A nice cup of tea!

I made my boss a cup of tea one day last week. His PA was off sick and he had been beavering away for hours, and as I was making one for myself I offered to do one for him as well (and to be completely truthful it’s coming up to bonus award time soon, so I was toadying a bit, too!)

So I disappeared off to the miniscule cupboard which our Premises Management team laughingly call a kitchen, made his cuppa and plonked it back down on the desk, milk no sugar as requested.

“How did you get it that colour after about 30 seconds?” he said, looking scathingly at said cuppa. “I squeezed the tea bag” I said. “So it hasn’t brewed, then?” he asked. “Well, briefly” I responded, feeling somewhat miffed. I didn’t have to make his bloody tea, after all. I mean how ungrateful can you get? “Oh!”. Which spoke volumes. Anyway, he drank it just the same. But I doubt I will be offering again!

Isn’t it odd how precious we can become about something so small. I don’t really mind, of course, the poor man is entitled to prepare his tea in any way he chooses and I’m probably just as bad. Too impatient you see – once it’s made I want to get it down my neck and not fart around waiting for it to change colour all by itself. Just give it a good squeeze for goodness sake. But it is the little things like that which mark us out from the rest of the animal kingdom. We’re particular and fussy in a way that most aren’t, and we can’t  half get upset if things aren’t done in the way we want them to be.

Afternoon tea is, of course, a bit of a British Institution (capital letters deliberate). For my 50^th birthday last year, one of my treats was afternoon tea at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. It was fantastic – dainty little sarnies with lots of different fillings, scones with clotted cream and jam and amazing confectionery concoctions, with the plates refilled as often as you like. We had a glass of champers and some lovely (I imagine properly brewed) strong afternoon tea in posh china cups you could see the light through, poured through a proper strainer from a very posh tea pot. Pianist tinkling away in the background, deferential service, fab! Could definitely have got used to it – although then it wouldn’t be such a treat. I am seriously thinking of treating The Hubby to a similar treat at a different hotel for his birthday in November – maybe the Ritz or the Savoy.

An afternoon tea shop is something I have often thought about opening when eventually I retire to Crete, to be open all year serving proper sarnies, scones, cakes and ice cream sundaes. I’d open it on the main square of the town and stay open all year to serve the ex-pat community (generally speaking, when I do retire I’d like to immerse myself in the life of the locals and not become part of an ex-pat enclave, but their money is as good as anyone elses’, there’s nothing like this there at the moment and I know I could do this well!).

It’s an idea at that, but when it comes to it in a few years time, will I be bothered? I’ll probably just want to relax and enjoy myself having worked hard every year of my life since I was 17. Who knows?