My life would suck without you.

[readingredhead]

I love the sociability of the British and their tea. It's not about the whole high tea time sort of thing -- oh no -- not about going to some posh tea house in Westminster. It's about taking a break from your essay at the same time as your flatmates and all sitting in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, talking while the tea brews, sharing the milk (because when you say "tea" it means English Breakfast or Earl Gray, but is always just called "tea" with no added signifier) and talking around the kitchen table. It's about sharing your mismatched mugs with a friend who's come over for a cuppa. It's about going over to see someone to ask a small question and getting asked in for a cuppa and then not going back to your flat for a few hours because once you've been asked in for tea it becomes a chat and it's always so hard to go.

It's about the tea but not really about the tea. It's about the people you drink it with, British and otherwise. It's about being distracted from your work for five hours on a day when you didn't wake up until noon and had things you maybe should have done but it doesn't matter because you've had a cup of tea with a friend and chatted for hours and something really meaningful has happened in the process. Yes, there is something to be said for a pint at a pub with all your friends, too, but I think I'll always prefer -- even crave -- the intimacy of a shared cup of tea.

Harry asked me a while ago what it's going to be like when I go home and I said, Well, probably I'll cry a lot on both ends of it because I'll be happy to go home but sad to be leaving home. Home? he said. The people here are home now, I said, and smiled at him. He's part of it. They're all part of it. And I don't know what I'll do without them and their cups of tea, so the obvious answer is that I'll just have to keep coming back.

Comments

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Counter-sitting, bed-sitting, floor-sitting, desk-sitting, you name it. We don't have a common room in my flat, just a kitchen, so most of the time everyone just leans around the counter. I love it. And it's not that there is a common teatime, it's just some immutable law of the universe that if you walk inside the kitchen between the hours of 4pm and 8pm, someone is probably making tea.

[hodgetopodge.livejournal.com]

8 PM? Isn't that a little late? Perhaps I am too sensitive to caffeine these days.

I meant counter sitting proper, not mere leaning.

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Oh, 8pm is quite late for real tea, but at that time I'm usually drinking herbal stuff (I'm also sensitive to caffeine, so only real English breakfast around actual breakfast time). And real counter-sitting, not just counter-leaning happens, I promise. Otherwise it wouldn't quite count, would it?