just another lavish, possibly excessive and maybe bourgeois shopping adventure from my travels, look you see. every now and then it's most agreeable to indulge such, and maybe one or two of you out there might find this interesting, even if only on a sheer curiosity level.
of late, then, i have been getting around and around. a rather unexpected consequence of this is that, every now and again, i feel so dislocated and distracted that i am not too sure of where (exactly) i am at any given point. mostly i just follow the postcode on the sat nav and there i am. this isn't a point of concern or, for that matter, a brag, but it is momentarily disarming when someone asks me where i am (perhaps on the telephone) and i have to say "actually, i don't know".
but then along comes the times when i am quite aware of my precise location, and the facilities offered by me being in a particular place. like, or such as, for instance, when i am close to getting my hands on, in exchange for some significant coins, some rather posh tea.
yes, then. it is unmistakably and most decidedly so that most outrageous fortune was mine, good luck favoured me and once again i was able to be a patron of my most beloved (non-vibes selling) retailer of repute, Fortnum & Mason. should it be so that for some reason you would wish to be informed of key previous instances of patronage, here, here and here you go. undoubtedly there are other tales around my blog, but those shall do momentarily.
it wasn't really, to undermine some of that which i wrote, that i was all that close to Fortnum & Mason. my travels took me to that there London (innit), which is a fairly large place. getting to the actual, or if you will proper, Fortnum & Mason was, due to distance away and opening times, a matter which was simply not feasible. with some tenacity and egging on, however, a good friend calculated for me how it would be possible for me to get from my momentary place to an agreeable chapter of same.
with thanks to the DLR (which stands, rather boringly, for Docklands Light Railway and not David Lee Roth) and the tube drivers not being on strike, i was able to get to the above. this is the chapter of Fortnum & Mason one can find at St Pancras, which is the rather large train station next to the extremely large train station at Kings Cross. whereas it is not quite so large as the main place of worship for all things Fortnum & Mason (Piccadilly Circus), it remains just as exquisite and exceptional. and expensive.
something rather poignant about that above picture, i suppose. despite me (indeed, visibly) taking all precautions and having as many "jabs" as they cared to invite me for, it was not so long after this when i gone done tested positive for that hideous new plague. no, i do not believe my infection relates in any way, shape or form to Fortnum & Mason. such is the nature of this virus, or whatever we are calling it now, that one could get it anywhere and be none the wiser.
quite a departure, of sorts, from my "usual" purchase choices at Fortnum & Mason. look at me, using a common word such as usual, suggesting or implying that i am some form of regular, favoured patron of this establishment that i am probably not worthy of gaining entrance to. normally, then, i would purchase one of their 'selection' boxes, featuring a range of different teas. this i have done at least twice before, perhaps even three times. as this has a tendency to leave me with a great many variations of Earl Grey tea, of which i have no intent ever of drinking, i elected instead then, since i was spending so much, to just but forms of tea that i would actually consume (drink).
although i did this, as one may see above, with a particularly hedonistic sense of the theatrical. why would one simply purchase regular tea bags when one can, for a higher price and less overall volume, procure the same in rather charming silky tea bags.
no, alas, i do not recall with any precision exactly how much these silky royal blend teabags cost me. i can remember, however, standing looking at them in Fortnum & Mason, looking at the price and quickly establishing that for the same money as 15 (fifteen) of these, i could get somewhere in the region of 300 (three hundred) or so Yorkshire Tea bags. common sense momentarily was left aside, then. and a true indulgence purchase was surely made.
how, then, is the tea itself? well, most agreeable and quite enjoyable. on the instances that i allow myself to have one of them, for i have (mindful of cost) decided to be quite prudent with using them. this is not tea to be made for the sake of it, rather it exists for times when the tea shall be special. yes, on my most recent of birthdays i did have a cup or two of it, with some scones with clotted cream and strawberry preserve.
the extent of my shopping adventure is pretty much pictured above. absent from view would be the fine chocolates i purchased with pleasure for the boys. they assured me that they tasted excellent. for those of a keen eye, yes, that is a box of afternoon blend tea bags, 25 of them in just "regular" (as in not silky) bags. from what i recall the price for 25 regular teabags more or less equated to the cost of the 15 silky ones. perhaps some economist at some stage will consider this matter.
up to now, no, i have not cracked open those salted caramel biscuits. i shall do, before the expiry date, but a concern is that i will not be able to resist, once opened i shall wolf them all down. yes, these were also a bit on the expensive side, but look at what an elegant biscuit tin i shall have from here until the end of my days.
more shopping adventures as and when i have them, dear reader.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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