A spot of afternoon tea...

To celebrate our 40th birthdays, our H.C. high-school crew planned a reunion in London for a long-weekend of festivities.

The overnight flight proved a star as we all arrived from our different corners of the world (Singapore, Toronto, Dubai and London) bright and early on Friday morning to give us the full weekend together.

Actually arriving half an hour early (before the sun even awoke), I jumped on the tube to head over to Janna's new house.  A couple of subways and an unplanned bus ride later, I walked up the final hill to be greeted by catcalls from a passing car before arriving at Janna and Nikki's place.  The excursion was worth it - visiting their inviting new home and enjoying a leisurely healthy breakfast catch up and a well-needed shower (which only made the earlier catcall that much more surprising), was a perfect start to the weekend.

Meeting at The Marylebone Hotel (Doyle Collection), the four of us wandered over to The Corinthia Hotel for afternoon tea, the official kick-off to our "HC Girls Do London" weekend.  Having examined and smelled all of the possible tea options, we selected our choices - supplemented with a glass of sparkling - and spent the afternoon eating finger sandwiches and scones - while we caught up on the latest happenings.

Realizing that we needed to finish our afternoon tea in order to make it on-time for our quickly approaching dinner reservation, we headed over to the Savoy to pick up our theatre tickets for Saturday and took a quick stroll through Covent Garden before catching a taxi to the hotel for a quick dinner-clothing change.

A delicious start to the celebrations....