The teapot

Today's socks

The main way to keep my headaches at bay is drinking enough. Two large glasses of water in the morning, tea or water during the day and perhaps a hot chocolate in the afternoon or evening. Peppermint or orange flavouring optional.

And since July that all worked quite well and I had fewer headaches. Then I got to be home and for some reason I did not drink enough. Which meant that last week an attack started that lasted six days. Although not as bad as they used to be, it was bad enough and I realised that just getting a mug of tea was not enough.

On the day the stitches were removed, I had to do some shopping and actually saw a really nice teapot. Only 20 euros as well, which wasn't that bad. But how to keep the tea hot in the teapot? I used to own a tea stand and light, but left them behind in Northern Ireland. I don't like tea purses like my Mum has and I cannot make a tea cosy right now.

This is the only voucher I have!

My Mum had a possible solution. Why not check out the savings program of Douwe Egberts. They are the coffee makers here in the Netherlands and for nearly 100 years they have had a savings program where they have vouchers on each pack of coffee or coffee related product they sell. Pickwick tea is also included in this program. The vouchers have values of between 2 and 100 points and can be exchanged for coffee or tea related items.

I checked out the site and found a lovely teapot. It was nearly 70 euros (!), which I thought was quite steep (no pun intended), but I could pay with points as well. For every euro you needed 2 points. A total of 13,798 points were needed. I had 4! My Mum went upstairs to get her stash (donations from friends and family) and came down with three bags containing a total of 13,000. I was still short. Mind you, I could pay the balance in money, but my Mum had another trick up her sleeve: the kitchen drawer.

She dug and dug and my Dad and I tallied. In the end all the vouchers from the drawer added up to about 2,300! I took out the 798 I needed and the rest was put in bags to be kept for a future buy. Then I went to the shop where I could get the teapot.

The new teapot with one of my Moomin Christmas mugs

I arrived, saw the teapot, handed over the points and now I am in the proud possession of a gorgeous double walled teapot that will keep my tea hot. I have been using it for several days now and I am very pleased with it: it is sleek and modern and it doesn't drip! It shall definitely help me keep my fluids up.