Time for another square month hosted by the lovely Becky. The photos don’t necessarily have to be of a timepiece, but are open to interpretation to reflect time in some way, or sayings such as ‘the passing of time’, ‘a stitch in time’, or ‘time running away from you’.
Day 29: Teatime – A quintessential British institution?
Well… Maybe not. The British are famously a tea-drinking nation. Brits drink tea throughout the day from an early morning breakfast cuppa to a late evening brew. Tea breaks often occur during the mid morning or mid afternoon.
Northerners and Scots refer to teatime as the meal at the end of the day, whereas Southerners would call this meal dinner.
And then there are of course tea rooms, where one can drink tea. And coffee and other drinks of course, and may be a place to partake in ‘afternoon tea’ – with plates of sandwiches and scones and small cakes or tarts. In Devon and Cornwall, afternoon tea is served with scones and locally made clotted cream and strawberry jam – we call this a ‘cream tea’.
Teatime, tea breaks, afternoon tea, cream tea – confused? Well despite the fact that I personally loathe tea, the taste and even the smell makes me nauseated, though I have been known to drink some herbal teas, I do like the look of this lovely Art Deco style tea-set. Though I suspect those cup handles aren’t the easiest to hold.
To join in with the Squares challenge please visit Becky for instructions. Remember the only proper rule is that the photo must be SQUARE.
December Squares | Day Twenty-nine
TRAVEL WORDS 
Oh, what an amazing tea set, Jude! Where did you spot this?
A shop in Holt, Norfolk Sue.
Oh, well done for taking the picture, Jude!
Probably had it in mind for the lingering windows challenge!
😀😀
Love that Art Deco set, Jude. 🙂
As for teatime, that used to be around 4 pm, for rich people of course. (Poor people would be working until it got dark, or later.) They would then change for dinner, which would be sometime after 8 pm, and supper would be a snack before retiring to bed. It’s a wonder most of them were so thin! No doubt they had small portions, and spent a lot of time changing in and out of the appropriate clothes for each mealtime.
Being a Londoner, I do call it ‘dinner’. But Julie is also a southerner, from Hertfordshire, and she often asks “What’s for tea?”.
Best wishes, Pete. x
As a child from the north our main meal would of course be at lunch time, which we would call dinner, with tea time comprising of sandwiches or maybe beans on toast and a piece of cake. Ham salad on a Sunday!
Halcyon days indeed! 🙂
You could practically tell what day it was from the meals 😀
I used to walk home from school each day knowing exactly what we would have for dinner. 🙂
Now we have stopped travelling I have our main meal at lunchtime and a snack for dinner/teatime. “They” say that is better for our diet….
I think it is better to have the larger meal earlier in the day so you have time to digest it.
I agree
How can you loathe it?! And what you didn’t mention is whether you are a jam or cream first person. Do hope you do the ‘cream tea’ the right way even if you will have it with coffee and not tea!!
Haven’t drunk proper tea since I was about 12 years old, except when pregnant when funnily it was the smell of coffee that I couldn’t stand! And of course being in Cornwall it has to be jam first.
All is forgiven if it is jam first 🙂
This is a rather nice teaset. 🙂 As a Scot, I can confirm that teatime does indeed mean the evening meal, though some people do also call it dinner. For me, the meal in the middle of the day regardless of whether it is a sandwich or a three course slap up meal, is called lunch. 🙂
This has proven to be a very interesting post. I have learned so much through all the comments.
There are other types of tea, of course… There’s afternoon tea, where we would havesandwiches and scones (sconn, not scoan!) etc. Then there is the Scottish High Tea, which is a hot cooked dish (fish and chips is a popular one) followed by cakes, or maybe scones, and a cup of tea. Bread and butter would often accompany the hot dish. The traditional time to have that would be late afternoon and there wouldn’t be another meal later that day.
Beautifully captured gleam!
That looks destined to end up in my lap! Except that I wouldn’t go anywhere near it if it was tea. 🙂 🙂 And where’s the cake, by the way? Some of us are undernourished! Go on- share a Saturday scone 🙂 I had a wonderfully spiced one with ginger and cherries in Leeds City Museum yesterday. The things one has to do!
I had a ginger scone in North Devon once, it was very nice. Not sure about combining it with cherries.
I call the midday meal lunch and the evening meal tea, except when we’re eating out and then it’s dinner. Who knows why? I don’t. This tea set is so pretty.
Yes, it is all very confusing. I tend to just use main meal and snack! They can occur pretty much any time of the day. Though I agree with you that eating out in the evening is dinner 🙂
What an interesting muddle of mealtimes! It just goes to show that as we all move around much more we share and spread our terms . I grew up with dinner / tea (N England) but am now firmly lunch / dinner. And jam first on the “sconn” not “scoan”. Oo, introduced another controversial topic!
Oh, yes, very controversial. I say scoan. One of my friends said sconn. That’s the posh version!
A lovely tea set Jude, but I would never dare use it for Jack, he has a real “thing” about cups with handles he can’t get his finger in. Refuses to go in some cafes because of the cup handles, and don’t get him onto jam jars for cups 😱
I’ll remember that when we meet up! Have to say I agree with him over the cup handles.
😄👍