For anyone who doesn't know Michelle, she is the epitome of all things classy - she's like a Disney Princess in many ways - but not at all like Princess Clara from Drawn Together.
We have a lot of things in common, but one of our strongest bonds has to be our love of a decent cuppa.
As Miss Marple's Tea Rooms is always phenomenally busy, we had to leave our reservations and return an hour later. We whiled away our time by visiting the lovely shops in the surrounding area.
Firstly, we entered another favourite place of ours, 'Tea Leaves' - a shop dedicated to tea of all varieties and the vessels which pure and serve them.
Then we tottered a little further along the road to a beautiful gourmet food shop entitled 'Cream' which is run by Leenah and Mark.
Mark is the king of the upsell and his enthusiasm is rather contagious, especially when he has found a kindred spirit when it comes to marmalade (yes, that's me)
Just look at the range of goodies on offer... drool!
I ended up taking away some Australian Harvest's Spicy Garlic Mustard, Cunliffe Waters' Hand Cut Cumquat Marmalade and some incredible lemon curd made by a woman named Leanne whose personal industry is simply making "Unforgettable Curds".
This is Mark, performing his superb salesman techniques on another customer.
After popping into a number of gorgeous antique stores and the occasional wacky-fruitcake stores (crystals, unicorns, baby sacrificial alters etc.) we returned to Miss Marple's.
We had a brief wait by the bookcases until a table came free. Here is Michelle almost fainting with anticipation...
Every year, they do a 'Christmas in July' theme and they decorate the place and carols play. As you can see, the place is packed.
One of the waitresses took our picture, much to the chagrin of the other staff who were busy trying to squeeze in and out of the tables - but we didn't care!
We had a massive pot of tea between us, some chips and garlic bread for starters, I had the vegetable pastie and Michelle had the Chicken cottage pie thing for mains and then it was time for dessert.
Michelle had the scones with jam and cream, but I opted for an old favourite of mine. Christmas pudding and custard!
We were rather stuffed afterward, but we managed to stagger back to the car and get home in one piece.
Michelle is a wonderful friend and she certainly knows how to do things in style.
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