Tea Dance, Harewood House

Inside I am secretly a 75 year old woman, nothing excites me more than an afternoon spent rambling around a national trust house followed by scones and a pot of tea.

This is handy really, as for the first 20 years of my life I lived in North Norfolk where there really isn’t much else to do besides the odd country fete or church spire to climb. Which is why I am so excited that the tea dance season is once again upon us!

During a lengthy internet seach for Zoo’s in the North East of England (FYI outrageously, there aren’t any) me and a friend stumbled across Harewood House family Tea Dance. 

It promised us all the scones we could eat and all dancing we could want (probably to diminish the effect the scones would have on our waistlines), with the added bonus of being a day away from Sunderland, we brought tickets immediately. For £5 each, we figured, there was no way we couldn’t possibly have fun.

We decided to go in traditional tea party dress (read O.A.P attire) and so spent a whole day tramping around Newcastle’s finest charity shops in search of clothes that were smart, yet hilarious, yet suitably pensioner like.

I finally settled on a 1940-esque green and white spotty tea dress – £5 courtesy of cancer research , while Nicky adorned herself in a tweedy skirt and embroided M&S shirt from Scope.

Harewood house

The morning of the 24th brought beautiful sunshine, Nicky and I loaded the cd player with all the treasures we had found in our charity shop binge and set off. 

Among the audio delights that caressed our ears on the journey were: The porridge men, The Platters (greatest hits), Bill Tarmey (Jack from Corrie apparently!) and Mr Akkar Bill. 

The drive to Leeds was pretty easy, we took a couple of accidental detours but eventually we arrived and went in search of food. As we ate lunch we saw some penguins (Harewood house is also a bird sanctuary), some ducks had invaded their pond, but they didn't seem to mind.

After lunch we went to investigate the 'Geopods', I thought they may contain plants or something, but I was mistaken.

Inside was actually a learning centre for kids, there was a huge shop that looked like the secret love child of the art attack studio and a small woodland which was stuffed with all kinds of 'educational' toys. There was also a cinema and a drawing room, where you could draw on the blackboard walls with chalk.

The Drawing room

A sample of the outstanding art works we saw:

After a couple more hours of exploring the grounds of Harewood (which are huge, green and filled with sheep), we headed inside for the tea dance.

The view from the walled garden

The walled garden

We were taught how to fox trot, waltz and do several other dances by a very persuasive lady who wouldn't just let us stand and watch, despite our frantic pleas. The man who was teaching us to dance was called 'Bill Shakespeare'.

Afterwards we were rewarded with several varieties of cake and a hot drink, there was also a raffle, which we didn't win.

All in all, it was a very nice day out, the weather was amazing, there was loads to do at Harewood - which is set in masses of beautiful Yorkshire country side, which caters for people of any age. There are beautiful country walks, a bird sanctuary, the geopods and a large adventure playground for children. We were lucky that the weather was so good, if it hadn't been then it probably wouldn't have been so much fun as most of the activities are outdoor based.

The stepping stones

The lake walk