Tea in Wallingford

Well, all the wind and rain has resulted in some localised flooding. I joked that now we live in The Lake District, because all the fields are lakes! The Thames and Windrush have resulted in some sewer and drainage problems in Northmoor and so what are we going to do?This:We went for the day to a lovely market town about 23 miles away to have a mooch in the antique arcade and a bit of lunch.The first thing I saw was the stall with this shelf. OMG! I loved everything on it! I loved the dog and the funny harlequin cat, that weird...thing in between, and I love the paintings. Wanted to buy it all. Ok, let's just get something straight right now. I actually wanted to buy 75% of everything in the arcade...lol.But I wanted to have a look at some lovely tea also. What do we all think about the tiered plates/cup/thing? I kind of like it. The cup might hold some flowers while the plates hold the goodies. (Assuming the water doesn't run out thru the hole.)You know, I really would love to learn how to carve wood because these funny ducks would be the first thing I'd carve. Love how they sit in this basket.Look at this! Here is an exquisite hand-painted Victorian tea service.And Robbie found a friend! This is Milo, the same name as one of our Vancouver cats and so we loved him right away. He was such a soft, foxy, friendly little thing.And then this! The next tea tray I make will have a friendly pig in the centre.After we had a good look around, we went to find a lovely spot for lunch. At first we thought about a pub, but then we found this lovely, friendly, yellow cafe called Catherine's cafe, which had a great view of the arcade.We chose this little table upstairs in the tea rooms, with turquoise seats, flower pots and a reading angel. Catherine is a retired English teacher and has brought her classic book collection into the tea room for customers.I bet you're all wondering what I bought. I wanted to buy absolutely everything, but I bought this little green hat pin and this lovely old Christmas bobble.AND ALL THIS EPHEMERA! Not sure how these things will end up being used, but it'll be great.Thank you so much for this lovely day Robbie...PS. I'm going back for that painting. :)Sharing with Terri and Martha and Sandi and Bernideen.