Sometimes, it really is the little things.
Like discovering that my refund for returned shoes has been sitting in my eBay account for two months and that I can treat myself to three of my favorite things (Dark Chocolate McVittie's Digestive Biscuits, Hobnobs, PG Tips) without guilt and still put half the refund into my bank account.
When all three arrive along with my New Yorker, I know it's time to say: come on fog and rain and cold -- have you way with me!
Ten years ago, I spent a month in Oxford, England, attending a summer program on a scholarship from the English-Speaking Union. At Exeter College on The Turl, I learned many things, not the least of which is the pleasure of tea. Humble, everyday, nothing-fancy PG Tips. I drank it for breakfast with white toast, which I despised at first but grew to love. I drank it after lunch in The Junior Common Room. I drank it in the late afternoon in The Undercroft. I drank it after supper, again in the JCR.
Since then, I have been a tea fanatic.
Although I have tried fancy blends from the Boston-based Upton Tea Company, which friends here in Sewanee recommended, and although I love African Dew blend from New York's Alice's Teacup, and although I have tried other popular British brands including Typhoo, I'm partial to PG Tips and the signature pyramid-style bag.
First thing in the morning and last thing at night, I drink my black tea lightened with milk. Sometimes I have it with a snack, like this blueberry turnover made by the Cumberland Street Bakery in Cowan. Mostly, though, I just drink the tea, savoring the taste of soil and leaf, holding it on my tongue. It is a welcome tonic.
(A word about the objects in this photo, which I also love. I made the cup in 1973 or 1974 in one of two summer-long courses I took in wheel-throwing at Newcomb in New Orleans. The plate was made by Brown's Pottery of Arden, NC, a family-owned business famous for its practical line of dinnerware and its whimsical face jogs. All contributed to the happiness I felt before and after I took this picture.)
