A stroll along the Thames and a cat with an addiction | Ham House

As previously discussed, the Crumbs to Crunch sisters suffer from a clotted cream addiction. However I recently discovered that this addiction also extends to the animal kingdom...

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a good picture of the cat.

Oh the perils of being a feline resident of a tea room!

I did see the tubby cat lolloping in the garden at the fabulous Orangery Café at Ham House in Richmond. I sympathised as this is the fate that occurs to many the cake lover!

Ham House is a grand Stuart house overlooking the river Thames. It has an extensive art collection that dates 400 years. However my favourite part of the estate were the delightful gardens, a mixture of formal gardens and wilderness. The kitchen garden is still well tended 400 years later and is home to the tea rooms and thus the podgy cat. 

The Orangery Café looks straight out of a fairy tale with the creepers curling around the building. I tucked into my white chocolate and raspberry cake while basking in the sun in the kitchen garden. The cake was divine as it was not too sweet unlike other white chocolate cakes I've had. Washed down with an apple and raspberry juice, this was a magical summer tea! 

Unlike my lazy whiskered friend, I had worked up an appetite for my tea! I reached Ham House by walking from Kingston along the Thames Path. Admittedly the walk was quite long (about an hour and a half) but was well worth it! It was difficult to believe that I was in the middle of suburbia as the river was so pretty and peaceful. After my refreshment stop at Ham House, I continued along the river to Richmond and watched the boats float past. It felt pretty good to walk off some of my cake. Shame the clotted cream addict couldn't accompany me!