In April, Jacob and I had the good fortune of a double bill visit from the UK - first Mark and Lydia, and then Ollie. All three came bearing good gifts. Mark and Lydia brought enough hot cross buns to feed an army, which sweetened our Easter and beyond. Ollie brought a tin of Heinz baked beans, English Breakfast tea, and a tube of McVities digestives.
Those humble digestives have been life changing.
Digestives had previously been something I categorised as a snack for a car ride during family holidays in the UK. These were inevitably the chocolate covered variety, even better if they were dark chocolate digestives. They existed in that holiday bubble and never penetrated life over here, except for a brief phase where Hannah and I would cover them in icing and sprinkles as a treat (I had a wild childhood).
With this tube, however, Jacob introduced me to the biscuit break. He sent me a picture of himself, grinning over a cup of tea and holding a digestive up to his face. "A mid-morning snack," I thought, "nothing groundbreaking."
When Jacob's school holidays came about and we worked from home together, he'd stop us at 10am for a biscuit break and I happily joined him. It's such a joyful interlude, and in my head a very childlike snack, given the attention you have to pay to the dipping-of-biscuit-into-tea, to avoid a soggy biscuit or worse, a soggy biscuit in your cup.
I've now taken the biscuit break to work with me, two digestives (and two squares of chocolate, because old habits die hard) and a cup of earl grey or rooibos tea. What a gift.
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