Coffee for Two in the Afternoon! A Tablescape Thursday Vignette.

Come join my friend Betsy and me for Coffee in the Afternoon!

If it's Thursday, we must be Tablescaping!
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If we are lucky, we have friends. If we are very lucky, we have good friends. And if we are very, very lucky, we have one or two people whom we count as "best friends."

I am very, very lucky.

Betsy is one of those "best friends." We used to live in the same town, our kids grew up together, our dogs are half-brothers. We have shared countless meals, cups of tea and coffee, and glasses of wine (and one memorable evening with apple martinis, but don't ask!) at each other's homes.


So, I am planning Coffee in the Afternoon with Betsy!

We'll use the parlor, and pull the wing chairs up to an old round tilt-top table, which came from the Brooklyn mansion where my Great-Aunt Margaret lived, and found its way to me via my parents' beach house:

Then, a coffee pot -- it was my Grandma's (of Grandma Cake fame):

(Kindly ignore the schmutz on the coffeepot.
It's from Czechoslovakia, back when that was written as two words.)

Snack plates, sugar and creamer, from Harker Ware,
in their distinctive green "gadroon" Corinthian pattern:

(I bought quite a lot of this pattern on Ebay years ago, attracted by the color and the charming border. It looks almost as though it is stitched on, don't you think?)

Napkins sewed by my Mom in the 60s:

She loved unusual cloth napkins, made or bought dozens and dozens of them.
That's an old Blenheim pattern silverplate coffee spoon. Love that pattern!

A little porcelain tray on a stand decorates our coffee-klatsch table for the afternoon.

Betsy and Phil gave this to us at our House Blessing in March.
It's lovely, has beautiful thoughts, and is Irish -- just like Betsy herself!

Can you read it? It says "May Friends and Family bring light to the cottage, warmth to the hearth, and joy to the soul." I say, Amen.

I add some simple cookies, and an Edwardian silverplate fruit knife to cut a juicy
Granny Smith apple; Betsy's a nurse so I want to keep it healthy:

Coffee -- black for me, with cream for Betsy --

-- and we are ready to settle in for a light snack, and some heavy gossip.

You can't beat best friends, good coffee, and a cookie or three. Unless of course you have the ingredients for apple martinis on hand . . . .

(Note to my other best bud, Mardi -- you will get your turn when you come back to Jersey, you Florida runaway!)