I am slightly ashamed of the disappointment I feel when I sit down to breakfast in a hotel and get a pot of tea with only one teabag and there is NOTHING to be done except accept the sadness of tea the colour of dishwater. Although asking for an extra teabag would work, I suppose.

Because at home my lovely sister, Olivia, has sorted the problem of the perfect tea by bringing me a mix of tea her neighbour, Olivia, gave her because she hated it. This I have added to the fabulous Somerset Miles Wessex tealeaves for the PERFECT CUP OF TEA. Bloody lovely. So Miles breakfast and Darjeeling autumn or some other nonsensical named thing seem to be the combination that works best. Though in the cupboard, gathering dust, (packets we’re talking, not contents:  no Dickensian grocery cupboards here) are all the weak teas for anyone so inclined. A bit like when you have sugar in your tea still, and go to visit friends and ask for sugar and they have to rummage around in the back of their attic saying ‘I know we had some sugar here somewhere’. So thank you Olivias.