connoisseur

noun

1. an expert judge in matters of taste.

Sitting at the breakfast table in the apartment, I'm eating scrambled eggs with a tomato and crushed cucumber salad. It was the easiest thing I could find to make from the ingredients in the fridge in the time I had left before my morning class started.

Moments later, Patricia arrived. I pushed the salad and empty bowl her direction, encouraging her to eat.

"I've already eaten, thank you." She pulled out her tablet and opened my schedule for the day.

"You have an appointment at eleven AM with Bob, Godfrey August would like a walk through with the renovations in the Cafe at noon. His sister Claire will be arriving with him and will discuss the fashion show event after the walk through. Your hair appointment is schedule for two PM, and swimming physical therapy at four PM in the building swimming pool. After that, you're free." She took a drink from the travel mug she brought in with her.

"Ahhh..." I feel like I'm missing something. "Don't I have classes today?" I ask her, confused.

"It's Saturday. Your study groups have all disbanded when each of the group assignments were handed in. You have until Monday to complete your three small commerce and finances assignments and there was a request from the Swimming Club to join their team for a group swim Monday afternoon. I politely declined the invitation."

"Swim Club? Again? What is with those guys? I mean, I get they are trying to suck up to Wallace Overmeyer's step daughter, but surely they would have taken the hint by now that I am not interested? And those bi... those bunnies in the club trying to scratch my eyes out... Na-ah, now way." I finish off my eggs and salad and dump the dishes in the kitchen sink. "Is there any way to report them for harassment or something on campus?"

"I'll look into it." She replied in her dry voice.

"How is Grant's martial arts training coming along?" I had asked Patricia to train Grant up in security work and self-defence a long time ago. Until now, I had actually never seen them working out together.

"He has a solid grounding in the basics and Denault has given him great training in building and situational security. His personal self-defence still needs a lot of work." Patricia outlined where Grant's training was at.

"That's good. I heard from Wallace that most of the estate staff are all highly trained. He probably was included in that while he lived on site."

"Yes, he was," She replied.

I poured myself a coffee then set about catching up with the lectures, school work and study that I'd missed over the last week or so. Ten to eleven Patricia reminded me of our meeting scheduled in Bob Blanchard's office on the second floor.

We found Bob in his office, ordering his assistant to make each of us a coffee.

"Good morning, Ms Twice. I heard from Wallace what had happened to your mother. I'm relieved to hear she is back safe and sound." Bob shook my hand and settled us down into the lounge seats in his office.

"Yes, it was quite a scare. She came back yesterday so that's why I couldn't meet with you then. My apologies." I explained to my building manager.

"Perfectly fine. I'm glad everyone is OK." We caught up about a few things in the building for the next half hour with Bob updating me with any security issues, and problems with the tenants, and outlined the new security protocol involving pets and companion animals in the building. Apparently the little Furbutt has upset quite a few of the security team's protocols. I giggled when I heard that. An animal the side of my large coffee mug made the big bad security team members all squeamish.

I then spent ten minutes reading reports, confirming the updated fire safety and building compliance policies and procedures, then signed off on a few financial matters. A financial report was handed over to Patricia for me to read later.

Just before noon, we met Godfrey August in the cafe slash new tea house down on the ground floor. Godfrey was a lovely sort of man, a slim mid forties fellow who wore bright coloured silk scarves at his neck. He wasn't gay, but from the way he held himself and dressed, you'd think he was. He was happily married to an actress who happens to work for the entertainment company that Wallace owns.

Went spent half an hour looking over the architectural redesigns for the new tea house while Godfrey actually walked us through the old cafe and the new upstairs section that Wallace opened up for me. A third of the upstairs space was being cut away to open up the ceiling right up to the shop front windows, opening up the whole space to let in light and create a larger space with a grander atmosphere. The upstairs will look like a mezzanine floor with a wide spiral staircase in the front middle, just to the right hand side of the serving counter and coffee barrister bar. There was also a second serving staff staircase in the back near the kitchen for easy access for waiting staff.

I loved the look already. In the past week, workers had cut away the upstairs section and renovated the whole store front, replace the walls with large floor to ceiling glass windows and had begun building the serving bar. The back areas of the teahouse that haven't needed much structural work have all begun their redesigned and I can see that once the whole tea house has been refitted with this same materials and fixtures, it will look incredible.

I made certain to let Godfrey know how pleased I was with the place so far. When I asked him if the finances had been finalised with my staff, he waved me off saying that Wallace had already paid for everything. That upset me a bit, so I asked Patricia to make a note to remind me later to have a talk to him about.

We met with Godfrey's sister Claire in the tea house's kitchen, which hadn't changed much from the previous cafe design. There was a facility for tea storage being built now, but apart from that, it was almost left as it was. The new chef by the name of John Waitner, who we had hired was creating a new menu for the tea house and was happy to use us as guinea pigs to taste test his creations.

We also met with the new front of house manager who was an experienced woman by the name of Murrieta Murr. She was an experienced tea house manager who trained in Japan ten years ago. Wallace found her for me and so far I've been really impressed with her.

Murrieta was an accomplished tea connoisseur with teas both locally and internationally and she knew which foods paired well with which kinds of teas. Many of her recommendations for the menu were excellent and the new chef was pleased to be working with her. I was just happy to have someone who knew what they were doing.

After trying the four new dishes that Chef John had been working on, Godfrey, Bob and his assistant left us with a good bye, leaving Claire, Murrieta, Patricia and I to go over the tea and food menus that had already been designed.

Murrieta really knew her stuff. For each of the four entrée finger foods that Chef John had served, she brewed and served us a small cupful of tea that matched that food perfectly. A strawberry black tea was served with the mini scones with clotted cream and she created her very own special blend of chai milky tea with the light puff pastry cinnamon rolls. A mini lemon and salmon tart was served with Earl grey tea and spinach artichoke bruchetta toasties were served with a mint green tea.

Murrieta finished our impromptu lunch off with serving us sliced melon and slices of crispy pears and apples. She didn't forget the tea match and served us a final brew of a white tea that I'd never tried before. It was a very delicate flavour, but I think the sweetness of the melon over powered it a little. When I mentioned this to Murrieta, she said that the fruits served with white teas would normally not be this sweet, but with the kitchen not in full use, she didn't have much fruit choices to work with.

It was so wonderful to taste the strengths of each type of tea as it was served with their matching finger foods, really impressed with what I'd learned today. On our way to my next appointment, I asked Patricia to add the tea house's brand of white tea to my weekly grocery list.

My hair cut was with my usual hairstylist. I only use a hair dresser who works solely with people with curly frizzy hair. I've been using her for years and am usually satisfied with her work. Today was no exception.

After my haircut, I was back home two hours later and in the downstairs swimming pool working on hopping and skipping and eventually swimming my way up and down the pool along with my swimming physio therapist. With her help we were able to determine that I no longer needed the use of the crutches and can now hobble around with just the knee brace on. I have to wear the brace for another month before Ms Lockley or Dr Styles will let me leave it off. I'm really looking forward to that.

When I asked about getting back into jogging, she said not for another three months. Looks like I'm stuck with exercising in the swimming pool until then.

As promised, after physio in the swimming pool, I was a free woman. Patricia dropped me off home and I spent the evening painting new fabric designs for my next season's lounge ware label.