An Empty Bottle From Wine, A Warm Scone With Clotted Cream And Thou

The Windsor Rose Tea Room, Mt. Dora, FL

My friend Linder gave me three beautiful bottles for my bottle tree! These will class it up a notch, as they are out of the league of the wine, condiment and perfume bottles in the current collection. Linda's contribution is of purely decorative bottles: A cut glass bottle in crimson red, a yellow glass bottle with a sun design pressed into it, and a lovely blue pressed glass. Each has a unique shape and will add much character to "what's with the tree that nutsy woman down the street has hung 2 cases of hooch bottles from?." Thanks Linder! Her name is actually Linda, but she is from Massachusetts, so she says Linder. I'll take an updated pictur as soon as they are on the tree. My buds from MA say "er" instead of "a" and "ah" instead of "r". I asked one of them to say "parka" and she said "pahker." Cool. They were here first. They can say things however they want.

I am personally working on emptying a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry for my bottle tree. That's not a difficult project because it happens to be one of my favorites. It became an even better favorite when I noticed it comes in a cobalt blue bottle. Perfect! It should be devoid of sherry and ready for hanging by tomorrow. By the way, this is the favorite drink of Queen Elizabethand you know I like nothing better than to be in her favor.

Speaking of Royal things, My sisters and I happened to have tea at the Windsor Rose Tea Room in Mt. Dora on the Queen's Wedding Anniversary (11/20) one year. We were mortified that the staff was completely oblivious to this event. In salute of the marriage we ate extra helpings of Queen Victoria sponge cake and raised our tea cups to the Queen and Prince Philip and continued on with a conversation that included lots of laughter and all the usual sisterly fun. We order the Windsor tea which includes a 3 tiered tray of fresh hot scones with Devonshire clotted cream, cucumber sandwiches, sponge cake and several other desserts and finger sandwiches. M-m-m-m. A Bette Midler quote regarding tradition of English tea resides in a frame on the wall: It may be 3:00 PM in New York but it's still 1936 in London."

Have you seen Princess Anne lately? No reason. Just asking.

Hope your holiday weekend was a safe one! I don't know about you, but 4th of July sounded like Baghdad in my neighborhood. We stayed inside and prayed that one of our exuberant neighbors wouldn't burn our house down. In past years we've done a few fireworks of our own. We quit while we were ahead after we almost took out a neighbor's tree, car and then ourselves one year.

My calendar is slim pickings this week, but I will venture out of my hermitage so that I may report back with exciting tidbits from my adventures in the big world. Catch you later!