THE ENGLISH TEA

I love to travel but at the same time I find it stressful. Above all, pack your suitcase, arrange things in bags and backpacks, try not to forget anything, queue at the airport, get up very early to catch your flight or late in the evening, look for places where you can eat local food (because they are nowhere to be found ) and then walking around and around, and you get tired after a few days and you want to go home but you like that place, it’s inspiring. We have never brought our cats and dog, both because they are used to the garden and therefore would suffer to stay in the hotel and because we usually have someone to leave them to take care of them. I don’t like always going to the same places but I like to discover different places. I hate the scorching heat and love milkshakes. Especially in the summer, my day starts with fresh fruit blended with rice or oat milk. Strawberries, kiwis, watermelon and grapes, peaches and melon. In the summer I only like the sea. Hornets and wasps of all kinds arrive and I can’t stand not being able to stay in my garden and I can’t keep the windows open and it’s a stressful mess. I lived in London and had contact with English people (of English origin) of a certain age who explained to me the right way in which they made tea. Sachets are never used but only dried leaf tea. The teapot must first be heated with hot water, which must be left inside the teapot for 6-7 minutes (never rinsed and never cleaned). Then after you remove the hot water from the teapot and put about 3-4 teaspoons of dried leaf tea, cover with the lid and wait 5 minutes for the whole teapot to take in the aroma of the tea. Only then can you pour in the hot water and wait another 5 minutes. Then you put the strainer hanging from the spout of the teapot, or on the cups, and pour the tea as it is. The teapot is never cleaned, it is absolutely forbidden to touch it and the more the years pass, the better the tea made in the same teapot becomes. In the English style, slices of lemon are never combined but only milk. And it is drunk with a cucumber sandwich or with typical English sweets.