Earlier this month I went to a tea party. On a Wednesday morning.
At an hour when I was most definitely telling myself I should be answering emails, I was drinking tea from beautiful china cups, eating homemade cakes and listening to orchestral music playing gently in the background.
There were fancy little spoons. Actual fancy spoons.
I cannot tell you how disproportionately happy this made me.
A group of women, some of whom barely knew each other, had gathered for morning tea and cake. There was no birthday to celebrate, no retirement, no special announcement. Nobody was receiving an award or being congratulated on surviving another year of marriage.
It was Wednesday. Apparently, Wednesday was reason enough.
Someone had gone to the trouble of getting out the good china. Cakes had been baked, everything had been arranged beautifully, and there was even a soundtrack. The whole thing had the slightly wonderful feeling of having wandered into a period drama, although thankfully nobody was expected to marry a distant cousin to save the family estate.
For an hour, we sat, drank tea, ate cake and talked.
Then we went back to our lives.
I've found myself returning to that Wednesday morning rather more often than you might expect. Probably because it’s not really something I would normally ever do.
I'm very good at getting on with things. Filling the diary. Making plans. Getting the work done. If there's a spare hour, I can generally find something useful to do with it. In fact, I'm remarkably talented at finding things to do with hours that aren't technically spare.
Making an ordinary day feel a little more special rarely occurs to me, which is perhaps why that tea party made such an impression.
Someone had decided that Wednesday morning deserved a bit of effort.Nobody had earned it. Nobody had achieved anything particularly noteworthy. We were simply invited to enjoy ourselves.
I've been wondering how much of this comes down to feeling deserving.
We're quite comfortable making an effort when there's a reason. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, someone coming to visit. The good crockery comes out, we buy the nice food and put a bit more thought into things.
There's a justification. But what about when there isn't one?
I don't think we consciously believe we don't deserve nice things. It's more subtle than that.
Do I really need that?
Is it worth the bother?
Shouldn't I be doing something more useful?
I can hear myself asking all three.
There's something faintly ridiculous about how much effort we'll put into making things happen for other people, then hesitate over doing something lovely for ourselves simply because we fancy it. As though pleasure needs a business case.
I think that's what I enjoyed most about the tea party. Nobody was trying to improve themselves. Nobody was developing a skill or working towards an outcome. At least, I hope they weren't. If someone was secretly collecting evidence of impact, I shall be very disappointed.
So I've started wondering how many tiny improvements to everyday life I overlook simply because they don't register as important enough.
Using something I've been saving. Taking the trouble to make something enjoyable rather than merely functional. Doing something purely because I want to, without feeling the need to justify it afterwards.
The funny thing is, I wouldn't think twice about encouraging someone else to enjoy these things.
If a friend told me she'd spent Wednesday morning drinking tea and eating cake with a lovely group of women, I'd be delighted for her.
If she told me she felt guilty because she should have been answering emails, I'd probably tell her to get a grip.
Yet there I was, doing the mental arithmetic myself.
I don't have any grand plans to become a woman who makes every day magical. Frankly, that sounds exhausting, and I have enough on. But I am rather taken with the idea of making ordinary life just a little more enjoyable.
A few tiny upgrades. The occasional unnecessary indulgence. Something that makes me disproportionately happy for absolutely no sensible reason.
As we head towards the end of the year, I'd quite like to find a few more things to enjoy before the holidays arrive and we somehow reach a point of permission to enjoy ourselves.
Three things to try this month
Use something you've been saving. The nice thing you keep putting aside for an occasion. Perhaps today qualifies?
Make one small upgrade. Find something in your everyday routine that could be a little more enjoyable or luxurious. No major investment or lifestyle overhaul required.
Enjoy something without justifying it. An hour, a treat, an experience, whatever takes your fancy. Resist the temptation to explain why you've earned it.
