Years ago we went camping in the Lake District, Great Britain. Hubs and me and our tent. We found a campsite near Lake Windermere that took tents.We put up our tent in the pouring rain. We cooked something unbelievably tasteful on our small Campingaz stove and crawled into our sleeping bag. The sheep on the hill above the campsite were complaining loudly about whatever it was, probably the weather, all night long. Baaaaaaaa. Baaahaaaahaaaahaaaaahaaaa. Since then, every time we hear sheep, we think of camping out in the rain in the Lake District. That’s how memories work.
The next day we visited the Steam Boat Museum in Windermere and were given the opportunity to take a cruise on a beautiful steam launcher called Osprey. “We have to bring her up to steam first”, the two elderly man who volunteered in the museum said, lovingly referring to their gorgeous lady friend Osprey . “It will take a while, we have to treat her carefully. But it’s worth waiting for.”
While we were waiting until ‘she’ was ready, a British man and an elderly British couple joined us. We were all looking forward to our cruise on Lake Windermere with dotted around its beautiful shoreline many grand mansions, built by wealthy businessmen in the late 19th century. It wasn’t raining anymore, the sun had come out and the weather was actually quite nice. About 15 or 20 minutes later, Osprey was ready to take us out on the lake. If you follow the link to steam launcher Osprey, you’ll see that she is beautiful and has a cabin, but we all sat in the front of the boat, enjoying the sun and the stunning views.
When we were in the middle of the lake, one of the gentlemen came out of the cabin, holding a tray with a teapot, mugs, sugar, milk and a tin of biscuits. And using a cunning device (I’ve forgotten what it was, but I remember that hubs was impressed) and the steam of the engine to heat the water, he made us a real British cup of tea. So there we were, in the middle of Lake Windermere, on a gorgeous wooden steam launcher lady called Osprey, enjoying a cup of tea. Could it be more idyllic?
“Milk?”, the tea-maker asked hubs. Hubs shook his head. “No milk for me, thank you.” The gentleman looked shocked. “Milk?”, he asked me. I shook my head too. “No, thank you. No milk for me either.” He nearly fell overboard from sheer shock. No milk in your tea??? How utterly barbaric. “You must be from the continent”, his conclusion was. “If you were British, you’d have taken milk in your tea!”
So, if you aren’t British, but if you, at some point in your life, have to pretend that you are, take this little tip from me; take milk in your tea.