral, relax.
Relax. Make trifle. Relax.
Christmas day, presents, sprouts, nut roast, potatoes. Trifle.
Relax. Relax. Relax.
Relax. Relax. Knit.Relax
Knit. Knit. Knit.

Drive back to Manchester. Tidy. Unpack.
Dribble over new cookbooks. (Three: Cupcakes, Cookies and Afternoon Teas)

Friends. Fajitas. Gin. Taxi. Town. 30th Birthday.
Popcorn. Taxi. Sleep.

Tax return. Cupcakes.

And that, Tea Fans is what I have been doing since we last spoke.

Now.... New Year....

Ding dong the witch is dead

2008-12-11T15:56:00.003Z

Which old witch? The wicked witch of course.

Last night saw the annual 'people who used to work for Epigram and people who still do and are girls' Christmas theatre trip last night, and it was to the Lowry again, but this time to see the Wizard of Oz, or Woz as I like to call it.

This time, we borrowed Elsa, Jo's little girl, to make us look a bit more legit and a bit less like a bunch of weirdos who go to pantomimes, like we do most years. However, this wasn't a panto this year (though they threw in a 'they're behind you' for the kiddies) but a fantastic performance of an old favourite.

The munchkins were amazing. They were kids, but they mimed to the original soundtrack so they had adult squeaky voices, and it worked a treat. They had a full on sheer cinema screen that stood in front of the set, so when they showed the tornado scene, they had a 'pitching' bedroom scene in the background and images of scarecrows and twisters and its of houses flying about on the screen. Very creative and very effective. As always, a stunning show at the Lowry.

Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable night out, I think we enjoyed it more than Elsa, who seemed to spend more time looking at her amazing flashing light show heart that Jo had bought her, but hey!

Now.... who's up for Mary Poppins in the new year? Matt?

Ring a ding ding

2008-12-05T13:43:00.002Z

Well Tea Fans, its now official.

Finally after a wait of what seemed like years, but was in fact only weeks, I have my beautiful custom engagement ring. Yay!

Unfortunately, due to my cameras sheer bloodymindedness it refuses to focus on the detail of the ring, and more on the detail of my wrinkly stolen-from-an-old-lady hands. But you can see it pretty well.

For those of you who are interested it is a London Blue Topaz, set in 18ct yellow gold setting and white gold band.

Wowsers!!

Sorry you have a life and can't wait in all day for me.

2008-12-01T14:16:00.006Z

Ok, so here it is.

Our postman left, they didn't replace him, they gave our round to another (very begrudging by all accounts) postman on top of his round. He wasn't happy about having to work till 2pm. Poor you I thought, though he probably did start work at about 6am.

We now don't get our post till 2.30pm sometimes, sometimes, 4pm, sometimes 12.30pm. So unless I stay in ALL day waiting for the postman, if I miss a parcel, I have to go and collect it. Which is fine if it is not-delivered in the morning, but as it is not-delivered 2.5 hours after the sorting office shuts, I then have to get it the next day.

Its NOT good enough, I work from home. So if I work from home, and I can't successfully take delivery of parcels. How the hell can people who go away from their houses to work get their big post?

They should franchise out Royal Mail to Father Christmas, he seems to manage ok.

And don't even get me started on Home 'oh you aren't in, ok I'll leave the massive cardboard box with amazon written all over it on your doorstep two feet from the pavement' Delivery Network.

AND I've not even started on DHL!

Terrible

2008-11-23T17:03:00.001Z

Has anyone seen the Iceland advert with Kerry 'Chip Shop' Katona, Donovan and Nolan in it.

Need I say anymore?

Cereal Killer

2008-11-18T17:16:00.006Z

Whats with the Kelloggs people these days?

Firstly it was an advert of a young woman gradually removing her clothes in what looks like Narnia, only to find that nice old bowl of Special K with HOT MILK warms you up (to be honest, I reckon keeping your warm coat on in the snow is probably more sensible, if you want to stay warm). You know, like when you have it with COLD MILK, its cold. Well guess what if you have it with HOT MILK its nice and warm.

You don't say.

NOW, its a mum pouring HOT MILK from a jug onto some cocoa pops which then turns into some random extra scene from Fantastia, with cartoon hippos enjoying a nice bath in it.

Eh? What? Am I missing the point here. Haven't people been putting HOT MILK into their cereal to have it HOT rather than COLD for years.

Me thinks that in recent financial times, Kelloggs are sh*tting themselves that they are losing the winter market to porridge (don't kelloggs make Ready Brek though?) and are desperately trying to rebrand all cereals for our winter of discontent.

Why don't they just make one cereal from now on:
Credit Crunch (With Vitamin C)

PS. There is a lingerie shop round the corner from us called The Pillar Box (it used to be the Post Office) whose range of maternity wear is called HOT MILK. Wrong or what?

You sure have started somethin'.

2008-11-18T17:06:00.003Z

Babyface.

Thats me. Officially.

I used to get really wound up when I was about 21 and the novelty of showing my ID had worn off, but I was still being asked to show it whenever I went to pubs and clubs.

Everyone used to say when you are older, you'll be happy. They were right.

I got asked for ID on Sunday in M&S in St Pancras Station, by what can only be described as a teenager. I was buying some nice wine for my soon to be sister and brother in law (hehe) as its their 1st anniversary this week and we were staying at their house. She eyed it up, eyed me up, eyed the wine up again, and then WHAM, there it was:

' Have you got any ID?'

Yesssss, I muttered under my breath as I proudly showed her my driving licence saying 1974 with a massive beam on my face.

'ooh I'm sorry' she muttered as she started to redden in the cheek area.

'No problem' I said loudly, 'I take it as a compliment these days'

'You should' she said.

I do.