Return to Headington

Two really lovely teas today. I began with DavidsTea, because it was a black tea and when we can double up an Advent tea for breakfast we like to try. This one’s an old standby called Candy Cane Crush. It’s full of candy cane pieces and something about these make the tea cloud over when it pours out, so that it’s always a bit opaque. It’s a good tea though. The sweetness of it, which is almost minty but not quite in the way of candy canes, goes nicely with black tea. It’s not so sweet as to be unbalanced but it’s not pure mint, either. We had it with maple brown sugar oatmeal and it was a surprisingly good combination. It woke us up enough to land a bingo in Scrabble, so that was a definite bonus.

After that we decorated the tree; it’s up in it’s full splendour now and looking good, though we say it ourselves. We’re that much closer to Christmas. Tomorrow we’ll be halfway through the calendar countdown and we’re unclear how that happened as fast as it did.

Candy Canes, Apples and Christmas Trees

Still later, though we tapped into the tea from Germany, which was a Rooibos Apple Strudel. We love a good apple tea, as we’ve said many times and this one has a real apple cider taste to it. Canadian, non-alcoholic cider, incidentally. It makes for a pleasantly tart rooibos, which was just the thing after walking the dogs through a lot of wet, melting Narnia snow.

And speaking of Narnia, here’s a poetry treat for you. Joy Davidian, wife, friend and partner to C.S. Lewis.  She was a lot else besides that but her writing struggled to get published and now she’s been relegated to a footnote in someone else’s life. She writes a beautiful sonnet and we only wish we’d found these years ago.

IX
Joy Davidman

If I ever go back to Headington
I’ll go on foot, some breezy day in spring,
With new leaves winking at the yellow sun
and subtle sounds of water murmuring