Let's get this par-tea going

Brew can do it

After doing an evening mission with Ealing Soup Kitchen on Monday, I'm all ready for doing an solo afternoon mission. So I sprinted (walked) to the Salvation army and to my surprise no one was there. After going back and forth for a few seconds, I pressed a button which said "ring me". An Ealing soup kitchen volunteer opened the door confused. I told them why I was there and was expecting some activities which were supposed to be happening from this morning. Just when I was about to show them the goodgym mission on the website, the volunteer told me Ealing soup kitchen runs at different places on different days. Then I cleansed my eyes and looked at the location. Indeed, it's at a different place. Luckily it's just a few minutes away. This time I indeed sprinted to the correct location.

Let me give this a chai

As I neared the St John's church, again there was no one in the sight and the doors are closed. Then I zoomed in to see a notice saying, that I need to take the entrance on the sides. It's already 12:06 at this point in time. I went in and the place was lively I was looking left and right like a missing child in a carnival. One person came to me and asked why I was there and told the magic word Angela (who is the soup kitchen coordinator for today) and was greeted by Angela. As I was only doing 1 hour instead of the full hour, she thought for a few minutes and asked me to monitor/to help with the games. 2 seconds later I was tasked with a refreshing task. I became a Barista. I was brewing tea with one hand and coffee with the other. Orders were coming one after the other

Person 1: Tea please

Me: With milk and sugar?

Person 1: Yes please. with 2 sugar

Person 2: Coffee no sugar

Person 3: Tea milk and 3 sugars

Person 4: Some juice for me

......

There was another lovely lady who was going back and forth to get the Tea and Coffee refills while I was holding the cafe fort.

I didn’t choose the mug life, the mug life chose me.

Quickly the tea time was over as the clock was ticking 12:40. Hot meals were getting prepared and arranged in kitchen next door to be served from ~1pm. Then I was tasked with a challenging task which is to be a Game Master. I was asked to oversee the games section. There was a Curling game which seems to be getting crowded, so I had to look and see what was happening there. An old gentleman was playing with everyone, or you can say everyone is challenging the old gentleman. Everyone was taking turns playing against him, and he clearly was winning. My job was to collect the curls and put them back in starting position and invited others to play. Then I was invited to play against the legend himself. After 2 games I got the idea of how to play. Then went back to my old position. It was 12:59 and the game time was over and I had to make a move. Everyone started lining up for their lunch....

The place was quite lively and everyone was social and that's yet another lovely memory to cherish at a later time.