Sleigh Rides and Snow Sprites

Today’s herbal tea is Sleigh Ride. The ingredients rattle off a whole thwack of stuff mixed into the blend, but all we could taste was the hibiscus and cinnamon. It’s a curious, tart combination, but not an unpleasant one. We’re reminded faintly, drinking it, of rhubarb crumbles we used to make. Of course, there’s none of the sweetness the descriptive tag features, but maybe we didn’t let it steep long enough. As established, the art of getting one of these tisanes to steep has eluded us all month. Mind, it had time enough; the pot sat there for a good ten minutes while we did auxiliary kitchen chores.

It doesn’t particularly remind us of sleigh rides, we have to say. We used to ski out west, and you could sign up for sleigh rides of the horse-and-sleigh variety. There was hot apple cider afterwards, and we roasted marshmallows over candles. Nothing about it involved hibiscus, and while there’s apple somewhere in this tea, the hibiscus drowns it. (It drowns the raisins too, because as discussed, raisins don’t really come through in any tea at any strength.)

So we are mostly sipping this tea and thinking how lovely and tangy and tart it is. Warm enough for winter, though, and on that note, here’s a wintery poem to pair with it.

The Snow Fairy
Claude McKay
I

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,

Whirling fantastic in the misty air,

Contending fierce for space supremacy.

And they flew down a mightier force at night,

As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,

And they, frail things had taken panic flight

Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.

I went to bed and rose at early dawn

To see them huddled together in a heap,

Each merged into the other upon the lawn,

Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.

The sun shone brightly on them half the day,

By night they stealthily had stol’n away.

And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you

Who came to me upon a winter’s night,

When snow-sprites round my attic window flew,

Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light.

My heart was like the weather when you came,

The wanton winds were blowing loud and long;

But you, with joy and passion all aflame,

You danced and sang a lilting summer song.

I made room for you in my little bed,

Took covers from the closet fresh and warm,

A downful pillow for your scented head,

And lay down with you resting in my arm.

You went with Dawn. You left me ere the day,

The lonely actor of a dreamy play.

Perhaps our favourite part of poetry, and indeed of hunting down poems for this blog is the discovery of new phrases. You can bet anything you like that snowflakes hereafter are snow-sprites to us. It’s too lovely an image not to nick into everyday parlance, don’t you think?

Hot Chocolate (Tea)

Hot Chocolate today. No, not the drink. Well, sort of a drink. But not the drink; not hot chocolate. Not the kind made up with hot milk, cocoa powder, cream mixed in for extra richness. No, this is a tea and it’s called Hot Chocolate, purely to make this blogging thing we do an exercise in confusion.

It’s a pu’erh tea, which makes it the eighth non-herbal tea in this month’s selection. We’re almost at 33% ! That’s almost balanced! Incidentally, because we weren’t sure last go, we went and dug more into the nature of pu’erh tea, and it turns out that like oolong, the leaves are partially fermented. No wonder we have such a good track record with it. Something about that process has always worked for us with oolongs, too.

It’s smokier than its predecessor, which you’ll recall also featured chocolate. Hot Chocolate (Tea) lacks the spices of S’mores Chai, though, and also unlike that chai, benefits from a dab of milk. It gives the chocolate a creaminess that blends nicely with the smokiness of the tea. It also stops it being overwhelmingly chocolatey, and as we’re still not chocolate in tea types, that’s not bad thing.

We associate it with ski lessons, and winter evenings in Scotland. But we’re in Canada at the moment, writing this off the back of watching the very Canadian Anne with an E. We know, we know, we’re behind by about three years, and we definitely have opinions. We’ll get to them some other night. For now, have on a related note, the equally Canadian L.M. Montgomery on winter.

A Winter Day
L. M. Montgomery

I
The air is silent save where stirs
A bugling breeze among the firs
The virgin world in white array
Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;
All heaven blooms rarely in the east
Where skies are silvery and fleeced,
And o’er the orient hills made mad
The morning comes in wonder clad;
Oh, ’tis a time most fit to see
How beautiful the dawn can be!
II
Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendour crowns the woods
A bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter’s day.
III
Faint music rings in world and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow;
Beyond a valley dim and far
Lit by an occidental star,
Tall pines the marge of day beset
Like many a slender minaret,
Whence priest-like winds on crystal air
Summon the reverent world to prayer.

She has a very particular fingerprint, doesn’t she? Anne comes by her rhapsodising honestly.

More Lessons in Teaming

Shall we tell you what doesn’t steep? We can’t believe it needs saying, but obviously it does, so here goes; marshmallows do not steep. Steep marshmallows do not. They might melt in hot water, we grant you, but there’s a reason no one is marketing marshmallow water or hot marshmallow gloop in coffee shops. You put them on cocoa and they go nicely halfway-liquid, but they do not infuse hot water.

Okay, they sort of steep. They must because what they are currently doing is melting into our lovely, lovely tea infuser and manifesting the most cloying herbal tisane – yes we’re back at tisanes – in creation. What they’re also doing is stopping what stuff does infuse from infusing, because it’s all sitting in melted marshmallow.

Why? Well, this year’s creative reimagining of Forever Nuts, which is by itself a charmingly spiced tisane we’re quite partial to, is Forever Frosty, and Forever Frosty is the Forever Nuts tea with bonus marshmallow, at least as far as we can tell.

Somewhere in here is a lovely tea with almonds, cinnamon, and we suspect nutmeg. We’d like to taste it but we can’t for the marshmallows. They taste soppy, and universe, tea should not be soppy!

Consequently, in a shocking turn of events, this is the first cup of tea from the calendar we won’t finish. There’s always one (it’s usually coffee-flavoured) and this is it this year. It’s probably lovely if you like marshmallow (we do not) or have a sweet tooth (we don’t particularly). Or maybe you just want a particularly watery tea. Though if that’s the case, just wave a teabag in the direction of some hot water. We guarantee it tastes better! Probably better for your teeth, too.

After all that, we’re more than a tad leery of the saccharine. With that in mind, here’s a poem about music – and sopranos particularly. Apparently we still can’t forgive last night’s tenor nicking the best soprano aria in The Messiah. Not when they had a first rate coloratura who was more than up to the part. Oh, and whatever else might say about this poem, it’s very definitely not cloying.

The fury of Guitars and Sopranos
Anne Sexton

This singing
is a kind of dying,
a kind of birth,
a votive candle.

I have a dream-mother
who sings with her guitar,
nursing the bedroom
with a moonlight and beautiful olives.

A flute came too,
joining the five strings,
a God finger over the holes.

I knew a beautiful woman once
who sang with her fingertips
and her eyes were brownlike small birds.

At the cup of her breasts
I drew wine.

At the mound of her legs
I drew figs.

She sang for my thirst,
mysterious songs of God
that would have laid an army down.

It was as if a morning-glory
had bloomed in her throat
and all that blue
and small pollen
ate into my heart
violent and religious.

As we say, emphatically not saccharine. Unlike some teas we could mention. Featuring marshmallows. But we’d never point fingers, like that. But tell you what, universe, do a proper herbal tomorrow, all right? Undiluted sage, or ginger root extract, or hibiscus or something. Anything. Just let it steep, and let it be strong, and for god’s sake let it be tea and not confectionary-turned-infusion. Please?

Exsultate in the key of Green

Truly there is serendipity in the multiverse! Today’s tea is Green Passionfruit. It is, needless to say, a green tea.

No, we are not melodramatic. It is absolutely an occasion to give Leontyne Price’s High C an airing. It’s to die for. (Can one sing Alleluia in Advent? Probably not, but if The Messiah gets to break that rule, we can too.) Rejoice greatly while you’re at it. Shout, tea drinkers of your many and varied nations. Etc, Etc.

We could go on. We’ve just spent the evening at The Messiah. It was the Mozart arrangement, completely uncut and moved at a good pace for a Wednesday evening. Fewer ornaments than usual, which is an odd turn for Handel, whose arias are supposed to showcase the vocal acrobatics of the performers, but still good.

Mind you, the pieces were all playing musical chairs. The tenor had Rejoice Greatly, the soloists stole the fun part of For Unto Us from the chorus. This last is bad form, by the way. The chorus should always be allowed its musical jokes; we don’t get to show off as much as the soloists!

We know, we know, there are as many versions of a Handel Messiah as we’ve had hot dinners. More probably. It swaps up the vocal colouration, is all. Literally, in the case of a good friend, who once wailed, on hearing the soprano was doing double duty and covering for a snowbound tenor, ‘It will sound green and not yellow!’

We don’t hear colours, but we do get used to certain cadences. We enjoyed this performance, but you can bet we’ll stick on Lucia Popp’s Rejoice at some point over the holidays because it means Christmas to us the way wreaths and Advent Calendars and tress do for other people.

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, back to this morning’s tea. It had come up before, and part of our delight was its familiarity. We remember that it tasted good, and, indeed, it still does. Steeped for about five minutes, green passionfruit makes for a tania-rich tea that is kept from turning bitter by the passionfruit. In fact, the two balance each other out nicely, so that while the passionfruit isn’t as overt as, say, the cranberries in the White Cranberry offering of some days ago, neither is it dominated by the green tea. They harmonise like a plagal cadence or a major triad or something. The website wants us to believe this makes for a lovely iced tea, and while it probably does, we’re not sure why anyone would bother when its such a lovely cold-weather drink brewed hot.

It’s becoming remarkably clear as we write how much enmeshed we are with certain habits. Not breaking news exactly, we’re Anglican after all, and no one has us beat on tradition. As the old saw goes, once is an event, twice is a habit, three times is a tradition. In that vein, here’s an old but well-worn poem, where if the speaker doesn’t quite agree with us, his animal absolutely would.

Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Good tea, good music, and good poetry. Does it get better than this? We don’t think so, but we send commiserations to the horse for disrupting its routine. Somewhere, there’s a congregation waiting to welcome it onto the sides persons team or the refreshments committee, or something. Anyone who knows of one is encouraged to be in touch.

Answer to Armageddon

Not to be repetitive, but today’s tea is another herbal tisane. We went and cross-referenced after yesterday, and of seventeen teas, six have been non-herbal, which strikes us as a curious balance, considering the in-store selection. And while we like herbal tea fine, we’re officially asking for advice. Because we’ve done what it says on the tin. We’ve let the tea sit for ten minutes. We’ve spooned it one per person and one for the pot into the infuser. We’ve all but stuck a thermometer in the water to check it’s exactly so many degrees before boiling and it never, ever steeps adequately. Not with a fox, not in a box, nor on a train, plane or automobile. So, what are we doing wrong, internet? What do we have to do to get herbal tea from this calendar at a strength above anaemic?

Twenty minutes into tea-drinking we got a cup that was nicely pink (there’s hibiscus and rose in the mix) and not overly sweet. In fact, of the herbals we’ve sampled this month, Tulsi Tranquility is definitely a favourite. We’d say its tranquility in a cup, but quite frankly that’s all tea, any tea, any time of day.

It’s something we’ve been trying to explain to the people behind this calendar for ages. Tea doesn’t need to keep up with trends, bustle and blether. The whole point is that everything stops for tea. The joy of this calendar is that every day we must take twenty minutes out to not only make a pot but mull it over and take time out from more pressing considerations. It’s not a showy Advent discipline, but it’s soothing, and that’s tea at its level best.

Of course, we spoiled it all today by then haring off for the last dance of the month. It was our Tuesday social group wrapping up for the season, so there was a seven-couple dance (it was chaos), a formation called a Reverse Snowball Grand Chain (it was somehow short two bars in the brief, cue more chaos) and a whole lot of hobnobbing over biscuits. With tea, obviously. Because if you aren’t dancing nothing else is so readily unifying.

With that in mind, here’s a poem about the land just how vital it really is to the running of the universe.

Alternative Anthem
John Agard

Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
Is the British answer
to Armageddon

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle, mate.

It’s not whether you lose
It’s not whether you win
It’s whether or not
you’ve plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever hiss
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation’s dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops.

What do you think? Does the Brexit plan involve tea? Is that the thing they were missing? Crucially; has anyone told Downing St. lately that the answer to the vexed issue is in the teapot? Bet you Larry the Cat has at least tried. Tea all round it is. See you tomorrow – odds on with another herbal tea. But no bother, eh, so long as it averts Armageddon.

Experiments in Tea Drinking (With Apologies to Dachshunds)

We made a proper study of today’s tea for you. S’mores Chai is a pu’ehr blend with chocolate lacing it for good measure. The name was sufficiently confusing that we tried it with milk and sugar on the second cup; chai is just about the one tea that benefits from being milked and sweetened if you know how. So, we find, do chocolate teas, because the creaminess of the dairy works well with the chocolate pieces.

Not so this tea, which is much better plain. It’s not so much chocolatey (in spite of what it says on the tin) as it is spiced; there’s lots of cinnamon in there, and it risks being overwhelmed by milk. Mind, the sugar reemphasised it nicely, so while it doesn’t need it, it’s certainly a tea that might benefit from a bit of extra sweetness. And really, by the point you’re sitting down to a cup of pu’erh with honest-to-goddess pieces of marshmallow in the blend, is anyone keeping track of calories? Maybe that’s a quirk of ours. We never bother with hot chocolate either; we figure there’s no point in doing the thing by halves and make it properly rich. A similar policy works well with this tea, and you can bet we’ll be circling back to it.

Of course, the whole leisurely tea process offended the Dawlish Dachshunds, not least because they didn’t get to sample any. Honestly, they really do love chocolate! They think. They dream. They’ve never been allowed to sample any. So we’re making it up to them now with this charming poem dedicated to Dachshunds everywhere. And you thought we’d used up the Dachshund poetry quota!

Dachshunds
William J. Smith

The Dachshund leads a quiet life
Not far above the ground;

He takes an elongated wife,
They travel all around.

They leave the lighted metropole;
Nor turn to look behind
Upon the headlands of the soul,
The tundras of the mind.

They climb together through the dusk
To ask the Lost-and-Found
For information on the stars
Not far above the ground.

The Dachshunds seem to journey on:
And following them, I
Take up my monocle, the Moon,
And gaze into the sky.

Pursuing them with comic art
Beyond the cosmic goal,
I see the whole within the part,
The part within the whole;

See planets wheeling overhead,
Mysterious and slow,
While morning buckles on his red,
And on the Dachshunds go.

Z is for Zest, Ginger and Spice!

Rejoice! This week in Advent is sponsored by the Doors Wide Open Policy; we leave your doors open and watch as all the heat exits them pursued by shivering congregants! Coming to a church near you sharpish. It’s doing double duty with the perennial classic O Antiphons Inc, and honestly, what is it about high Anglicanism in Canada that vetoes all sequencing hymns not heavily mired in plainchant. Other churches can and do use other stuff – we’ve sung at them. Lots. Finally, there’s an honourable mention to Canadian-Grade Winter Coats, guaranteed to keep you warm whether you face subarctic weather or a failure in the central heating system. They’re marketing a new line in choral cassocks, so conductors, take note.

Okay, so church was freezing. And the doors were inexplicably open, and the heating system was (as ever as per the end of Advent) protesting the apocalypse or something. Also, the sermon was meandering and underwhelming but since we aren’t in the business of outperforming the priest with sermons, we try not to cast that stone. Besides, the the rose vestments were out, the music was good, and the tea at the Agape was hot. (It isn’t always, cf last Christmas morning. We suspect it was a ploy to get shot of us.)

Today’s tea is another rooibos. It’s called Super Ginger and bills itself as being spicy, sweet, and comforting. We don’t know about sweet – has anyone ever labelled ginger sweet ? – but we’ll vouch for the other two.

Mind, if you don’t like ginger, there’s no salvaging this tea for you. We do, and we think that it’s the perfect compliment to the already zingy rooibos. There’s not really a lot to dissect with this one though, because it does what it says on the tin. It’s gingery in spades. Did our diatribe about the spontaneous inclusion of raisins get through to someone? We’re adding it to the list of things to rejoice about anyway.

And while we do that, here’s a poem for your Gaudete Sunday. It’s fun, playful, and irreverent. As ginger and zing go, you don’t do much better than Chesterton’s wit as displayed here.

Variations of an Air
G.K. Chesterton

Composed on Having to Appear in a Pageant as Old King Cole

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe,
He called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.

after Lord Tennyson

Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester,
Growing more gay with age and with long days
Deeper in laughter and desire of life
As that Virginian climber on our walls
Flames scarlet with the fading of the year;
Called for his wassail and that other weed
Virginian also, from the western woods
Where English Raleigh checked the boast of Spain,
And lighting joy with joy, and piling up
Pleasure as crown for pleasure, bade me bring
Those three, the minstrels whose emblazoned coats
Shone with the oyster-shells of Colchester;
And these three played, and playing grew more fain
Of mirth and music; till the heathen came
And the King slept beside the northern sea.

after Swinburne

In the time of old sin without sadness
And golden with wastage of gold
Like the gods that grow old in their gladness
Was the king that was glad, growing old:
And with sound of loud lyres from his palace
The voice of his oracles spoke,
And the lips that were red from his chalice
Were splendid with smoke.

When the weed was as flame for a token
And the wine was as blood for a sign;
And upheld in his hands and unbroken
The fountains of fire and of wine.
And a song without speech, without singer,
Stung the soul of a thousand in three
As the flesh of the earth has to sting her,
The soul of the sea.

after Robert Browning

Who smoke-snorts toasts o’ My Lady Nicotine,
Kicks stuffing out of Pussyfoot, bids his trio
Stick up their Stradivarii (that’s the plural
Or near enough, my fatheads; nimium
Vicina Cremonce; that’s a bit too near.)
Is there some stockfish fails to understand?
Catch hold o’ the notion, bellow and blurt back “Cole”?
Must I bawl lessons from a horn-book, howl,
Cat-call the cat-gut “fiddles”? Fiddlesticks!

after W.B. Yeats

Of an old King in a story
From the grey sea-folk I have heard
Whose heart was no more broken
Than the wings of a bird.

As soon as the moon was silver
And the thin stars began,
He took his pipe and his tankard,
Like an old peasant man.

And three tall shadows were with him
And came at his command;
And played before him for ever
The fiddles of fairyland.

And he died in the young summer
Of the world’s desire;
Before our hearts were broken
Like sticks in a fire.

after Walt Whitman

Me clairvoyant,
Me conscious of you, old camarado,
Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez,
Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed;
The crown cannot hide you from me,
Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me,
I perceive that you drink.
(I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.)
I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting
(I do not object to your spitting),
You prophetic of American largeness,
You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States;
I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious,
I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations,
Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever;
They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment;
I myself am a complete orchestra.
So long.

There’s nothing like a good literary joke, is there? Spare a thought for it next time the Doors Wide Open Policy and failing heating systems get a hold of your church. But if that doesn’t work for you, we’ll leave you with our pet Gaudete Sunday Anthem. Enjoy! And rejoice greatly!

Here’s Tae Us

It was our Christmas Ball tonight. Terribly grand, you know, the Scottish Country Dance Christmas Ball, with lots of complicated footwork and once figures.

Actually, the occasion is billed as the Family Dance, and never was a program more accessible. We’d walked quite a lot of it before in social groups, but you don’t get much more beginner-friendly than the dance selections we had tonight.

Even so, every year we make mention of this ball, and every year someone says ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ Well, tonight you’re getting a lesson, because us Scottish Country Dancers like our rhymes.

For instance, when dancing the poussette, the adage is:

Away from the centre, quarter turn,
Up or down, quarter turn;
Into the centre, halfway round,
Fall back, fall back.

And here, for reference, is the poussette, danced beautifully by more elegant people than us.

Remember, Away from the centre, quarter turn…

You watch even the experienced dancers still reciting it to one another as they go. We had a wonderful teacher who used to joke that they’d inscribe it on her headstone someday. (They probably will; she dances more than she doesn’t.)

Meanwhile, to dance crossover reels – that’s a reel of three on the opposite side of the set – the rhyme goes:

Ones dance over to begin,
Twos dance out,
And threes dace in.

As for the rest of it, you mostly grab the hands that get offered to you, keep alert to people advancing towards you, and it all sort of muddles out. Occasionally, when it’s done very well, it looks elegant while you’re at it. We’re working on that bit.

Currently we’re unwinding to today’s tea. It’s another tisane, and we’re not taking notes here, but surely there have been more herbal teas than anything else in this calendar? Readers at home, what do you think? This one it White Cranberry, wherein white chocolate meets dried cranberry, apple, raisins and papaya. The cat mug is once again earning it’s keep, now we’ve cracked how to use it without being scalded, and yields up a tea that is surprisingly tropical tasting. We’d blame the papaya, except we couldn’t actually taste it in the cup. The cranberry dominates, as you’d expect, while the white chocolate gives it a burst of sweetness.

The apple tempers both a bit, though we’re not sure the raisins come through. Honestly, there must be raisins in every second tea we sample, and we’re not clear why, because they really don’t steep well. Anyone who has ever soaked raisins in hot water for baking will probably understand this; not for nothing you have to add other stuff to a fruitcake to draw out their flavour!

So that’s tea and two wee verses for you, tonight. But the traditional way to close out a dance is with Burns. Specifically Auld Lang Syne. Only that’s for New Year, and that’s still a ways off. So instead, have Green Grow the Rashes, O. It makes for a lovely strathspey, but doubles as an equally enjoyable read – with or without tea.

Green Grow the Rashes, O
Robert Burns

Chor. – Green grow the rashes, O;
Green grow the rashes, O;
The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,
Are spent amang the lasses, O.

There’s nought but care on ev’ryy han’,
In ev’ry hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o’ man,
An’ ‘there na for the lasses, O.
Green grow&c.

The war’ly race may riches chase,
An’ riches still may fly them, O:
An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne’re enjoy them, O.
Green grow &c.

But gie me a canine hour at at e’en,
My arms about my dearie, O;
An’ war’ly cares, an’ war’ly men,
May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O!
Green grow &c.

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this;
Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O:
The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,
He dearly lov’d the lasses, O.
Green grow, &c.

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest works she classes, O:
Her prentice hand she try’d on man,
And then she made the lasses, O.
Green grow, &c.

Hopefully you have less trouble with the Scotts than did the glaikit computer, which made a braw, effort to translate it into garden-variety English. You, naturally, not being robotic, will notice it does that anyway on the last verse, spontaneously switching to High English instead of Scotts vernacular. The genius of Burns is arguably how fluidly he mixes both.

We’ll send you off now to dance the hours away as per yet another rhyme, or maybe just enjoy oddly tropical tea. Until tomorrow,

Here’s tae us!
Wha’s like us?
Gey few, and they’re a’ deid!

Apologies and Corrections

We’v resurrected the feline mug this evening, with apologies, America. It turns out it hales from Germany after all, which goes a long way to explain the glass shell. It’s still true about the waste of perfectly good tea, though, and our various misadventures in ordering it.

Tonight’s cup is called Sunny C, in what we assume is another terrible play on words by way of a nod to the orange thing that was Sunny D(elight). Really, leave the puns to dads and uncles, Calendar. Anyway, like that vaguely orange-adjacent drink, this too purports to be full of oranges and citrus vitamin stuff. It certainly smells of it. So why conjure images of imitation orange juice?

(It’s probably a terribly clever reference to sun and vitamin C we’ve missed. Forgive us. And do explain if so minded.)

Anyway, it tastes of citrus, sort of like Lemsip if you swap the lemon for orange and take out the nasty medicinal stuff. Though we want it on record we’re great fans of Lemsip and would never willingly malign it. It even beats out Lemsip for taste; hot orange is a fruit we appreciate when steeped in tea. It does well in oolong, too.

For you North American readers who’ve never had the good fortune to be rescued by Lemsip, apologies. We’ve been fixed Britain-ward all day because of the election. We helped hang parliament once, and we cast an opinion on Scottish Independence, and also Brexit.

We did not, by the by, vote Brexit. But we got our way about Independence, so figure the perils of democracy mean something had to give somewhere down the line. But you didn’t come here for our thoughts on Brexit and we didn’t get to vote Jim Hacker into parliament. Probably just as well since we hear Sir Humphrey has since been elected to the House of Lords. Anyone know where Bernard ended up?

There is, and we know because we looked, poetry out there on Brexit and politics generally. Some of it is even darkly funny. We’ll let you hunt it down if you’re so minded. Instead, here’s something short, sweet, and fruity to go with the tea. It even purports to be an apology, and really, wherever you fall on this thing, one must be due from all sides by now. We submit various parties trade them in-between negotiating terms of this deal that’s supposed to be happening. But until then, have some poetry.

This is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Enjoy the plums. We’re sticking with the citrusy herbal tisane over here in Narnia, oh, until March or so.

Dance the Hours Away

Tonight our local social group for the RCSDS (that’s the Royal Scottish Country Dancing Society to the unfamiliar) hosts its 40th anniversary celebration. Clearly it’s a bit of a week for parties. Strictly speaking, we’re imperfect dancers with wobbly timing, but it’s our Christmas send-off before the ball, so we’ll be going and, as is writ in The Dashing White Sergeant, we’ll dance the night away.

In preparation we’ve made up a pot of today’s tea. Remember we said there were herbals we were partial to? This is one of them. It’s called Caramel Shortbread and given our affinity for Millionaire’s Shortbread, this is a combination of things that was always going to go well. It smells strongly of caramel, and while the colour never gets dark, it shouldn’t, being herbal. And unlike other tisanes this calendar has had us trial, it comes to a healthy strength in decent time. Better still, the caramel gives it a nice taste, and infills some of the grounding you would typically get from a more full-bodied tea. It blends nicely with the raisins and apples, and really does taste surprisingly like Millionaire’s Shortbread in a cup. This is no bad thing.

But soon we’ll be off dancing, where it’s fairly good odds someone has actually made up Millionaire’s Shortbread for the occasion. (The RSCDS here is terribly proud of its roots.) And talking of occasions, here’s one of Pat Batt’s wee poetical gems about dancing. Here’s hoping our evening turns out better than her speaker’s! Mind you, since Scottish Country Dance is the elegant cousin to the ceilidh, that’s a pretty conservative bet. Especially since we’ve never met friendlier people.

The Ceilidh
Pat Batt, 1992

I’m supposed to run a Ceilidh
For our next St. Andrew’s night –
But I’m in a deep depression
For the future’s far from bright.Our gallant Demonstration Team
Is now reduced to five –
Fiona’s in Australia
And Ann’s run off with Clive.

John could do a sword dance
Or perhaps a Highland Fling –
But he will do it in trousers,
Which isn’t quite the thing.

And Ian plays the bagpipes –
He plays them fairly well –
But always full fortissimo,
And indoors that’s sheer Hell!

Mrs Gertrude Macintosh –
Our President’s close friend –
She’s bound to play that waltz in C
That never seems to end.

The vicar’s daughters – Faith and Hope
Are keen to do a turn –
They’ve started ballet classes
And they’ve got a lot to learn!

Their mother plays the cello
And makes a nasty sound
Whilst her offspring, like young kangaroos
Leap round – and round – and round.

And that woman who does monologues
(She looks a bit like me) –
There’s no way you can stop her
As far as I can see.

They say it’s only jolly fun –
It’s more than I can bear,
And the only way to dodge it
Is to make sure I’m elsewhere.

I know – I’ll join the navy
Seasick and homesick daily –
I might loathe every minute,
But at least I’ll miss the Ceilidh!

N.B. We happen to love a good ceilidh. In fact, in missing them we stumbled into the RSCDS thinking they were the same. They are not. But we tell you what; she’s not wrong about indoor bagpipes!

Variations of an Air G.K. Chesterton

Variations of an Air
G.K. Chesterton