Saturday 4th – Sunday 5th December

Although we’ve met in various groups, including our own ‘Plumes on Tour Around the Tea Girls’ and the ‘Tea Girls Together in London’, plus several other partial-meets, this is the first time we have all been together since a wedding in September 2019!!

Our hotel, where we had stayed previously many years back, was the Voco Spires Hotel in Oxford https://oxfordspires.vocohotels.com, previously part of the Four Pillars Group. It is a modern hotel, a few yards from the River Thames and within easy walking distance of the city centre.

Following a gossipy afternoon in the lounge, we assembled in our room for pre-dinner drinks and canapés, plus the annual Tea Girls’ present swap.

We ate out at No.1 Ship Street https://www.no1shipstreet.com, an independant restaurant which was excellent. Taxis took us into Oxford in our glad rags and we walked back, arriving just before a huge deluge of rain.

The wearing of masks was still a requirement and the hospitaility industry was continuing to struggle with a shortage of staff. Nevertheless, the weekend felt almost ‘normal’.

The level of noise and jolllity through the weekend was a wonderful thing – stories told, news caught up on and lots and lots of laughter. So lovely to be back together again.