Henman and a hen party

It's Monday! It's the last week of June! It's Wimbledon baby!

Ahem.

Apologies for that tennis related outburst of joy. I just love these two weeks of the year. I get everything that needs to be done out of the way in the mornings and then settle down for some glorious afternoons of sport. This year I shall mostly be supporting... Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Mario Ancic and Jelena Jankovic. Plus of course all those plucky unseeded Brits that make Wimbledon so special, for the first week at least!

This is of course the first Wimbledon in 14 years not to feature Tim Henman in the draw. The legend retired last year and although it is of course sad for such a career to come to its end, there is also a part of me that is relieved not to be faced with the prospect of another emotionally draining Henman epic. Much as I like Andy Murray, he doesn't inspire quite the same amount of heartache. Henman is of course not entirely absent from SW19, he's joined the BBC commentary team. I say team, it's more like a squad these days. Just how many commentators does a broadcaster need? Before I move away (no doubt only temporarily) from my Wimbledon love affair, I should probably stick my neck out and make a prediction. So here goes: Nadal for the men's title and Ivanovic for the women's.

I had a lovely day on Saturday at a friend's hen party. Despite not knowing most of the girls there I still had a great day. We went to a craft place and painted ceramics, had lunch in a little tea-rooms and then headed back to the bridesmaids' house for more food, chat and a DVD. It struck me as to how much more enjoyable it was than any pub'n'club crawling hen night. I think it's sad that it appears to be the norm these days for hen parties to be accompanied by drunken antics and hangovers. Ladies, I say we vote no to this 'new' way of celebrating and revert back to the good old days. I mean honestly, can anything beat a good cup of tea, a piece of cake and a natter? I rest my case.

Tea for me

I'm a firm believer that a cup of tea will help in almost any stressful situation. If I'm having trouble sleeping, a rendez-vous with the kettle and teapot in the middle of the night (de-caf of course) is the first port of call. Had an argument with my mum? Tea will put it right. Yet if I'm honest, despite my unwavering faith in the powers of a humble mug of Typhoo, I've always been a little jealous of coffee drinkers.

What amazing variety greets them as they walk through their local coffee shop's doors! Millions of different types of bean, espresso or latte, foam or cream, syrups the thought of which make your mouth water (amaretto, coconut etc) - until that is you remember that they come in a mug of EVIL! Ahem. That might be going a little too far but there is no doubt that tea is morally superior to coffee and yet the only option that we tea-drinkers have is, "milk or sugar?". It's an unjust world.

In the past week however, I'm delighted to say that I've been introduced to a whole new world of tea drinking possibilities. It's all thanks to a lovely friend's belated birthday present which came from a wonderful tea shop in Cambridge. I opened the jiffy bag that contained the gift with even more excitement than usual. Which is a lot of excitement. I have a rather irrational love of jiffy bags. The reason for this increase in anticipation was the smell of this particular jiffy bag. Please don't think that I sniff all my post. I don't. But in this instance you couldn't help but smell it. It was a gorgeous orangey, fruity, nutty scent. Inside the package I found a tea strainer and two cute little packets of posh tea leaves, complete with instructions from my friend on how to drink each of them and exactly what the man in the shop had told her about each tea. Thankfully I had my wits about me that day and didn't follow her instructions to the letter. She had stated that 1tbsp of leaves were required for each cup. That seemed a little excessive to me so I had a gander at the shop website (http://www.firstclassteas.co.uk/ if you're interested) and it turned out that she had actually meant 1tsp! Quite a difference but no harm was done.

So yesterday I sampled the first tea and today the second (I have to be careful on my caffeine intake). Wow! It's difficult to describe but I guess it's a bit like flavours in wine. It's obviously wine (or in this case tea) but they genuinely have notes of orange or coconut or almond in them. They smell amazing and taste just as good. I'm a convert. Please note that I am under no circumstances recommending fruit teas. Those silly fruit tea bag things that you can buy bulk in Tesco etc are not real teas! But these teas are the real deal. I sound like quite the tea snob don't I?

My favourite tea mug