Tea-Time with Frances

I wrote a poem about a good friend, Frances, who, though born in Scotland, spent much of her life in the US and gave birth to three daughters who grew up as American citizens. Frances herself would never take citizenship. She valued her Britishness, her traditions, and perhaps most of all she valued her cup of tea. Over many, many, shared cups of tea she helped me through a painful time in my life. ‘Tea and sympathy,’ was the best medicine anyone ever gave me.

We sat in painted white basket chairs in her caravan, the chubby blue teapot, blue and white cups, saucers, and plates (for the Abernethy biscuits) between us on a small cane table, also painted white and covered with a crisp hand embroidered cloth. Once I offered to pour the tea. I was about to pour from the pot into the empty cup as my mother-in-law, a terrific snob, had done. It had taken me years to throw off the ‘milk in first’ pattern adopted by my parents, but I had done it in a futile attempt to win some approbation from this severe lady. I was slightly taken aback therefore when my friend said kindly: ‘Let’s do it like the Queen and put the milk in first.’ Somewhere she had read that Queen Elizabeth II preferred her tea served this way. So I dutifully reprogrammed myself again. When, long after her death, I wrote the poem about Frances I put in her comment verbatim. Another writer friend who read the poem told me firmly that the Queen would have the tea poured first, ‘because that’s how the aristocracy do it.’ And so the discussion began. 

I have trawled the internet for support of Frances’ claim. Found nothing sadly (although I’m sure she had read it somewhere at the time) but I’m now a repository of information about tea. I had no idea that whole blogs are written on the subject of the British cup of tea. And facts around tea.

here are a few:

The first record of tea written in English came from English merchants abroad, suitably enough in the East India Company in Japan. In 1615 Richard Wickham, the manger of the office there wrote to merchants asking themto bring him ‘The best sort of chaw.’ It was often called chaw or chaa and described to those not in the know as ‘water with a sort of herb boyled in it.’

By 1657 it was being served in the coffee houses in London but had to be explained to the patrons until they got the taste for it.. By 1667 Samuel Pepys was noting that his wife took tea for medicinal reasons and the Royal College of Physicians debated whether any of the exotic new drinks appearing (the cocoa bean arrived at about this time) would agree with ‘the constitution of our English bodies.’

Even very slightly formal events can be a cause for cups and saucers to be used instead of mugs. A typical semi-formal British tea ritual might run as follows (the host performing all actions unless noted):[18]

1. The kettle is brought to a rolling boil (with fresh water to ensure good oxygenation which is essential for proper diffusion of the tea leaves).[19]
2. Enough boiling water is swirled around the teapot to warm it and then poured out.
3. Add loose tea leaves, (usually black tea) or tea bags, always added before the boiled water.
4. Fresh boiling water is poured over the tea in the pot and allowed to brew for 2 to 5 minutes while a tea cosy may be placed on the pot to keep the tea warm.
5. Milk must be added to the tea cup, the host asking the guest if milk is wanted, milk may never be added after the tea is poured.
6. A tea strainer is placed over the top of the cup and the tea poured in, unless tea bags are used. Tea bags may be removed, if desired, once desired strength is attained.
7. Fresh milk and white sugar is added according to individual taste. Most people have milk with their tea, many without sugar.
8. The pot will normally hold enough tea so as not to be empty after filling the cups of all the guests. If this is the case, the tea cosy is replaced after everyone has been served. Hot water may be provided in a separate pot, and is used only for topping up the pot, never the cup.

I have also learned that afternoon tea was introduced by Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, who became low and peckish at about 4pm.

I used to love afternoon tea when it was available in tea shops. Not, ‘High Tea’ which can include fish ‘n chips or baked beans on toast or Welsh Rarebit, all lovely in themselves but NOT for afternoon tea which should have little cakes and biscuits, sandwiches with the crusts cut off and..... I’m making myself hungry now.

Male and female created he them.

I’ve had conversations with two female friends recently on the ever-fresh subject of Men. Conclusion reached: They are very different to Women. 

Nothing new about that so why should it be so eternally provoking? The answer is - we have to live with them. It seems the sexes are doomed to be a constant challenge to each other. I dislike generalisations generally (and I really like men) but in this case I believe there is justification.

By coincidence, my ex and I watched ‘45 Years’ together at the weekend. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. It’s a remarkable film, brilliant even, poignantly demonstrating the difference, the unbridgeable divide, between male and female. 

I didn’t even attempt to find out what my ex made of it. He made noises of approval as the credits rolled. I was curious to know in what way, or why, but expected him to say: 'the acting.' As this might have annoyed me I chose not to ask. We find ways of working with the situation.

It's Tuff this Stuff

Dizzy is a poem without words. Bred to be lap dogs these Italian greyhounds have jaws that can barely take the skin off a rice pudding. Faced with one of those chew things the spirit is willing but….

Oh goody

Now what's the best way??

..getting tired now...

Exhausted

The Coffin Road. Grumpy reader's review here.

I bought the latest Peter May book because it’s called ‘Coffin Roads’ and I was hoping for a story based around these ancient pathways. The pathways are thought to have been trodden by people carrying dead relatives back to their native villages to be buried. Carved stone resting places can be found along the route to enable those carrying the coffin to pause and fortify themselves with bread and ale. The pathways are thought by some to run along leys, earth energy lines. In themselves the paths are an interesting feature left in a landscape, and one that readily provides fodder for a story. In the case of this novel, sadly their name has been used as a calculated marketing ploy. It makes a great title. The coffin road in the story features only briefly and could easily have been any sheep path followed by the protagonist on his quest for an answer (no spoilers here, only grumbles.)  

I am often frustrated by Peter May’s novels. So why continue to buy them? The answer to that is partly laziness when I'm wanting an undemanding read, and partly the setting. The Lewis Trilogy - well, it doesn’t take a particularly talented writer to be evocative about the Hebridean Islands. Ann Cleeves does it and I often get her stories mixed up in my memory with Peter May’s simply because of the setting. She is another writer I don’t have much respect for but who tells a good enough tale for me to buy occasionally. (Her ‘Vera’ series is much better than her Hebridean series in my opinion. For one thing she doesn’t have to keep throwing in the phrase ‘He was just a peerie boy’ to show she is down with the local lingo.)

PM starts the ‘Coffin Road’ in the first person and present tense. Making for a very bumpy, strained, read. Obviously it’s used to distinguish the protagonist from the rest of the cast but is just clunky and irritating.  Plenty of people write really well in the present tense, not so PM.

I expect it will be seen to be good TV material. That’s because it’s simple, two-dimensional stuff without a complex back story or much troublesome psychological delving for motivation. Unlike my favourite writer Phil Rickman who tells a great tale with plenty of depth. More about him another time no doubt.

Ella

My great-granddaughter waking from a sleepover with her grandmother Chloë.

She is not going short of family this child. She has two grandmothers, one step-

grandmother, two grandfathers, two great-grandmothers, two great grandfathers…….! Just imagine all those birthday presents and (all those thank you letters.)

I wrote a poem soon after she was born. It says more about my feelings than about Ella of course, but she won't mind.

Ella Louise.

Warm, soft-scented, fragile,

helpless.

Ella.

A new sound to vibrate through our family rooms.

A new shape and colour to our lives.

A necessary shuffling of labels, 

an adjustment of status to accommodate her.

Child to parent,

parent to grandparent.

Grand-parents spun still further 

to the outer rim of the Wheel.

The greatest transition.

The most meaningful rite.

Birth.

Iyengar Yoga Day - and my daughter was talking about it on Radio Oxford.

Things to do whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of listening to my daughter Sophia talking about Iyengar Yoga on Radio Oxford. It was her first time on the air and she was understandably nervous. I was nervous too - for her, knowing how nervous she must be. (It's called being a mother.) She is an experienced yoga teacher but explaining it, and explaining how Iyengar Yoga differs from other forms of yoga - that's a whole different challenge. 

The slot was an early morning ‘what’s on at the weekend’ magazine program. The sort of program that gives only a few minutes to each item and the presenter speaks at warp speed. I wasn’t sure how Sophia and her colleague, another Iyengar yoga teacher, Vanessa, could possibly manage to say anything coherent or useful. But they did. They also took the presenter, Ali Jones, through a couple of asanas. Bit wasted on the radio but the puffing sounded real enough.

45 years ago I started Yoga at a class in Greenwich. Quite coincidentally it was run by a woman who had learned the Iyengar method. The two years I attended her classes taught me a sequence that I've practiced ever since, and also gave me a great respect for the discipline. Even when I don’t practice every day (which I don’t) Instinctively I stretch at odd moment (see above.) It has helped me through the various ills that beset me.

The Fiddlers of Tomnahurich

I'm a lover of folk tales, especially ones local to where I live in the North of Scotland. Here is one from
Inverness. A classic tale of the naughtiness of fairies, who are far from being the gossamer-winged charmers we have been led to believe.  They can look more like this (if you meet him don't trust him):

The Fiddlers of Tomnahurich

Two traveling fiddle players, Farquhar Grant and Thomas Cumming had been fiddling all day in the town of Inverness but had earned very little for their efforts so that they were greatly downcast when dusk fell. They made their way, gloomily, empty-bellied and on the lookout for the cheapest lodgings available, across the oak bridge that in those days spanned the River Ness. Half way across they were stopped by a small man in a red tam-o'-shanter, green jerkin and knee breeches. ‘Come and play at my party’ he invited the two tired men and, thinking him to look quite wealthy in his smart garb, they followed him eagerly, hoping to improve their fortunes that evening.

They followed him out of the town until it was lying some way behind them and they came to a hillside. Near the top their guide stopped and opened a little door, much smaller than any door Farquhar or Thomas had ever seen before. Politely the small man ushered them inside and they found themselves in a long narrow tunnel with a warm light shining invitingly at the end. The tunnel opened out into a large hall, brightly lit by no means they could discern, and full of excited, jolly people all much the same size as their host. The fiddlers were welcomed with cries of pleasure and after ale and sweet wine was offered them for their refreshment they were exhorted to play their instruments with no more delay. In the intervals between jigs and reels they were plied with delicious food and more ale so that the evening passed swiftly and pleasantly and the two fiddlers were much happier men than they had been when they left Inverness earlier that day.

At last their guide came to them and said: ‘Dawn is near to break and you should go now to your rest.’ He took them back to the door and handed them each a bag of gold, to their enormous delight. Happily they wended their way back to the town to look now for much better lodgings than they had erstwhile hoped to inhabit.

As they entered the town they found to their discomfort that they were becoming the centre of attention. People stopped in their tracks to stare at them and laugh - or just to stare! As the ales and wines that they had imbibed through the night lost its hold on their minds their eyes began to clear and what they saw scared them half out of their wits.

Everything had changed. The bridge had changed, the church had changed, the buildings around the market square had changed. It was as though they had arrived into another town entirely, until they saw in the churchyard tombs engraved with the names of their friends and their families. Thoroughly alarmed and beginning to fear the very worst they ran into the church to find the minister. As they passed the threshold into the holy place the bags of gold they carried grew lighter in their hands and rustled instead of clinking. When they looked into the bags the gold had turned to dry brown leaves. As soon they saw this they understood what had become of them and in that moment they themselves turned to two small piles of dust before the altar.

Thomas and Farquhar the fiddlers had been playing their fiddles in the Kingdom of the Fairies, not for one night but for one hundred years.

                                            

Note: Tomnahurich is sometimes called ‘The Hill of the Fairies’ though it is more properly ‘The Hill of the Yew tree.’

Source: A chapter entitled ‘Local Folklore’ by Donald Henderson in “The Hub of the Highlands. The Book of Inverness and District” Published by Inverness Field Club Centenary Volume 195