The 7th to 13th August is Afternoon Tea Week, and a great chance to treat a friend or family member to an Afternoon Tea out.  

There are a huge number of Afternoon Tea experiences, which you can enjoy with or without a glass of bubbly or gin, depending on what you want to do and how much you want to spend.  Chatting over a cup of something hot whilst indulging in lovely delicious and mouth-watering goodies is a great way to spend time with a loved one - and you don't have to worry about all the preparation, cooking and washing up!!

Gift experience company BuyaGift has some great offers on and lots of wonderful opportunities to have an Afternoon Tea Experience, so although these aren't memberships, I thought I'd give you an idea of what some of them are. 

You can enjoy a 15% discount with BuyaGift across their site - including special offers and 2 for 1s - until 31 December 2023 with the code AHW2023 (although some products are exempt from this offer.)

There's a Luxury Afternoon Tea for Two Gift Voucher UK-Wide
It was £65 and is now £59.99
There are 65 locations to choose from, 
and champagne is available at some of them. 
Use the code AHW2023 to get 15% off!**


There's an offer on Afternoon Tea at Patisserie Valerie for Two.
It was £38.95 and is now available for £25.00
There are 27 locations available.  
Tuck into savoury sandwiches, sweet treats, 
fluffy scones with jam and cream - and of course, tea!
Use the code AHW2023 to get 15% off!**

There's also on offer on Afternoon Tea with a Bottle of Fizz for Two at Veeno
It was £82, and is now £75.
There are 8 locations available.
Tuck into a gorgeous Italian afternoon tea, with a selection of 
Foccacia, meats and cheese, chocolate cake, lemon cake
and scones with mascarpone and strawberry jam!
All washed down with a bottle of fizz to share....
Use the code AHW2023 to get 15% off!**

There's a great offer on Prosecco Cream Tea for Two at Harrods
It was £58.00 and it's now £49.00
Drink a refreshing glass of prosecco each and
indulge in a fluffy, freshly baked plain and fruit scones!
And there's clotted cream and Harrods' own jam too!
Please note:  this experience is excluded from our discount code

Or, how about a Champagne Afternoon Tea for Two at The Harrods Tea Rooms?
It was £164.00, and is now £120.00.
There are wonderful delights:  finger sandwiches, pastries, scones with clotted cream
and jam.  And the wide range of teas have been carefully selected by an in-house expert.
Enjoy live piano music under the skylight, too!
Please note:  this experience is excluded from our discount code



There's also an Afternoon Tea Experience Box 
for £34.99.   It isn't on offer but there are 465 venues to choose from!
Find out more here...
Use the code AHW2023 to get 15% off!**

See other Afternoon Tea options available from BuyaGift

The code AHW2023 is site wide, including special offers and 2 for 1s,
although some products are excluded from it. 

It’s National Allotments Week from 7^th to 13^th August 2023.

The National Allotments Society (NAS), which organises the week, is a charity which works to support the needs of all allotment holders in the UK.   The membership scheme it runs is vital because it raises funds to make sure that allotment gardening has a future.

The NAS has used this period over the last 20 years to get people involved in the world of allotments! 

The week is also a great opportunity to grow the seeds and spread the words about the benefits of allotment gardening for everyone – individual people, communities and the planet!

Some benefits of allotment gardening for people include:

• Mental health – there’s a report on the website about how allotment gardening can help mental health
• The chance to connect with nature
• The opportunity to meet people with a like-minded interest
• The benefits of sharing – your knowledge, left over produce and more!
• The ability to grow your own produce
• It’s a good healthy activity outside in the fresh air!
• A sense of achievement

There's a short film on the joys of allotment gardening called Plotting for the Future, and you can watch it here.

In 2023, the theme of National Allotments Week is Soil Health.   Good soil health improves the yield when you’re growing your goodies, but actually is also contributes to the environment and biodiversity.   So this coming week, the NAS wants to educate us all about the benefits of caring for our soil – and the animals living in it.

What does the NAS do?

Well, it does a number of things:

• it campaigns against government legislation which threatens allotments
• it works with local authorities to make sure that they reach their statutory obligations
• it educates plot holders with growing advice
• it supports schools into growing allotments
• it’s the voice of allotmenteers, as they are called, around the UK

Needless to say, to do all this they need support – and this is where their membership programme comes in.

Give a National Allotment Society Gift Card here.
Image © National Allotment Society

Why not give a NAS Gift Membership Card?

Membership fees are listed here and there is also an NAS Gift Membership Card which gives lucky recipients a number of benefits you can find here – click on these links to gift a membership.  You’ll see when you go through to these links that you can also gift a magazine subscription, if you prefer.

More information about allotments

The  NAS website has lots of helpful information on allotments including hens on allotments, wildlife on allotments and bee-keeping and there’s also information on how to get an allotment in the first place.

There’s also tips and advice on growing including monthly jobs, water used on allotments, designing an allotment for children, and how to plan an allotment.

Visit the National Allotment Society’s website here.

The 1^st August is Yorkshire Day and a great chance to celebrate the beauty and wonders of Yorkshire.

It’s a stunning county, with gorgeous countryside and towns and villages that are full of character.

So why not give a membership to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust who are working hard to keep Yorkshire wild?  The Trust is committed to creating a Yorkshire which is rich in wildlife, saving both wildlife and wild places to bring people closer to nature.  And they have a vision of a wilder future!

The Trust has 45,000 members and membership is a way to help it give Yorkshire’s wildlife a voice, and to inspire future generations.

Discover all about the wildlife and wild places of Yorkshire

Find out about the wildlife of Yorkshire here – the birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fish, marine animals and invertebrates.  And discover too all about the the wildflowers, fungi, mosses, trees and shrubs. 

The county has habitats such as heathland and moorland, wetlands and woodland, rocky habitat and farmland, and both coastal and freshwater habitats. And of course there are hedgerows – find out why hedgerows are important here. – and stone walls.  Why are stone walls so important to wildlife?

See the amazing starling murmuration at Ripon City Wetlands



Give a membership to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
and help save Yorkshire's wildlife and wild places!
Image © Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Membership includes:

• Free entry to over 100 Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserves
• Visit and watch wildlife at Yorkshire's amazing sites including Spurn Point and Potteric Carr.
• Four copies a year of our Wildlife Yorkshire magazine, packed with inspiring features and tips to help you live a wilder life.
• Discounts on some of the unforgettable wildlife watching experiences across Yorkshire
• Complimentary admission to many other Wildlife Trust venues.

This is surely a win-win gift – your membership will be helping to fund vital work and a brighter future for the wild places and wildlife of Yorkshire.

Gift memberships (£54.99) are delivered in a unique box, with a welcome pack, a copy of Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife (the RRP is £14.99), a cuddly soft toy, a subscription to Wildlife Yorkshire, the quarterly membership magazine, and more!  Find out about it here.

Find out more about the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Memberships

By the way, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is one of 46 Wildlife Trusts in the UK - why not find your local Wildlife Trust here and join them or give a membership to one of them? 

If you want a day out in London with somewhere to go that gives you a bit of a thrill (or more, depending on how you are with heights) and a different sort of way of seeing London, how about Climbing the O2?

Well, here’s your opportunity and you can enjoy a special offer from experience company Into the Blue to for this Climb the O2 experience!  Take a 90 minute expedition over The 02 roof!  You’ll meet your climb guide and get kitted out in the gear – a climb suit, shoes and safety harness.

There are 360 degree views from viewing platform of The 02, and the voucher is valid for three climbs:

1. There’s the Orignal Expedition – climb the roof during the day.  When it’s clear, you can see landmarks up to 15 miles away!
2. Or how about The Sunset Expedition, when you climb as the sun goes down and see London against the background of an auburn sky?
3. The Twilight Expedition takes place in the dark – with all the bright lights twinkling away in the night sky!

The climbing challenge will pit your determination and strength against 380 metres of fabric walkway and your path takes you up and over The O2.  Climb all the way across the webbed roof, suspended 52m above the ground, with up to 30 degrees angles of ascent!   What will you spot from the top?  The Shard?  The City?  The Tower of London and the Observatory?

Not only that, there’s the thrill of a special offer on this experience – not normally available!

This could be a great gift for anyone wanting to experience views of London in a different way!  

Climb over to the Climb the O2 experience special offer with Into the Blue

Please note the “Suitable for” section on Into the Blue’s website before buying this gift.  It’s under the More Info section.