Commemorating Princess Diana Tuesday Cuppa Tea

Hello and welcome to Tuesday Cuppa Tea. 

I hope you are enjoying your Labor Day weekend, and the beginning of September...

Today I am actually sort of reposting a post from February of 2014 for 2 reasons...I am down with a sinus infection from the smoke we have had and secondly because last Wednesday, August 31, 2017 was the 20th anniversary of the tragic death of Princess Diana, which needs to be commemorated, sad though it is, so I am reposting a visit to an exhibit of her dresses called 

A Royal Exhibition - A Princess And A Queen at the Queen Mary ocean liner, now a hotel in Long Beach California.

My teacup today was made in 1981 by Wedgwood, England to commemorate the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer...

The applied bits are very thin and are applied with a palette knife...very painstaking work. We used to love visiting the Wedgwood pottery in Barlaston near Stoke-on-Trent to watch the process.

The teacup is made of a type of porcelain and stoneware called jasperware, and the white is hand applied by craftsmen onto the already formed and bisque fired base layer. 

The mark is hard to see. For later commemorative wares, Wedgwood added a print dedication or commemoration mark as well, but in 1981 it was the impressed mark only. 
Lady Diana Spencer became Princess Diana or Princess Di and became known as The People's Princess because of her empathy with the people she met in all walks of life.  As we all know, the Princess was killed in a car accident on August 31, 1997, but her popularity remains. Hence the exhibit we went to see...and the events commemorating the 20th anniversary of that sad date.

The exhibit of Royal memorabilia and about 40 of Princess Diana's dresses has toured the country. The exhibit passes on 50% of the proceeds in each city to charities in the area. This exhibit benefited The City Of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California and another breast cancer charity in the area. The exhibit was founded by 5 wealthy southern women who loved Princess Diana and combined their accumulation of things related to Diana and the British Royal family with a way to give to those in need.

The famous and venerable Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary was built in 1937 and retired as a hotel and conference venue in Long Beach in 1967, her 516th and final voyage.  We have been on Queen Mary 2 several times, but never sailed on this Queen Mary...wish we had...

The interior still has much of the gorgeous art deco wood paneling. I LOVED the elevator grill...

There are a number of tours available...here is a poster for one in the elevator heading for the Sun deck where we were seeing the Princess Diana exhibit and having tea in the tea room...

We peeked down a corridor where the hotel rooms are...cabins that are now period hotel rooms...

We also passed the bridge...which is roped off, but we could see what was once state-of-the art-propulsion and navigation equipment. Looks a bit different that being on the bridge last year of the Celebrity Millennium...

We weren't allowed to take photos of the exhibit but I found this on the website for the exhibit.......

Here is our ticket for Tea With The Princess which was what the package of the exhibit and tea in the tearoom was called...

We were there just before noon and it was quite quiet. We had tea in the tearoom, which was one of  the original dining rooms on the ship...

We had a set tea of :

Our choice of teas...we had English Breakfast, my husband's favorite...(he really likes PG Tips best!)

sandwiches: 

Shredded chicken and dried mango tossed in a a light curry aioli on wheat bread

Deviled egg salad and micro dijon greens served on pumpernickel bread

Scones:

Dried apricot and pecan scones

Devonshire cream, raspberry jam and lemon curd

Sweets:

Petit eclairs

Lemon tarts

Black And White mocha cake

We were so glad we had this mini tea, because others had twice as much at some of the other tables, and we could never have eaten it all! And since we were heading out on a cruise with the family the next day, we figured it would have gone to waste...or waist....

This is the Queen Mary from the hotel just around the bend we spent the night at. The Carnival ship we went out on, having just returned from the Panama Canal spent the night next to the Queen Mary...

We stayed at the Hotel Maya, a Doubletree that was more like a South Beach hotel, with a great outdoors South American restaurant called Fuego where we had a fabulous dinner...so good we forgot to take any photos! Very romantic....

And as we walked back to our patio room from the restaurant, we took some photos of the Queen Mary and the Carnival ship lit up and the bridge into the main part of Long Beach. A wonderful time!

For more info on the Wedgwood Royal Wedding teacup at Antiques And Teacups, just click on the photos.

So thanks for joining me on what was a wonderful trip and experience, with fond memories of a Princess and a Queen.

I will be joining:

 Tea Cup Tuesday 
 Bernideen’s Teatime, Cottage and Garden
Home Sweet Home

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