I'm not green-fingered and I don't have a balcony, let alone a garden, but when a garden centre has a teahouse - well I'm sold. Petersham Nurseries is the great way to end a walk along the Thames and across Petersham Meadows. Its large greenhouse is full of wobbly rusty tables and weather-beaten chairs. Oh and quite a few prams but luckily there is plenty of space in-between the tables for these. The space is enchantingly beautiful. With plants covering the sides and ceiling and pretty pots of...

If you want to step back in time then head to Blackbird Tea Rooms in Brighton and sip a cuppa while an antique radio plays you some tea dance tunes and the bell on the door tinkles with the constant stream of afternoon tea lovers. My sister and I enjoyed a Darjeeling and Earl Grey, and while I was busy checking out the decor of retro tea posters, tea tins and photos of Brighton in the old days, my sister devoured our apparently delicious carrot cake.

Kingly Street near Oxford Circus is not where I would normally head for a cuppa but alongside the bars and pubs is the appropriately named Urban Tea Rooms. The interior design of white tiles and wooden benches certainly gives it an urban feel but the tea list from the cornish countryside of Tregothnan Tea Plantation was what I had come here for. They say: ‘Grown in the perfect conditions on our ancient Cornish estate, the world’s first true English tea has been heralded as the ‘new...