Tea in a Foreign Country

I think it is only the Irish and the British who are enthusiastic, ritual tea drinkers. Nearly every emergency is met with by making a cup of tea. And we have our set rules for making this aromatic drink.
First of all, if you are a genuine tea drinker, you will have a china teapot and loose tea leaves. The kettle is boiled, a drop of boiling water is swirled around the teapot to warm it, then the loose tea leaves are added (I learned: a pinch for each person and one for the pot) and then the boiling water is added. After that, it is a matter of whether you like it "weak" or "strong", with milk of course and very often with a spoon of sugar. If you were careful how you poured it our, most of the tea leaves stayed in the pot and a few only ended up at the bottom of the cup. There was a tradition (almost certainly not in the finest families) of upending the teacup into its saucer and telling your fortune on the shape of the tea leaves which fell out. My mother could always make out a ship or an airplane or a bag of gold in the messy wet tea leaves, all of which caught our imagination.
Nowadays I use teabags because they are less messy although I know a few true blue tea drinkers who buy their tea leaves loose. But I still "warm" the mug before pouring boiling water on the tea bag. And I like to sit quietly and enjoy the tea. Now, coffee is a different matter. I drank a lot of coffee in my working days and I always associate it with working at something as I drink it. 
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea is a quote from Henry Fielding and there is a lot of truth in it. What better way to pass an afternoon than gossiping about all our acquaintances while sitting around a tea table with a cake stand in the middle which groans under the weight of delicious little tea cakes of all kinds? 

Mainland Europe does not have the same affinity for tea as we do. Recently, when I was in Amsterdam, I stopped at the Tourist Centre and ordered Dutch apple tart (delicious!) and tea. This is what I got, fellow tea drinkers, prepare to weep with me:

 

Actually, it tasted quite good despite appearances but give me the real thing any time! And I used some of that cream on the apple tart to put in my tea. 

Time for a cuppa!

Getting Back to Normal

I can't believe that I haven't written anything in this blog for a month!  It's amazing what I find to do instead of sitting down and writing and all the time I feel guilty because I haven't been editing that novel I wrote some years ago nor have I put finger to keyboard to write this blog. So here goes.

I spent a wonderful week in North Holland with my daughter and grandkids at the beginning of October. We had a few stormy days (just like real life) but otherwise the weather was pleasant. Lots of walks on the beach which stretches for miles and miles along the coast. The children had plenty of dips in the sea and especially enjoyed sliding down the sand dunes. We went to a fairy-tale themed park which they just loved and also to a maritime museum where they could admire the various fish swimming about as we walked through glass tunnels. In the evenings we strolled down to the beach to watch the sun go down and they enjoyed running around in the dusk.

We stayed in a holiday village in a nice big house with a garden and patio, and I did most of the cooking. With two fairly small children, it wasn't worth going to restaurants and in any case they preferred home cooking. Lots of lazy evenings drinking wine when the kids were in bed.
Holland is a great place to spend a holiday with children because they are equipped for both good and bad weather.
On my way home - I flew in and out of Amsterdam - I had a stroll around Amsterdam. Here is a picture of Amsterdam Centraal, the main railway station, quite an impressive building.

Now I have to roll up my sleeves and get down to doing some writing. I have completed my Christmas novel CHRISTMAS AT CASTLEDARRA and it can be ordered on Amazon as a print version and the Kindle version will be available from the middle of November.

Incidentally, while in Holland, quite a few people asked me for directions which makes me think that mothers - and grandmothers - have that universal  'can I help you?' look. I don't speak Dutch but am fluent in German so more or less guessed what was being said. I replied in English which everyone seems to speak over there and with a bit of sign language and a few laughs, we communicated.

Right, now I really must dig out that manuscript and start work on it. Christmas will be here in no time....
Have a good week everyone.