13 May - classic pasta and more tea

Another classic spring/summer pasta lunch today; linguine with fresh peas and bacon, simple but always delicious. Then this afternoon I was in a local deli to top up my stocks of teapig teabags and I got talked in to trying yet another make of tea! Lahloo is another Bristol-based brand and as usual, I went for their loose-leaf breakfast tea. My first pot was a bit weedy, but when I tried again with a bit more tea and a slightly longer brewing time, it wasn't bad. I'll have to see if it becomes a regular in my collection!

Dinner was at a local Italian: Aqua. It usually does some good non-pasta/pizza dishes and I love their liver. But tonight I went for veal, that turned out to be a bit uninspiring and in a rather peppery sauce - just a bad menu choice, I think.

10 May - tea and fishfingers

Today's foodie excitement was the arrival of tea in the post! I drink a lot of tea; about 6 cups a day on average and I like a bit of variety. That's not to say I go in for green teas or herbal teas or anything of that sort, I'm strictly a traditional, breakfast tea kind of girl. I don't even like smelly teas like Earl Grey. But there's still quite a range under the 'breakfast blend' label. I have bog-standard tea bags from Tea Direct that usually make at least my first two or three cups of the day - always made in a teapot, of course. Then, in order of strength, I have some loose-leaf ATTIC tea (a Bristol tea-shop) - quite dark with quite a strong earthy flavour. There are teapigs English breakfast teabags ... sorry 'pyramids', a bit subtler and lighter than the bog-standard teabags. Then there's Suki tea - today's delivery - another loose-leaf tea that's light and fresh and often makes my final cup of the day around about 5 o'clock. New with today's delivery were some Suki Belfast brew tea pyramids which I'd expected to be quite strong, but are actually really light and only need the tiniest dash of milk.

Dinner was fishfingers, mash and peas! The fishfingers weren't the frozen Bird's Eye kind, but fresh cod fishfingers from Waitrose - a kind of grown-up equivalent ... but just as fun. The peas were fresh, the first of the season, not quite British yet, but from Italy - lovely with plenty of butter and some chopped fresh mint.