A Tale As Old As Time and being a Mark Warner Mum

Every time I go down to London I think I need to go more often. I still haven’t taken the kids down for a sightseeing trip and it’s definitely on my list of things to do. When I visited last week it was for a really special treat, to be totally spoilt with afternoon tea at The Town House bar at The Kensington hotel, to celebrate being named as a Mark Warner Mum.

A while ago I write a post about what my top ten holiday essentials would be, for a chance to be picked as one of six lucky bloggers to work with the holiday company Mark Warner. You can imagine I was over the moon when I was asked to be on the team, Sam and Flo were too and we have been pouring over holiday brochures and planning our holiday wardrobes ever since!

Taking the kids on holiday as a single parent is something I was worried about doing and this has given me the perfect way to do it. As Mark Warner resorts all have lots of activities on site, along with half board and kids clubs, I will be able to have the best of both worlds; quality family time and some quality relaxation time too. To say I can’t wait is an understatement!

The afternoon tea event was to meet the other ladies who will be working with MW this year. I have met most of them before and one of them, Sarah who writes Extraordinary Chaos, is one of my oldest blogging pals, and I have met Emily, Alison and Maria at events before. Jodie sadly couldn’t make the event but hopefully we will all be able to meet up again soon.

After arriving in London and walking around in the sun taking photos with Sarah, we got to the boutique hotel and were really impressed with how chi chi it was. Well I was anyway! It felt beautiful and so luxurious inside, with lots of velvet touches to the interiors and lots of natural light. There was lots of yellow and grey, a real modern look to contrast with the classical building outside.

Once inside, we met up with Gabby, Emilia and Polly from Mark Warner and waited for everyone to arrive. There was lots of excited chatter about London, the sunny weather, jackets (always a bit of fashion!) and where we wanted to go on holiday. Beauty and the Beast featured highly too, as we were there for the afternoon tea themed around the film called Tale As Old As Time.

We were served a glass of champagne before being handed the menu to look over; the waiter explained how each course was linked to a line from the film, such as the “beef ragout
cheese souffle, pie and pudding ‘en flambe’ from the song Be Our Guest which made up the starters.

The dishes really made it though; there was a Mrs Potts teapot, a Chip cup and Lumiere the candlestick. It really was so lovely and I hope I’ve managed to capture some of that in my photographs. I feel like we were only there for such a short time before I had to make my way back to Kings Cross for the train home.

I love a long train journey though because it means I get some uninterrupted time to write – and this time I spent a fair amount of time reading reviews of the holiday we will be going on next month, to Levante Beach in Rhodes.

I can’t believe in a matter of weeks we will be there, soaking up the sun and having a much-needed break. Flo has already packed her bag – flower garland, books, a Barbie and a swimsuit – and Sam is all about the watersports he’ll get to try while there. It seems like such a long time since our last holiday to Portugal, it will be such a treat to go away. More on that in the coming weeks!

x Julia