Mark went off to work early again this morning, leaving me in sole charge of our domestic affairs.
It was too wet to do anything creative in the garden, and I did not want to carry on with the painting. Friday has got to have a sleep in it, because of the late night at work, which means that there is not very much time for doing interesting things.
It is always a bad idea to take several days to paint a room, at least when you are only using one colour. Painting needs to be done all at once because of the irksomeness of washing out paint rollers.
This is not something that you want to do more often than absolutely necessary. Even after ten minutes of unpleasantly cold water, there is always a very great deal of paint all over your sink, hands and T-shirt, but even despite this, there is still just as much left clinging to the paint roller as there was when you started. It is a wearisome task, the sort of thing that could have been dreamed up by the Greek Gods as a torment for offenders, like pushing endless rolling stones up hills or reaching for disappearing grapes.
Obviously I do know that you can wrap the things in cling film and leave them overnight, but I expect you have noticed that it never works out like that and inevitably you come back a week later to a disgusting, thickly-besmeared tray and rigid plastic-encased paint roller, all of which needs to be hoofed directly into the dustbin.
I did not paint today.
Instead, today I made teabags.
I was actually rather pleased with this achievement.
It has been brought about by a change in my shopping habits. Regular readers might recall that I have become disenchanted with Asda and resolved to purchase my groceries elsewhere.
One awkward difficulty with this is that I have discovered that I do not much like Morrisons’ chai teabags.
I pondered on this dilemma for some time, before reflecting that actually I do not much like Asda’s chai teabags either. They are nicer than Morrisons’, but nevertheless not especially fragrant or delicately pleasing, the way that chai should be.
The chai tea that I like very much comes from the coffee merchant in Kendal town centre. Not only do they sell very nice coffee, but it is a pleasing place to shop, with creaking floors and low oak beams, and the rich smell of fresh coffee beans soaked into everything. It has been there for hundreds of years, and the coffee is still kept in the same dark wood bins, and the tea in the same iron-banded barrels, as it was in 1750. We buy our coffee there, and loose red chai tea for the teapot. The red chai is blended with fennel and peppercorns and is an absolute joy.
The problem is that I can’t be bothered with loose tea in our flask. Loose tea can only be made in a teapot and poured through a strainer, after which it all has to be scraped out and dropped into the compost bucket and everything washed. This is too much faffing about in every way and I am simply too idle to bother every single night.
Today, whilst Mark was at work, I dug out my handy roll of muslin and made some reusable drawstring teabags.
This was quite a bit of tiddling about with the sewing machine. I made nine of them, and it took ages. However, when I had finished they had turned out very well. They are just the right size to go in the flask, and the string hangs tidily over a spoon balanced across the top.
I tried them tonight in our flask for work, and I am pleased to tell you that they worked perfectly.
I have got a flask of the most beautiful spiced tea, just exactly the way that I like it.
I can empty the teabags and put them in the washing machine, or even in the dishwasher, since I don’t know that I would like teabags that had been laundered alongside facecloths and pillowcases.
I can save the used tealeaves and put them on the lawn. Lawns like tealeaves.
I can save the handy resealable tea packets and use them for sandwiches. They are ace for this as long as you wash them out properly first, sandwiches with a tea leaf crust are interesting but do not qualify as a gourmet dinner, unless you are eating at some very peculiar restaurants.
All in all I am very pleased indeed with this result.
I told Mark all about it when he turned up on the taxi rank after he had finished work, and he said that this was exactly how the teabag had been invented in the first place, little drawstring bags that could be filled from a bale of tea in order that the purchaser could sample it.
I am following in the footsteps of history.
Have a picture of the Library Gardens.
