As the Cat

We’re back! The Marschallin Cat, the Dawlish Dachshunds and your favourite chorister at home. It’s been a while, and we have plans – lots of book reviews and blog ideas coming in the new year.

Or that’s the theory. But first, it’s Advent, and Advent means tea and poetry. This year we should have two calendars going again, and two teas, but there’s been a slight hiccough with our favourite postal service, so today we’re just opening David’s Tea’s 24 Days of Tea.

So far, it’s off to an excellent start, with Merry Mistletoe. It’s a white tea with cranberry, raisins, a bit of apple and some mistletoe. We were nervous, because the smell from the tin is sort of the way you expect mistletoe to smell – outdoorsy and a bit like one of grandmother’s scented candles meant to keep moths away.

But it’s an excellent tea. It tastes like mulled wine without the wine. Warm, heavy on the cranberry, but balanced nicely by cinnamon undertones.

Of course, it might have helped that we drank it while watching what is easily one of our favourite episodes of television ever. But that’s a different essay. Maybe for the new year.

Instead, we’ll leave you with a poem. Here’s a nice, easy one to start the year off. We led our greetings iwth the cat, because that’s her right as resident household lares. We’ll end with a hymn for her, too.

As the Cat
William Carlos Williams

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset—
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down

into the round
of the empty
flowerpot.

Of course, the Marschallin Cat has never climbed into a flowerpot in her life. But she is best friends with our Benjamina tree, and frequently leaps into it. The dogs are beside themselves. Three years on and she still hasn’t taught them to leap.

See you tomorrow for more tea and poetry. It’s good to be back.