The Year of Fun #23: Afternoon Tea at a Cat Cafe

I'll be honest: I was a bit reluctant to record today, partly because I'm simply not in the mood, and partly because I was feeling some guilt around the actual subject of today's Year of Fun. I think I've gotten into the habit, particularly in recent YOF episodes, to pick things i think will be in some way beneficial to my personal growth - they might be a bit challenging, or require me to fly to Peru, you know: run-of-the-mill personal growth stuff. But today I had to be honest and say: I have not done anything remotely growth related, I wasn't pushed outside my comfort zone, I wasn't made to purge lemongrass water... I just had a nice trip up to London with my friend. And then, upon explaining my conundrum to someone else last night, I realised that actually: this is exactly what the Year of Fun is about, at least in part. It's about me doing things for the sheer fun of them, it's about challenge too, but it's totally OK not to feel adrenaline every single week. So. I went to a cat cafe. This is Lady Dinah's cat cafe, one of the first - if not the first - in London, somewhere I'd been meaning to go to since it opened. I'll admit I have been to cat cafes before, one in Japan, one in Budapest. But I'd never had a full on afternoon tea in one. Two of my most favourite things: cats and cake! So the place itself is in East London, fairly easy to get to. We waited for a wee bit before being led to our table - they're quite specific about timing so you have to book in advance. The cafe is spread over two floors, and has a kind of Blue-Peter chic quality to it, which I think is trying to be like Alice in wonderland style but may be not quite nailing it. There are meant to be 14 cats according to the website, but I don't think I saw more than 5 or 6, and mostly they were asleep. Which is what I expected, having been to similar cafes before and wondering if they had drugged the cats slightly to make them more docile. But we know cats like a good sleep. The afternoon tea arrived quickly, a bloody good spread. We had a tier of little rolls with tuna and egg salad, then the scones which were perfect and warm, and then a tier of cakes and macarons. The cakes were so-so but the scones were perfect, and that's what counts. The service was great, you get free refills on any drinks you want so I feel like you just about get your money's worth. And that was that. I snapped a couple of pics of some sleepy kitties on our way out, and we headed across the street to the pub. A very fun afternoon, and a reminder that it's OK to do something fun, just because.   Fun rating: 8/10