Tea Hee Hee

A tea dance, or thé dansant (French: literally dancing tea) is a summer or autumn afternoon or early-evening dance from four to seven, sometimes preceded in the English countryside by a garden party.The usual refreshments in 1880 were tea and coffee, ices, champagne-cup and claret-cup, fruit, sandwiches, cake and biscuits. ^[5] The types of dances performed during tea dances included Waltzes, Tangos and, by the late 1920s, The Charleston.^[6]

The expenses of a seated supper, wine and candles associated with a ball were obviated by the tea dance, when a stiff waxed canvas dancing cloth strained over the drawing-room carpet was considered sufficient, rather than taking up the carpet and waxing the floor in preparation for dancing.^[7] Floral decorations were modest.

Damsel Dusty

So the Nice Cuppa Tea Dances are in full swing (Tea Hee Hee). Here is my Tea dance recipe for the Wild Lily Fete (Sunday the 24th of July in the Midland Hotel):

How to make a Wild Lily Fete

Take:

1. New songs (lots of)

2. A String quartet

3. The ridiculously talented Troubadours (Matt Owens, Tom Davies, Rick Weedon & John Ellis)

3. Damsel Dusty the twinklingly talented poet

4. The Mighty Charlton our ever changing in the flash of an era Master of Ceremonies

5. A lovely Audience

6. All sorts of musical flavours from swing to Bolero, waltz to country.

7. A full set of vibes and a full set of vibes.

8. Tea, fresh coffee, little triangular cucumber type sandwich things, and lashings of cake

9. A whole bunch of beautiful chords

10.Fresh flowers

11. A beautiful room with walls that could tell a century of incredible historic stories.

12. Waltzing, waltzing and more waltzing.

mix them all together in a huge bowl and add one Kirsty Almeida, a beautiful dress, a 19th century Parlor guitar, a Manchester Jazz festival and bake at 37.8 degrees for 2.5 hours this sunday at 3.30pm and then dance forever. MMmmmm MMmmmm