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Sitting at Victoria Train station, waiting to leave for the round-trip afternoon tea ride to the English county of Kent and back.

Taking Tea and Enjoying the Journey T

his spring, I indulged in the most audacious, spontaneous experience of my life. My friend, Ellen, who lives in Washington, D.C., wrote to me on Facebook with a post about taking afternoon tea on a restored 1930s Belmond train through the English countryside hosted by none other than The Great British Baking Show’s Mary Berry. 80 | JULY/AUGUST 2019

BY DAYNA DEL vAL

Something in me snapped — in a good way. I looked at the images of the train and of smiling Mary Berry and I thought, “Why not? Why can’t I do something like this?” Then I looked at the dates, which were exactly three weeks away. That felt fast. Surely our calendars wouldn’t be free — my weeks are jam-packed and it’s not like we could just go

there for a day or two. It is England, after all. You should go for a week to justify the expense and the time change. But, somehow, my schedule was open enough that I could switch some things around and be available for six days. I talked to my husband, who said, “You should go.” I called Ellen and, amazingly, her INSPIREDHOMEMAGAZINE.COM