Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Bettysday in Central PA

Betty JoDee traded her sedate black felt hat for this rather more lavish creation.
Belated Happy Bettysday from central Pennsylvania!  Betty JoDee took me out to the Bell Mansion for a super tea party, with HATS PROVIDED! by the proprietor, a concert pianist who was enormously gracious to us.  The Bell Mansion invites patrons to choose their teacup and teapot from the extensive collection displayed on shelves and cupboards throughout the three Victorian-influenced rooms where they serve both tea and luncheon.  (The tea house doesn't seem to have a website -- I wish I'd taken a few more photos -- so the best I can do is direct you to their reviews on Yelp.)


Betty van den Betsy in tweed suit and family-heirloom necklace.
I am trekking (via motorized vehicle -- is that still trekking?) about the USA, and the JoDee family were gracious enough to put me up for my first night on the road.  A lovely family and a wonderfully comfortable stay.  Thank you to all Bettys for setting a marvelous standard of hospitality.  Photos of Betty Magdalen's pets, from a stay earlier in the summer, will come along shortly.



Striving for seriousness...

...but having too much fun for it to take, really.


5 comments:

  1. Jealous! But I plan to get there in October, when (some of) my deadlines have been met!

    Sadly, although we had such fun hosting Betty van den Betsy, we did not have any hats to offer her. Nor a choice of tea cups. (I think we did have a variety of teas, though.)

    Lovely photos. Thanks for sharing, BvdB.

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  2. I flunked Betty Magdalen's linking class (because Betty Barbara was throwing spit wads), but here's a try for the Tea Room: Pamela's Victorian Tea & Music at the Bell Mansion

    Betty van den Betsy put up with a whole lotta noise and chaos as is the Van der Hertenzoon household, but she gamely held up. Our tea party was great fun.

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    1. Excellent work with both web-searching and linking, Betty JoDee. For those of you interested, we were in the Music Room, and had it mostly to ourselves until two women intruded themselves and we fell into a discussion of Harlequins before roping them in to take photos. One of them said she didn't read England-based Harlequins because she wanted to learn about exotic foreign parts, at which I reflexively started pitching the Norwegian, Dutch, German and Spanish adventures in Bettyland. Alas, I don't believe she bit.

      Maybe I spend too much time with overindulged juvenile delinquents, but I thought the van der Hertenzoon family was beyond lovely; children delightfully well-mannered and sociable and the professor tactful enough to leave Betty J. and self alone in the evening for a gentle gossip about Reilof and Laura and Eliza and Christian (i.e., could not have dragged him away from the Broncos game without two ropes and a mule).

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    2. Portugal, Madeira, Greece, Italy, the Mediterranean: I forget the names of the ports where Octavia got shore leave or not. My, the cruises we have taken... Earthquakes. Storms. The Iron Curtain. Not exotic enough, I suppose. Scotland, the causeway. Ha! Falling or diving into smelly grachten. They just don't know what they are missing.

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  3. How fun! Love the hats!

    Betty AnoninTX

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