ANY TIME IS TEA TIME

I used to be envious of Ray's multiple daily tea times. Whenever I tried to call him at the office, he seemed to be mysteriously "out"; after a while I came to understand that "out" between 10 - 11 and 3-5 means "tea". Not to be confused with "out" between 11 - 3 which means "lunch". You see, my old employer, being an American company, did not believe in the sanctity of British tea time (note: British retailer Marks & Spencer does allow their employees tea time).

Luckily I now work for the university, a decidely British institution if there ever was one. And with that privilege comes my own tea time - multiple tea times per day, in fact - now presenting Ray with some serious competition for the title of Chief Consumer Of Copious Quantities Of Tea in our household. I try to limit myself to tea with breakfast (caffeinated, thankyouverymuch), tea at the morning tea break (caffeine optional, depending on how the morning is progressing), and tea after dinner/before bed (definitely no caffeine). My inner health nut busts out and proclaims that lunchtime and afternoon tea time belongs to the nectar known as water, just to prevent my kidneys from going into overdrive and keep my teeth from turning tea-brown.

And with that, I'm off to brew myself a pre-bedtime cuppa...