It may be because I was born and brought up in the 1950s, when the British Empire was still a going concern, though on its last knockings, that I have a soft spot for its benign image of a bumbling outfit that acquired a quarter of the globe in a prolonged fit of forgetfulness.
One of the best things its seems to me about the empire was its part in bringing to the world that most enlightened of substances, tea.
This morning I have had my 1st cuppa for a week. Clearly Wordsworth meant to write “bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be a tea-drinker was very heaven” until he got carried away that all that French Revolution stuff.
Anyway, the Stalinist week of purging has come to an end and we have started the 3rd, more pragmatic, week of the exercise; this means tea and coffee are back on the menu.
And did we cheat when denying ourselves out-of-Kent goodies? Only twice. Once was with salt, when the gravy for the Sunday roast just didn’t get out of the starting blocks without a pinch of it and the second was when I accepted a piece of a friend’s birthday cake, it seemed churlish and ill-mannered not to (also it was delicious).
Which brings me to Lesson No 5, which is . . . to be a full on fanatic for this cause is very limiting. Not only does it mean you have to be very careful at home about what’s in the cupboard and it also means you can’t socialise without turning into one of those grisly types who is constantly asking what’s in the sandwiches (think ultra-vegan). But, a slightly more toned-down approach looks OK.
I’ll come back to salt and, thinking about socialising, beer another day, but it being Sunday, the day of rest n all, I’m off to get the papers.
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