4 minute read
Tales from Titchmarsh
A day spent gardening is well worth celebrating, says Alan, whether that’s with a glass of fizz, a bottle of beer or a cup of tea
To talk of drink might be thought
of as being a touch personal. I mean, if one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and one man’s fish is another man’s poisson, who’s to say whether tea is better than coffee or a herbal tisane is better for your continued health than a mug of Rosie Lee? One thing is certain: no gardener can function without recourse to a brew both morning and afternoon. When I was growing up, the choice, courtesy of my mother’s weekly trip to the grocer, was relatively straightforward: Brooke Bond Dividend Tea for breakfast, Nescafé mid-morning and back to the ‘Divi’ in the afternoon, though for a while my parents did ply me with Ovaltine at bedtime, whereas they were devotees of Horlicks. So sophisticated.
Nowadays it’s Yorkshire Tea for breakfast, a mug of freshly ground coffee for elevenses and a cup of weak black lapsang in the afternoon. (In the evening the Ovaltine has been
superseded by a large gin and tonic, but we’ll pass over that... for now.)
When I was apprenticed at the local nursery, Dick the tractor driver, having dropped off all the men at various flower beds around the town, would return to the nursery, collapse into his uncut moquette flea-ridden armchair in the mess room and partake of a pint pot of tea, so strong that it made his eyes water. The inside of that cracked receptacle remained as brown as his armchair, so tenacious was the tannin. But it did seem to fuel him. Half an hour later he’d set off in his tractor – gang mowers dangling behind him – to go round in circles for the rest of the morning on the playing fields down by the river.
I don’t remember being quite so dependent on tea to see me through the morning, but then I was only 15 and two freshly made pork pies seemed to suit my rapid metabolic rate rather more than a pint of PG Tips. I blush now at the recollection, but would say, in my defence, that when I married some 11 years later I still weighed only eight and a half stone. Those were the days… Today, of course, I am more discerning. The two pork pies have been replaced by a mug of freshly ground
Columbian – not too weak, not too bitter, but strong enough to be the colour of plain chocolate when poured from the cafetière. My wife, on the other hand, is a devotee of decaffeinated Earl Grey tea.
I know of others who prefer their morning libation to be of a delicate nature – a herbal tea bag, dunked for just long enough to give the boiling water a greenish tinge. I will not be critical; merely incredulous that they find it sustaining enough to see them through until lunchtime. At weekends, having pottered in the flower beds all morning, there is an excuse to push the boat out a little further and have a bottle of beer for lunch. Just a small one. More than a swift half and there is a risk that I might snip off the end of my finger with the secateurs or push a fork through my foot.
But then at the end of the day comes the ultimate reward for a day’s gardening: the popping of a cork or the flipping or unscrewing of a cap to celebrate a job well done. This is where the indecision comes in. Are we feeling like a beer or a glass of fizz? Red wine? White wine? Whispering Angel? Or a G and T? Should we demur on a Monday and just have a nice cup of tea? Deciding which variety of tomato to grow each year is child’s play when compared with deciding on the evening tipple.
A friend who is an accomplished author and still writing in her 86th year was exhorted by her children to have at least one day a week free of alcohol. Her answer was unequivocal: “What on earth for?”
Yes, we are wise to the dangers, but then we also know that granny’s dictum of ‘everything in moderation’ is a pretty good rule of thumb, and the pleasure that glass affords us at the end of the day and the relaxation it engenders must count for something. I say this to myself as I pour a large G and T in the evening. Just the one, you understand.
