Lifeboat Tea

It's not always easy balancing running and hard physical work, and as I increase my training this summer to 30-mile-weeks and spend some time doing real work, I can feel it.  By real work I mean working in the garden, mixing up concrete and mortar in a wheelbarrow by hand, tearing out that old handrail on the porch with a crowbar, all out in the 80-degree-plus heat.  This kind of work, which I have always done despite my white-collar background, gives me an appreciation for those men amongst us who work like this all the time!  The builders and roofers and lawn guys, many of them Hispanic, who do good hard "honest" work.  As I sit bone-weary and drenched in sweat to take a break in the shade, I have to think that this cross-training will eventually prove more beneficial than the afternoon nap that seems to be the prevalent type of cross-training for most of those in my age group.  What I need mid-afternoon, after nine miles of hills this morning, is something that is a staple of  the British - a cup of tea!

Our favorite tea this summer is Lifeboat Tea, which we stocked up on at the Outer Banks this April.  It's imported from the UK and, according to the box it comes in, every purchase goes to help the Longhope Lifeboat Station in Orkney.  That is appropriate because as far as I know the only place to purchase it in this area is at the Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station in Rodanthe:

My little lifeboat, saving me from the sea of exhaustion!  Highly recommended to focus the mind and refresh the body in a time-honored way (since 1869, according to its package).  Although I do not think it will catch on with the roofers in Highlands.