I’ve been listening to Radio 4 while I’ve been painting today – sometimes there are good things come from bad and the chance to listen to the radio all day has been today’s good out of bad. God, how I love that station – the Beeb can do little wrong in my eyes.

In fact, last night we were treated to some of the best TV I have ever seen – Soul Deep (as Simon K rightly pointed out in his posting of yesterday) was a joy to watch, as was the James Brown gig and live soul show that followed. Of course it was on the Beeb – the commercial stations never seem to produce anything other than crap so-called reality shows (though none of the footage I’ve seen has borne any relation to any reality I know), soap operas and other turgid drivel to satisfy the lowest common denominator of the masses.

Anyway, after that sublime bastion of Sunday afternoon listening pleasure that is ‘Gardener’s Question Time’ there was a fantastic programme about a Cornish Tea Plantation – yep, the stuff that normally grows in high altitudes of places like China and India is being grown commercially in England for the first time in a valley in Cornwall. How amazing is that?

Apparently tea comes from the camellia family and the same estate in Cornwall grew the first outdoor camellias in this country many years ago. The gardener responsible for the tea was telling how they came to try to grow it and how they have put their first harvests into some rigorous taste tests with many of the finest palates in the business. It is being processed in Pangbourne (close to Sandhurst) and apparently makes a great cuppa. It’s not actually commercially available yet, but that is the plan.

Years ago, I was privileged to get a tour of a tea factory in my last job and to hear about how it is blended and tasted. It’s an art much like wine tasting.

Cornish water makes much better tea than Berkshire water – maybe it’s because it’s not been through the population several times before it comes out of the tap!!! Anyway, whatever the reason, when you make a cuppa in Cornwall it’s a clear, amber liquid that looks and tastes much better than the scummy stuff we consume in Sandhurst.

So the marriage of Cornish tea and Cornish water sounds to me like a very good one indeed. I can’t remember whose tea ad it was that had the very cheesy but highly memorable ditty that accompanied it….

‘I like a nice cup of tea in the morning
I like a nice cup of tea with my tea
And about this time of night
There’s not a more refreshing sight
Than a nice cup of tea!’

……and so say all of us!

I love stories like this – one day soon I’ll tell the Camel Valley Vineyard story – another tale of overcoming the strange British climate to grow exotic things hitherto thought impossible to make a success of here.

BTW - this was taken with one shot.....just a single one!

Last year I was building a pond and two years ago I did my first pic with the G3.....and the subject was .....wait for it.....pegs!