Eee, that were a grand summer we had this
year. Nearly three whole, consecutive days of sunshine! It were
that pleasant yesterday evening, we had our tea in the garden. I only had
to wear two cardigans, and just the very tips of my fingers went blue. {I
am not exaggerating; this really happened.}
When I say 'tea', I do, of course, mean
'dinner'. I'm getting more used to that way of referring to the evening
meal but, even after seven years living here, it still sounds strange to
me. My co-workers say they're going out for tea and I picture china cups,
doilies and cucumber sandwiches. What they mean is pizza and a couple of
bottles of wine. Dinner is tea and lunch is dinner - unless, of course,
it's Sunday.
To add to the confusion, at weekends we tend to
just eat when we're hungry. I potter around drinking cups of tea and
eating yoghurt as soon as I get up, so that's breakfast. My beloved,
however, can't face eating before 10 am, and then it's a 'full English' for
both of us - so that probably counts as 'brunch'. We often don't eat
again until about 4 or 5 pm - Aha, tea! Well, you'd think so, except it's
our main meal and usually involves meat and gravy which, in my opinion, makes
it dinner. We'll maybe have cheese and biscuits late in the evening; I
guess many people would call that 'supper'. I just call it cheese and
biscuits (or, 'a wicked temptation', depending on how fat I'm feeling). I
swear he called it Eva Peron the other night, but he was asleep, dreaming and
mumbling at the time. Worryingly, I knew exactly what he meant!
Perhaps that's the answer, though. Maybe it
would avoid confusion if we called our meals by people's names.
"Let's go out for some Henry VIII after work
today."
"Would you like to come round for Miss Marple
on Sunday?"
"I always have a bit of Miss Muffet in the
morning, a large Bertie Wooster later on, and then I'm alright until Desperate
Dan."
