Ok, so it’s Sunday and my latest epiphany told me Sundays are great for doing healthy stuff, partly to make up for the unhealthy things that might have occurred over the weekend but also because it gives you a lot of energy for the next week. Great. It's almost as if I've grown up.

I decided to go hiking for a few hours and complete another part of my latest trail. But nothing is completely unproblematic, is it? Look, all I really wanted was to have a cup of tea among trees and birds, reading a book. It’s not a lot to ask if you think about it.

Earlier this week I bought a thermos. Really nice. Black and sort of shiny. I thought the prospects were looking great and were convinced we were going to get along perfectly and share a lot of exciting moments together.

Today when I opened it I found a leaflet with instructions of how to use it. I was almost about to not bother reading it, because how many instructions can you possibly need to make a cup of tea… Apparently life is not as easy as I thought!

As I said, all I wanted was a cup of tea. I normally tend to drink tea with sugar and milk.


Instruction number 1: Don’t use the thermos for sugary drinks!

Instruction number 2: Don’t put milk in the thermos!

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Instruction number 3: Don’t drink straight from the thermos!


Yes, yes I know that you’re probably thinking “but, Evelyn, this is not really what I would call a problem – it’s quite easy to just bring some sugar in a box by itself, then a tea spoon so that you can stir the sugar into the tea and finally a handy little bottle filled with milk to add by itself and then drink it out of your mug that you will have brought separately”.

Yes, yes but why…like..why would I …..why should I…….why…..oh for the love of God – this is my version of handling this problem:

I AM going to put a sugary drink in my thermos and I AM going to mix it with milk. And I was actually planning to bring a mug but just because I feel childish today I won’t, which means I WILL drink my tea straight from the bottle. This means I’ll now be challenging the thermos people on three points out of three! That’s what I call living on the edge…

This is gonna be fun!