High Tea and all that

It's cold outside, but toasty warm here at home.
When I was young, if we had been out for the afternoon on a cold crisp day like it is today, my father used to make us a special delicacy called 'toast in the green bowl'. In reality this involved a traditional, good old fashioned high tea.
We would sit at our dining room table and have mugs of tea with toast cut into 'soldiers'. My favourite topping for the toast was marmite. We probably had other food as well, but I don't really remember that. To this day a mug of tea and marmite on toast fingers leaves an extra good taste in my mouth and a smile in my heart.

Now I've grown up (that's a relative term obviously), I realise that the green bowl that was so vital to our family high tea was a Denby green pudding dish and that the toast was kept hot in the bowl by Dad putting it in the oven until enough toast for four hungry children had been made. But as a child, it was not the practicalities that made this special, it was the joining together as a family, the anticipation of tastes and aromas and the sense of security in belonging.
My children have a different set of aromas and memories that give them that cosy feeling that I am trying to describe. For Cecily, it is the smell of Ecover floor cleaner and freshly baked scones and bread. For several years, whilst I was going through my 'domestic goddess' phase, I would get up before six and clean the kitchen, wash the floor and then bake bread and scones which the children would have for breakfast. She still associates the smell of floor cleaner with summer mornings.

I've just had tea and marmite toast fingers and am off to clean to kitchen, chat soon, Liz