Graveney & Meadow hasn’t been open for long this morning, but it already seems to have woken up. It’s dark inside, and it isn’t brightened by the retro décor or the fairy lights that hang from the ceiling. People are wheeling in buggies with toddlers trotting along beside them or wide-eyed babies, goggling at new surroundings, clutched on one hip. Snatches of squeeze box drift out of the corner where the buggies are lined up, drawing commentary. Toddler requests for lunch are declined, but plates stacked high with muffins and hash browns, with fluffy parmesan on top, are making me hungry too.
The bar man explains that he needs to take some food to people, so he’ll bring my tea over. I don’t mind waiting – my chair is really comfortable. Actually, all the chairs here look like they’d be good for extended sitting. It’s a nice change from the move-on-quickly-please hard chairs in so many places. The tea arrives shortly afterwards, neatly laid out on a tray. The cup is nice and thick, the oat milk is slightly frothy, and the teapot is of the metal, Tardis variety1 – so what looks like a one-cup serving should comfortably yield two full cups, hopefully without scalding the hands.
It’s bag tea, without an identifying tag. I’ve left it to brew for a while, so when I pour it out – successfully, it’s not a true Tardis pot – it’s nice and thick. It’s a solid brew, with plenty of body, richly malty and slightly astringent. And it’s perfect. Twenty out of ten. I bet that’s why all the parents are here – it takes a brew of that stature to get the show on the road again after an exhausting morning of fielding toddlers.
I can just about hear gently ambient music above clattering cutlery and bubbling conversation, then the squeeze box kicks in again, this time with singing, plus the bar man banging coffee out of the machine’s filter. A doddering toddler keeps wandering to the main door and trying to push it. It’s too heavy to give access to the street, but nearly all the clientele look up every time there’s an attempt, just to make sure.
Watching all this, I’ve managed to spill tea down my second favourite scarf. Although it makes me fit in nicely with most of the other people here, I’m going to head home and sort it out. Back for more twenty-out-of-ten tea soon.
- Ben Elton’s The Man From Auntie, at 2:32, though it’s really worth watching the whole thing – it has aged very well. ↩︎
Some other thoughts 