Memories of tea

Isn't it strange how our sense of smell, the most subtle and ethereal of our senses, can evoke the most vivid memories?
I just had such an experience a few minutes ago in Tesco's.
You'll never guess what I was buying. No, not beer! Soap and light bulbs. And cat food, obviously.
The soap bar had become so small that I felt slightly ridiculous trying to wash myself with it. I felt like Gulliver or something. And light bulbs. Well, you always forget to buy those.
I am sure you are positively gripped by the minutiae of my domestic life, so I will get to the point.
When I went to pay for my soap and light bulbs and cat food, the woman at the till must have been wearing a perfume that I haven't smelt since 1991.
I was living in Liverpool at the time. I was about to start an Art Foundation course there. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to move into my bed-sit a week before the course started. But it turned out not to be such a good idea, because there was basically nothing to do. I was living in a city where I didn't know anybody. As college hadn't started, I didn't have much opportunity to make friends. So I just familiarised myself with the neighbourhood, went to a few art galleries in the city, wandered around the shops and so on. But after a couple of days I got a bit bored, and I was feeling a bit lonely too.
Then someone knocked on my door one day. It was a girl and her boyfriend who lived across the hall. They invited me over to their room for a cup of tea.
They looked a bit hippy-ish, like the kind of people you would associate with the Glastonbury Festival. That might be why they approached me, because I looked a bit hippy-ish myself in those days.
So I went over, and while I noticed their room was a lot smaller than mine, it was really nice. They had Indian-style wall hangings and rag rugs on the floor, and she made a big pot of tea, with a tea-cosy and everything, while he put on a record (remember them?) by "Gong". They loved their tea! We drank about a gallon of the stuff and chatted away.
Now, at first I was a bit wary. I thought, "Sometime soon they are going to try to sell me some heroin."
But they didn't.
They were just nice people who invited their new neighbour over to drink endless cups of tea and listen to obscure records.
I thought, "Hooray! I have friends now (and an appreciation of strange Sixties underground music)."
So there you are. I just remembered that because that girl must have worn the same perfume as the woman on the till at Tesco's.
So, if some slightly lonely looking, slightly hippy-ish person moves in across the hall from you, invite them round for a big pot of tea.
They will probably appreciate it.