Time for tea!

Afternoon tea is making a comeback. Customers are flocking to tearooms and eschewing the ghastly coffee chains with their thick, foaming, sickly, jumbo-sized hugely expensive coffees.

Good. About time, too. We need an escape from the raving-mad modern world, and afternoon tea comes from less frenzied times: the tea gardens of the early 18th century, the first Lyons tea houses – all safe havens for unaccompanied ladies, when half the population wasn't waddling around weighed down by excess fat. And in the 1950s and 6

0s, we were forever asking people to tea. It saved you the bother of cooking a proper meal, and only lasted an hour or so.

My very own tea set ^_^

The career power women of the eighty's with their sharp hair cuts and strong shoulder pads have raised a generation of daughters who are more interested in enjoying the simpler things in life, like baking and tea cups. It is much more satisfying to take the time to have your tea brewed in a pot or strained over leaves, in a special cup with some sweet treat. It seems so English and so peaceful, which is really what we could all do with a little more of.