100. A letter to Terry ✒️ #23

Tea not included, a demolition job and a gap with a gap.

Dear Terry,

Thank you for your latest letter, in which you had supplied detailed instructions for what you claimed to be the ‘correct procedure’ for making a cup of tea.

I quote:

You need loose tea, of a decent brand.

I’m confused. Which is it, Terry? Loose, or decent? I can assure you that the tea I use – fully-clothed as it is in the appropriate garment of a tea bag to ensure its dignity – represents the pinnacle of decency, and I resent the aspersions you have cast on the moral standing of my tea recipe of choice.

And never mind the moral high ground which you are attempting in vain to reach: I am staggered to think about the amount of time you must spend on washing up! My approach calls for a mug and a teaspoon, yet yours requires baffling accessories:

• Special measuring spoon

• Tea net

⁉

And apparently I need to accurately time 2 minutes 14 seconds for the water to cool to what you have determined to be the ‘ideal’ temperature (newsflash: it isn’t), and then another seven minutes’ brewing time before I am permitted to drink the stuff!

Terry, I don’t have time for tea – at least not in the way you make it. 🙄

Or perhaps I just need the right tools? When I was flicking through a charity gift catalogue that had arrived in yesterday’s post I thought I’d found just the thing for my Christmas wish list:

Make Your Own Tea Kit
Make your own tea blends. Kit includes 5 reusable tea bags, 2 mesh envelopes, a wooden spoon and tea making booklet. Tea not included.
£13.00

Tea not included? 😡 Terry, I give up.

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I guess it’s not just limited to tea making. Other people’s ways of doing all sorts of things are often a surprise, particularly when you’re meeting them for the first time. I don’t get out much so am not exposed to strangers in a social context terribly often, but I have an appointment coming up to meet a bloke who’s been sending me ceaseless fan mail since the end of last year, and I’m not quite sure how to play it.

What advice might you have for a young lady (of 27, according to the newspaper cutting¹ you enclosed with your last letter) meeting an internet acquaintance for the first time in real life? How should the two of them, for example, go about ordering tea in a café? If her date is anything like you I can only imagine the stand-off.

If we go to a café will my tea-drinking habits – ones which you describe as ‘yeuccchhh!!’ – show me up? If I mash my teabag in public will you frown upon such behaviour? Will I feel foolish for not accessorising with a tea net of my own? Terry, this might be the end of something that’s barely even begun!

Well, you’ll have no trouble identifying me when we finally meet in a few days’ time: you’ll recognise me immediately by the Thermos of bring-your-own tea I’ll be carrying.

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Jim and I found ourselves working at a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall last month, in the same week in which we’d been last year. We chatted about how our work schedule at the time had been rejigged because of the Queen’s funeral, and how after watching some of the TV coverage of the sad occasion using a rather ropey² campsite internet connection we’d decided that a walk would cheer us up. Having driven past the iconic Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s Wall the previous day, that’s where we’d decided to head for.

There were two options for reaching our destination. ‘Can I take the high road?’ I’d begged Jim, my eye on the steep steps up a sheer hillside. He’d rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, I’ll see you there’, he replied, much happier to be walking the much flatter alternative route.

I clambered inelegantly, waiting every now and again for walkers coming the other way to make their way safely down the steep and rocky slope. I was exhilarated: the view was great, and I couldn’t wait for my first glimpse of what Jim has always called ‘the most photographed tree in the UK’.

And there it was. I hadn’t gone at all far, in fact, but a walk of a thousand miles would still have made the prize worthwhile.

Pictures taken by Rebecca on September 19, 2022.

While we were away this time I’d been looking forward to telling you about my trip to the wall, and to having a giggle with you in this letter about how glad I was that nobody had come along and made a big hole in it like those contractors at the Great Wall of China that I’d read about on BBC News at the beginning of September.

Image created using Substack’s ‘Generate’ function.

China's Great Wall damaged by workers looking for shortcut
BBC News, September 5, 2023

A part of China's Great Wall has been severely damaged by construction workers in central Shanxi province, who used an excavator to dig through it. 

Police say two people are suspected of trying to create a shortcut for their construction work.

The two have been detained and the case is under further investigation. 

The 38-year-old man and 55-year-old woman were working near the affected area, the 32nd Great Wall.

They dug a "big gap" by widening an existing cavity of the Great Wall so that their excavator could pass through it. Police say they wanted to reduce the distance they had to travel.

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I’d been looking forward to seeing the aurora borealis bathing our own ‘great wall’ with glorious Technicolor, having seen a stunning photograph of the iconic sycamore backlit by the spectacular effect just a few weeks ago. Sadly the timing of our trip had meant that we’d missed the show.

‘There’s always next year!’ I’d told Jim.

Those are bitter words now, for that iconic feature of our own great wall has been subjected to a different kind of vandalism.

Early on Thursday morning reports came in that the centuries-old sycamore at the eponymous gap had been felled by vandals. Where once the stately tree had stood was now a startlingly unfamiliar gap in the landscape.

You can see The Guardian’s beautiful (and tragic) photographs of the tree here.

Terry, who would do such a thing? And why?

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Moving on to less senseless things – although those reading over our shoulders might feel differently – thank you for sharing your writing plan with me. With your permission I am reproducing it below:

Terry, I find some aspects of your plan worthy of remark.

Tuesday           Proofread the article published yesterday

It concerns me that you have omitted the related task: ‘Deploy time machine’.

I liked what you’d written here:

Monday           Finish article with a bit of lunch

‘Good’, I thought. ‘At least Terry’s looking after himself with decent nutrition after those three days of premeditated panic.’

But no. Luck, not lunch. A bit of luck. Forget luck, Terry – have some lunch! And if you’ve got many hours to spare afterwards – for taking a slightly heaped teaspoon of tea, gently shaking it from side to side in order to release the aroma, waiting precisely 2 minutes and 14 seconds for your freshly-boiled water to cool down, and then letting your brew stand for exactly seven minutes – well, why not follow it with a cup of tea?

Terry, I’ll see you soon. I’m looking forward to it!

All the very best, as always,

Rebecca

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An epistolary index: Letters to Terry

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1. Image courtesy of Terry Freedman.

2. The campsite was not ropey - it was fabulous. The word ‘ropey’ refers only to its internet connection!