Everyone for more tea?

Since I have claimed to be living in 'the land of tea', I decided it would be cool to create a little -wait no who am I kidding, little?- post on how tea is done here. They certainly feel quite strongly about it...

Tea is the answer to most problems

First of all there are - allegedly - several nick names for tea: brew, cha, rosie lee and cuppa. According to the UK Tea Council (yep, they even have a website tea.co.uk) the British drink approximately 165,000,000 cups of tea a day, with the recommended dose per person being at least 4 cups a day. Just for the record, only 70 million cups of coffee are drunk per day by the British, which I think makes it pretty clear, tea is better. Because, well, it just is. 

Continuing the random facts, Tea Breaks are a tradition they've had for the last 200 years or so; over 80% of office workers claim they find out more about what's going on in their workplace over a cup of tea than any other way; tea remains Britain's most popular beverage; tea contains half the caffeine that coffee does; 96% of cups made daily are brewed from tea bags; 98% of people take their tea with milk, and only 30% with sugar.  The overall opinion here is that, as far as possible, tea should always be made in a pot rather than throwing a bag in a mug. 

There is an ongoing debate (destined to rage on forever I imagine) on when to add the milk to your cup. Do you put it in at the start, risking as George Orwell claimed, putting too much in? Or at the end, risking a change to the molecules in the milk causing it to taste like UHT? Hmm...Which is worse? Personally, I used to put milk in last, however, since coming here I noticed the prevailing method is to add the milk first, and I must say, I'm a convert. I can't explain it, it just tastes better. Adding the water to the milk instead of the other way around will warm the milk more slowly, and as a serious plus you avoid that weird scummy layer that forms on top if you put the milk in last. I have also noticed that some people put their teabag in the milk in the mug then add the hot water to the milk-teabag combo. Haven't tried that yet myself.

 So, how do you make your tea - milk first or water first? 

Prize for the longest Nave goes to. . .

Winchester Cathedral

On Tuesday Sep 3rd I went to Winchester. By all accounts a gorgeous town and apparently one of the best places to live in the whole of Britain. Now that I've seen it with it's immaculate public gardens, impressive buildings, amazing statues and friendly locals; I can't argue. 


Winchester itself has enough history to have occupied me for an entire week. The first settlements there date back to prehistoric times but at the beginning of the third century is when protective stone walls were placed and, in around 686 after some Kings had it out (King of Wessex won), it became known as the de facto capital city of Wessex for a time. By this point we're looking at the Anglo-Saxon era, when Arthur the Great laid out a street plan which is still fairly evident today. There is a fab statue of him extending a sword point downwards by the hilt, towards the end of the 'main drag' of town, where you will have passed by the quite beautiful 'Buttercross' dating back to the 15th century.


Fascinating though the town is, I specifically went to see the Cathedral. A superb building to be sure, if you manage to find it. One would think a humongous cathedral would sort of 'stand out', but no; it stands back in fact, behind a lot of shops fronts, followed by a lot of trees, a long path and park grounds. Thankfully, the people at the information desk know exactly where it is and which shops to use as landmarks in order for us tourists to find it. 

Winchester Cathedral is quite something to behold, and boasts the 'longest nave and greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe' according to Wikipedia. There are nooks and crannies everywhere and spiral staircases hidden behind tiny doors that go up and up and up. I was lucky enough to be able to see the Winchester Bible while there and it is absolutely beautiful, the artwork really is superb. I might do a separate blog on it as some stage. Also up there is a library, which I may have taken a slightly forbidden photo of (I say slightly because the lady guarding the door at the time coughed and looked the other way for me) while hiding in the window alcove...

Sneak peek of the Library

In 642 the cathedral was founded and became known as the Old Minster, becoming part of a monastic settlement in 971.  In 1079 a completely new cathedral was underway, and come 1093 this new cathedral was consecrated, and starting the very next day Old Minster was slowly demolished, though not before transporting its precious contents to the new one.  This new Cathedral was and is Winchester Cathedral, measuring 170.1 metres in length. As a point of interest, the floor plan/ birds eye view is in the shape of a cross, due to two chantrys being added on the north and south sides at some stage. 

View of the nave (and the incredible vaulted ceiling) towards the west door

While I was there I was lucky enough to witness choir practice, which certainly brought the place to life; accompanied beautifully by a huge organ. The acoustics were glorious, no matter where you were in the cathedral you could hear every note ring out perfectly.

Choir practice

Not surprisingly quite a number of well known/ famous people have been there and or are buried there. The two facts I was most surprised at: Mary of Tudor was married there, and Jane Austin is buried there. 

To finish up I'll leave you with a fascinating bit of history info on this building. When I heard this I reckon my eyebrows hit the ceiling and my jaw hit the floor!

From 1906 to 1912 a diver named William Walker spent 6 hours a day below the cathedral. What on earth was he doing down there you ask? 
Well, the south and east walls of the cathedral had seriously waterlogged foundations and the cathedral was doomed to collapse. This man reinforced the foundations by diving below the cathedral, where he packed more than 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks and 900,000 bricks directly onto and around the foundations. He worked in total darkness at depths up to 6 metres (20 feet) for 6 years, so it won't come as a surprise that for saving the cathedral from total collapse, he received an MVO. 
Cool, right? 

Bye for now!

Week one in the Land of Tea

Well, I survived my first week in England and at long last have sat down to create a blog.
So far the two most common phrases (I would hear these up to six times a day) are:

"Hello there, you alright?"  translation  "hey, how's it goin?"
"More tea?"  translation   "more tea?"

Not surprisingly then, I have had 4 to 5 cups of tea a day, and have now officially been here for 10 days - you do the math. Yeah, good thing I like tea. 

My first impressions of the country are mixed. Everyone here is incredibly polite, and I read a quote last week which suggested,

 "If an Englishman were run down by a truck, he would apologise to the truck." 

...which I'm discovering is probably true. 

There is so much history here it blows me away. I knew there would be, but seeing it everywhere is sending me down the path of information overload; my idea of 'old' is a few hundred years, while here 'old' is 10th century... 

Dedicated tourist as I am, I've been out and about almost every day, and my list of 'seen' is growing - much to the displeasure of my wallet as public transport is very expensive here; and my feet. The list as it currently stands:

Aldershot (yes, it counts even though I'm living there)

London, twice: walked around and saw Nelson's Column, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar square, Covent Garden, the Tower of London and London Bridge, then swanned around with the crowds on Oxford and Regent street. 

Guildford

Chawton (Jane Austin's House)

Selbourne

Winchester (for Winchester Cathedral)

Camberley

I'll start blogging on specific photos or places after this, and as soon as I come to grips with how this blog works I'll start posting in a more organised fashion.

Bye for now!