This one comes with a warning...

…it may be a Lenten temptation hazard. But there is no sincerer love than good food and friendship.

Fortunately, my birthday fell on the 21^st of February, the day before the onset of Lent.

For my birthday treat, I was taken for afternoon tea to Betty’s teashop in York where I am holidaying.

Here my friend Mimi and I are studying the menus. It was a tough choice between the blueberry dotted mini meringue or the brioche. I choose the éclair and had rose flavoured tea. Mimi choose the cheese scone. I was presented with a hand-stitched lace birthday card. While we ate, another friend N, read out a passage from Anthony Trollope's The Pallisers, the novel that's set in the 1860s, amid the swirl of Victorian high society.