Who knew?

It's official we are all suffering from the heat and are unable to do much save find somewhere a little cooler.  Fortunately we have no plans to do anything nor do we really wish to do so in fact it was as much as John could do to persuade me to go food shopping.  I relented but only because we decided to go late afternoon when we hoped it would be cooler and quieter.

On a day like today we drift about going in and out of the pool to cool down and we laugh at the fact that we question the merit of keeping the pool going - what madness!!!!

We had a nice interlude this morning when Di and Rob called in with our post.  Nothing exciting - just the car insurance documents for the Pug and Kenny.  You have to love Atlantic Insurance as I totally forgot to renew the insurance for the Pug and they contacted us some time after it was due to say they had kept it going as they assumed we would need it - thank goodness for that.  I can't imagine many other companies doing that once a policy has lapsed but then again we have been with them for years starting with insurance on the villa before we had moved over and then on the various cars and the mopped.  This year we even got reduction on our car insurance even though we are on the biggest discount they offer for No Claims Bonuses.


We chose the right time to go to Paps - it was indeed quiet and cooler as it is air conditioned.  We didn't have a huge list and neither did Isabel so it didn't take us long.  Sadly no pig's liver today - the stock answer when that happens is always "tomorrow" but we aren't completely out and in the heat Boris and Minnie aren't eating quite so much so we will try again next time we go.

Charlie, on the other hand, is eating next to nothing during the day but then wants constant feeding through the night which is a bit irritating as he will come into the bedroom like a ginger-ninja and sit on the dressing table stock still thinking he has not woken me (which he has).  He leaves it a short while before jumping down which he does with a thud - once again he sits stock still thinking he has not woken me (too late) before slowly scraping his claws up and down the bedroom door and emitting a strangulated call which means "I am starving and almost too weak to meow or scratch at the door and definitely too weak to go back out of the bedroom the way I came."  This does not disturb John or if it does he gives no indication that he is awake and so I go and shut him out (Charlie not John) - I should know better as this does not appease and sometimes he has shot back into the bedroom before I have got back into bed.  He has to be fed and so I do that because I do not want him going elsewhere to find something to eat.

So we finished our shopping and returned home but not before we had had a bit of a laugh at a new brand of tea Paps were selling.  We wondered if this particular blend included Bromide!!!

I did a bit of investigation on my return home and found that the original tea trading and blending business "Horniman's Tea Company" was founded in 1826 in Newport, Isle of Wight, by trader John Horniman.  In 1852 he moved the company to London to be closer to the bonded warehouses of London Docks which was then the biggest tea trading port in the world.

Until 1826 only loose leaf teas had been sold allowing unscrupulous traders to increase profits by adding other items such as hedge clippings or dust!!!  Horniman revolutionised the tea trade by using mechanical devices to speed the process of filling pre-sealed packages (the original tea bags) reducing his cost of production and thereby improving the quality for the end customer.  This caused some consternation amongst his competitors but by 1891 Horniman's was the largest tea trading business in the world.

In the 1870s the business was taken over by his son Frederick who founded and built the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, South London which today houses some 350,000 items of which 10% are from Frederick'r original donations.  Take a look at the link - this looks fascinating - shame I didn't know about it when I used to go to London.

In 1918 Frederick's son Emslie Horniman sold the business to J Lyons and Co who moved production to Greenford, Middlesex in 1921.  In 1993 distribution to the United States ended but Horniman's remains a popular brand of tea in Europe apparently!!!

Well who would have known that that little box of tea bags would have revealed such an interesting story.

We had thought about mooching down into the village for a beer this evening - we really feel we need to support the struggling businesses but on our return from shopping shelved the idea in favour of sitting out the back in the shade with a newly purchased beer from Paps.