Doodah doodah
We rang a quarter peal tonight.
Huh? Yes, my reaction exactly.
Handbells are in some slight disarray at present, chiefly on account of Gemma being so inconvenient as to change surgeries/clinics and therefore change her Thursday evening schedule. At the moment Niall and I are double-booked for Thursdays with Colin and Fridays with Gemma, and I have said, in a squeaky, high-pitched voice that I can’t do two handbell evenings a week*, but people’s lives keep getting in the way** so what is getting rung (or wrung) from week to week mostly isn’t two evenings on handbells anyway.
Today has been somewhat overshadowed by yesterday’s extreme excitements and I got moving [sic] late even for me. I had also promised to take Peter to the garden centre this afternoon, this afternoon being the only time even remotely available for the foreseeable future, and if I didn’t do it quickly, this being the time of year when you really don’t want holes in your borders, and anything you plant will, if you’re lucky, riot and burgeon***, Peter might do something drastic like buy a garden gnome at the farmer’s market.†
I’m broke and my garden is already full of Little Things Waiting to Be Potted On (Again)†† and the only thing I wanted was pink snapdragons††† so I’d brought the hellhounds because while Peter was cruising I took them for a hurtle. The only problem with this diversion tactic is that the footpath possibilities around this particular garden centre are unusually excellent, so the temptation is to come back for a nice hellhound hurtle and while I’m in the area . . . ‡
So we zapped home again and I’d repotted the horrifyingly rootbound viola, which will probably reel and stagger a little and then come on again famously, when Colin showed up early. Niall usually is early. So we sat down and Niall started unveiling handbells and said, What do you want to ring? And I said, well, due to circumstances more or less beyond my control I have No Brain so it had better be undemanding.
I know! said Colin brightly. We should ring a quarter (of bob minor)! Just to prove we can! Since it’s just the three of us again!
What?
I think I agreed‡‡‡ because it was going to be less awful than trying to struggle through plain courses of frelling Cambridge, which, now that Thursdays are the three of us again, is going to make my life a misery.
And it was less awful. It was even (whisper it) kind of fun.
* * *
* Which doesn’t take into account the occasional evening at Curlyewe. Curlyewe tower practise is Monday, so Niall has begun tentatively trying to get over there one Monday a month, they ring handbells before tower practise, and then he stays on—and Curlyewe, like pretty much everywhere else in this area, is hurting for ringers, so they’re glad to have a visitor, especially a good ringer like Niall. I’d quite like to ‘grab’ Curlyewe^ and supposing there’s nothing particularly strange about the tower or its bells I’m a good-enough mediocre ringer I can probably contribute something to the practise. Probably.
Except for the little fact that Monday is my voice lesson, and Curlyewe is well on the wrong side of Mauncester. Niall leaves New Arcadia at six . . . and I usually get home five or ten past. Niall suggested helpfully that I could just come straight on from my voice lesson, which would probably make up the time . . . uh huh. It’s twice as far as any of Colin’s towers, there’s handbells as well as tower bells and no break anywhere. . . and I’m shattered on a Monday that I have to drive myself to Colin’s practise and I’ve had a cup of tea and a sit-down between voice lesson and bell practise. I don’t think so.
And so, because I am deranged and Niall is my bad angel, I’m going to try to blast back from voice lesson on Monday, pick up an apple and a cup of tea with a lid on it^^, and be flattened into the passenger seat of Niall’s car^^^ as he stamps on the ‘go’ pedal a few minutes later than usual.
^ Grabbing a tower is going somewhere to ring where you’ve never rung before, specifically to say that you have. Quite a few good ringers do this in a low-key way because they’re good ringers and like to travel around ringing in different towers and that’s fine. Obsessive tower grabbing is kind of frowned on, but ringing somewhere you haven’t rung before because the opportunity arises is normal, in so far as bell ringing and bell ringers can ever be considered normal.
^^ Whoever suggested knitting a slightly oversized egg cozy for a tea mug cozy—thank you. I’m going to try that. Supposing I can figure out how. And whoever said that the steam from the cup is going to soggify the cosy past usefulness, well, I won’t know till I’ve tried it. I drink my cups of tea pretty fast+ but not quite fast enough, and I like it hot. Maybe I should knit several, and then I can string up a little tiny washing-line where I peg them out to dry . . . .
+ If I drank them SLOWER I would drink FEWER.
^^^ which is only a few years younger than Wolfgang, and has more miles on it
** Although, life . . . in Niall’s case this probably means that he’s had an offer to ring a handbell full peal of Snarkalepsy Draggleharrow and is cutting us.
*** Did I tell you WE HAD ANOTHER (*&^%$£”!!!!!!!!!! FROST A FEW NIGHTS AGO? THE MIDDLE OF UNGLEDAGBLAGUNDERING MAY IN THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND AND WE HAD A FROST? I’m assuming it was not severe and the stuff still underground is fine. That’s FINE.
† Which attracts some pretty disturbing riffraff. I haven’t seen any garden gnomes yet but then I’m usually hellhounded, and we don’t linger.
I could always knit the gnome something . . . inappropriate. Although ‘wire’ and ‘garrotte’ are the words that come first to mind, which, in relation to garden gnomes, are highly appropriate.
. . . Although I’ve always kind of wanted a flamingo . . .
†† And at least one juvvie robin. Yaaaay. Bumptious little so and so. There may be more than one, but so far I’m only seeing one at a time, and he’s so breathtakingly foolhardy—as far as he’s concerned, I’m the Mealworm Lady, and there are no ifs, ands or buts—I’m assuming the one I’m seeing is the same one, although I’m still hoping there may be a slightly more sensible, reserved one or two still lurking in the shrubbery. But he, and siblings if any, are clearly flying.
I’ve also clearly got two adults . . . where are you nesting this time? I’m not going to supply mealworms to ungrateful robins that go nest in other people’s gardens. Mum’ll be disappearing any minute now, I assume, to sit on the new eggs. Whiiiiiine.
††† I did very well. I somehow picked up a variegated-leaf so-called hardy fuchsia, which they never are with me, but if I keep ’em warm they usually do very well, and a fabulous rusty-orange osteospermum AND THEY HAD PINK SNAPDRAGONS YAAAAAAY^ so I dumped these three modest acquisitions in Peter’s cart and ran out the door.
^ I’d bought yellow and white elsewhere, but they were all out of pink which will not do.
‡ We got back to find Peter unloading his cart into the boot and I picked up the gorgeous black-leaved cimicifuga and said oh gods, I almost bought this, I love black leaves, and Peter said, helpfully, I can go back and get you one, I remember exactly where they are. Oh . . . all right, I said, folding instantly, and then, while he was off finding me a black cimicifuga, I was finishing unloading his cart and oh gods, they have dierama, I adore dierama, they just frelling keep dying on me . . . and I COULDN’T STAND IT so I locked the car (with hellhounds and my knapsack in it, and all the rubbish from the boot on the roof waiting to be restowed) and raced off to find Peter and the cimicifuga to ask where he found the dierama^, and then on the way back from the dierama I fell over a table of (horribly rootbound, just by the way) violas and HAD TO HAVE ALL OF THEM (I also adore pansies and that entire family) but pulled myself together and only bought one . . .
So, having gone for one plant^^, I came home with six. Which is really VERY GOOD.
^ WORD YOU RATBAG WILL YOU FRELLING STOP AUTOCORRECTING DIERAMA TO DIORAMA? IF I MEANT DIORAMA I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN DIORAMA
^^ Well, one tray of plants. Snapdragons are plebeian annual bedding plants. You buy them in trays. Six snapdragons counts as ONE PLANT. Yes it does.
‡‡ And I was fine with Ascension Day as soon as I was sure it was about Jesus and not the queen.
Sunday night after Sunday afternoon
I’m bored with only chewing on one side of my mouth.* And Gemma was not at the abbey this afternoon which made me feel more put-upon. We had eight, however, which meant we could ring triples. Watch me frelling dive for the treble. . . . At least it wasn’t seven Brilliant Ringers and me: our eight included two of the middling band members—they’re better than I am, but that still doesn’t take much**—so at least I didn’t have to humiliate myself further by saying ‘no’ when they asked me if I could treble bob to major.*** It wasn’t even seven blokes and me†; Leandra and Moira were both there. Moira is consolingly middling level; Leandra is a major frelling hot shot, but has the gift for treating morons and gibbering twits like human beings. I aspire to being worth her time.††
Other than that, it’s been SHADOWS. And maybe a little New Thing.
KatydidNL
Am I the only one who really wishes she had a copy of these Flowerhair books?
Snork. Because I am a depraved human being I’ve been thinking about inserting the occasional excerpt. I’m just not sure how far this parody thing will stretch. Carooooooooooooom WHACK.
. . . And it’s not going to freeze tonight. I don’t think. I hope. I planted a lot more tender little green things today.††† I may just bring the potted-up dahlia cuttings in. Just because I can.
* * *
* Because I am a hysterical twit one of my first thoughts after the bloody crown^ chunked out last night, after the screams of horror etc, was, ohmigods can I SING? I have a voice lesson on Bank Holiday Monday! —Yes I can sing. Good grief. Chewing is, however, problematic.
^ An interesting image. Sort of Charles I.
** I’m getting better. I am. My mind still goes blank. But sometimes it comes back. Sometimes it even comes back bringing the blue line of the method we are (theoretically) ringing with it.
But just walking over from the car park the middle of a Sunday afternoon . . . the world is full of frelling tourists, and one of the things they’re gaping at is the abbey, which is gigantic and impressive and all that. And beautiful. I’ve loved it for years, and when I didn’t seem to be DOING quite so much, including before I started bell ringing, I used to creep in for evensong sometimes, to listen to the voices and the organ in that extraordinary space. I look at it and I think and I frelling RING there? You’re kidding, right?^ It takes you a couple of minutes’ hard walking to get round this vast building to the door to the tower, and by the time I climb the ninety thousand stairs, including the rope ladder over the oubliette at the end, I’m in no fit state to do anything but sit in a corner and gibber.^^ So when Og or Albert calls out the name of a method and expects people to step forward and grab ropes, I’m like, Nooooooo! I’m knitting! I climbed ninety million stairs (including the rope ladder over the oubliette) to sit in a corner and knit!
I really want to get over this stage. Really. Want. It’s boring. Speaking of boring.
^ I seem to be uttering this phrase kind of a lot lately. It turned up in New Thing recently which was probably a mistake because we all know life follows art.+ I ordered a bunch of stuff from one of these on line organic save-the-planet sites including six tins of Spicy Lentil Soup which I’m fond of and it’s faster than making it when you’re ringing that night and besides you’re only allowed nine calories a day which means cooking is mostly kind of demoralising. Five tins were in the box they sent me. So I emailed them saying, just reassure me you didn’t charge me for the sixth, okay? And they wrote back saying, we need more information about your order, and then we can respond to your concerns. One of their list of questions was What colour was the TAPE used on the packaging? What? Clearly an occasion when the only possible response is, You’re kidding, right?
+ Yes, I’d be worrying about those attack mushrooms if I were you.
^^ . . . And get out my knitting.+ Knitting is very good for the blood pressure++ as I have just been telling Hannah.
+ Can anyone out there recommend or point me at a pattern for a mug cosy—and before you send me six hundred and forty-nine links to patterns for those wrap-around mug cosies which seem to be a major fashion accessory these days (including some very cute ones on Ravelry), what I want is a mug cosy that looks like a tea cosy only smaller. This is one of those things that supposing I live long enough to get casual with knitting the way I’m casual with baking (‘okay, fine, that looks about right’) I assume I’ll be able to invent, or devent, from a tea cosy pattern, or a circular hat pattern, or something. Right at the moment I need to be told what to do, in words of one syllable, and not very many of them either.
++ Which, after ninety thousand stairs, is banging in your ears anyway. I only have breath to gibber with because of all that hellhound hurtling.
*** Major is eight bells. And the fancy upper level methods have a frelling fancy upper level line even for the lowly treble. I can treble bob to minor—six bells—at some tower that isn’t the abbey. Eight . . . well. I’d like to have a try, some practise night, after I’ve stopped freaking out.
† This should not matter. A ringer is a ringer is a ringer and there have been women ringers for the last hundred years or so (although I’m very glad I didn’t have to be one of the first). But I start feeling all patriarchally oppressed when I’m surrounded by blokes who are all better at something than I am. This is my problem, not the blokes’.
†† Along with being a sweetheart to the dim and wussified, Leandra is tiny and fierce. She’s Albert’s wife and, like him, a major feature in the local guild. She’s also one of the comparatively few top-flight women ringers: there are plenty of girls down at my level, but it’s usually only the boys who are obsessive enough to go on to great things.^ There are still a few lingering sexist assumptions in bell ringing, among them that women don’t ring at the back on the big bells. Colin likes to joke about this, after he’s handed me the rope for the tenor.^^ The back bells at the abbey are seriously large. Entire fleets of aircraft carriers weigh less than the tenor. When we’re ringing on eighty-four, look around: Leandra will be at the back somewhere. She’s so little that if you’re on a bell on the opposite side of the aircraft-hangar ringing chamber you can barely frelling see her. The abbey band wouldn’t dream of messing with her, but I’m rather hoping to see her tangle some day with an old-fashioned visitor who doesn’t think women ring big bells.^^^
^ I’m obsessive enough. I’m just not good enough.
^^ The tenor at Glaciation is not particularly large but it is very deep set which means you need six friends to help you drag it off its perch. Thus a little innocent merriment may be had on a dull ringing evening.
^^^ Although watching Wild Robert casually handle a monster bell is as good as a play. He’s half a head taller than I am but probably weighs less.
††† While dad robin dealt with an extra serving of mealworms. I’m going to run out. I’m going to have to buy maggots till the next delivery.
Happy happy happy. Happy. Happy. Grrrrrr.
IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF A THREE-DAY BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND. AND THE CROWN ON ONE OF MY HORRIBLE STUPID TEETH HAS JUST FALLEN OUT. I’m so happy. Happy, happy, happy, happy.
It has not been a brilliant day and furthermore Peter is in Cardamomlinghamshire visiting relatives so I don’t even have him around to blame.*
Gemma told me last night, cheerfully, on her way out the door after handbells** that she probably won’t be there for afternoon ringing at the abbey on Sunday. She saw the stark panic flood my face and said hastily, you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, eggs grow on trees, teabags make the best tea, and Charlemagne was a girl. AAAAAAUGH. Last Sunday it was five fabulous male ringers . . . and Gemma and me. AAAAAAAAUGH.
I’ll be fine. Yes. I’ll be fine. I’ll take my knitting. . . .
AND WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A FROST TOMORROW NIGHT. A FROST! A FRELLING, FRELLING, FRELLING, FRELLING FROST! IT’S MAY! IT’S MAY IN SOUTHERN ENGLAND! WE’RE ALLOWED TO PLANT LITTLE TENDER GREEN THINGS OUTDOORS IN THE GROUND IN MAY IN SOUTHERN ENGLAND!***
Usually.
I had quite a nice time in the garden a couple of days ago—when it finally stopped raining long enough to make this practical—playing eenie meanie with all the racks and rows of little green mail-order things that arrived during the floods and are still waiting to be put somewhere they can settle down and grow.† I planted the sweet peas, finally, some begonias, some (tender) fuchsias, most of the rest of the glads, some petunias. Today . . . today I (furiously) planted the dahlia cuttings in pots two or three sizes smaller than I meant to—I don’t have TIME for endless potting-on: stuff goes in an intermediate pot and then it goes into the ground or into its big permanent pot—so they’d all fit on a tray in case I’m bringing them indoors tomorrow night. The stuff that is already in the ground is going to have to take its chances†† . . . but the sitting-room is going to be frelling impassable if I have to bring in all the unfrost-proof things in trays and pots or still in their mail-order plastic cells. . . .
* * *
* You made my crown fall out! You did! You know you did!
** Have I told you we seem to have morphed into Thursday and Friday handbells?? Wait, wait, I have a novel to finish and I do need to reserve some brain. I think I’ve told you Gemma is a doctor, and she’s just changed clinics/surgeries which means her schedule has changed, and Thursday afternoon handbells are no longer possible. So we had, I thought, moved handbells to Fridays right before New Arcadia bell practise^ . . . except that it turns out Colin can’t do Fridays but was too polite to say so.^^ I have this habit of not really paying attention to details and therefore found myself saying to Niall and Colin, well, okay, we’ll just have to keep on with Thursdays, and Niall and I can ring with Gemma on Fridays . . . WHAT AM I SAYING. This week was the first of the new schedule and . . . two days in a row of handbells is . . . intense.
^ Which means I will now stuff hellhounds into their harnesses and pelt out the door so as to be out of earshot by the time they start ringing up. I’m getting better at sleeping through Sunday mornings though.
^ The British. ARRRRRRRGH.
*** I’m having another of those ‘why do I DO this to myself??’ moments. I moaned this to Peter tonight over the phone and he said, because you’d think less well of yourself if you didn’t^, which is true as far as it goes, but it still begs the question why do I have to choose activities where terror will be my natural environment? Why couldn’t I collect stamps or go to more films?^^
^ And given my standard level of self-appreciation this could get dangerous.
^^ No horror, of course.+
+ Avengers Assemble is playing semi-around here this weekend and I am half-tempted to go except for two things: (a) it’s in frelling 3D, and my loathing for (frelling) 3D was renewed and reinforced by (multi-frelling) THOR and (b) I haven’t got time. If I’m going to ring bells and sing and rescue all the little green things drowning in my garden(s) and finish a novel before the hellhounds and I have to stop eating, although the hellhounds wouldn’t mind, I haven’t got time.# And, just by the way, Sunday morning ringing at New Arcadia is forty minutes plus a one-minute bolt from the cottage to the tower and a more leisurely several-minute stroll back. Sunday afternoon ringing at the abbey is an hour, plus a half hour commute. Also, terror is tiring.
# And the blog is a not insignificant eater of time.~
~ And there are a lot of doodles waiting to be doodled. Siiiigh. I should draw you a Venn diagram of Available Energy Usage by Robin McKinley some time. I don’t know if this is the frelling ME, or advancing age, or just that I’ve always been peculiar, but what I can and can’t do isn’t just about whether I feel (relatively) alert and intelligent or as if I have ham salad for brains and limbs made of half deflated inner tubes. It’s more of a Chinese-menu situation where you want stuff from as many columns as possible. And your fortune cookie is still going to tell you you’re frelled.
*** Meanwhile friends in the Midwestern prairie are having temperatures pushing ninety (°F).
† I’m still seeing disturbingly few little feathered things in the shrubbery.^ I wouldn’t have thought literal drowning was all that likely in my garden-on-a-hill, and there’s still the greenhouse to take shelter in. Nor would I have thought I have many predators out there, although what is that unpleasing line about there always being a rat within five feet of you? I’m sure my local rats would be more than happy to tuck into adolescent robin. But dad robin is still hanging around for mealworms. Robins are such fearless little critters^^ that you get a prime view of what’s going on with them. There were still two adults^^^ when I started putting mealworms out but they were very chary of me—which served to reinforce my guilt about how little gardening I’ve been doing recently and it’s not all down to the weather—but robins don’t really do chary and dad, at this point, pretty well gets in my face and says, Mealworms? Where are the mealworms?, if he’s dispatched the previous serving. I put them out twice a day, and he must be feeding them to someone because if he ate all of them himself he’d explode. The mealworm saucer normally lives on my potting table in the greenhouse but I put it out in the courtyard by the kitchen door when I want to use my table, on top of a tall pot that will have a dahlia in it eventually. He knows this. So first he sits in the apple tree next to the greenhouse and stares at me, and then he perches on that pot and looks at me meaningfully. I may have to start buying more mealworms.
^ I did get a couple of photos of the babies, but they’re not very good. The nest is tucked back behind various jars and plastic boxes of plant food and it’s dark. I didn’t want to blow a flash in their tiny fluffy faces and I haven’t been very lucky with the right angles of sunlight . . . or any angles of sunlight, lately. They’re only in the nest about ten days, I think—maybe two weeks. Not long at all. And I didn’t notice they’d hatched immediately—they were already beginning to grow feathers by the time I saw them—since I’d been trying to leave mum alone so she’d go on sitting. But I’m reasonably sure there were five of them to begin with. Five’s a lot.
^^ Unlike their human namesake
^^^ If there’s only one parent left, it’s probably dad, because mum has sashayed off to start a new nest somewhere else.
†† I may raise the odds a bit by throwing a bit of bubble wrap around. After potting up the frelling sweet peas—usually I just slap them in the ground to begin with—and bringing them in and out for about a fortnight I am VERY RELUCTANT TO LOSE THEM NOW.
Yarny
Someone on the forum asked for recommendations for New York City yarn shops. We are so all over this.
Hannah had her first lesson in knitting and purling today. She sent me some photos, and I’d post one if I could figure out how. She’s making a scarf* out of this gorgeous amber-butterscotch yarn that I would kill for. And I tried once, as southdowner and b_twin_1 can attest.** I dunno . . . no, no, I’m still better off practising on CHEAP yarn and leg warmers and hellhound blankets for a while longer. Better. Off. BETTER.***
Hannah’s new mentor, who is a mega-demon knitter with faultless qualifications, upon inquiry, suggests the following Manhattan yarneries. Annotations are your editor’s own:
http://www.schoolproductsyarns.com/
The Oldest Yarn Store in Manhattan, and there’s a BLOKE on the opening page.
. . . which is also owned by the woman responsible for:
http://www.karabellayarns.com/default.aspx
Dyed and gone to heaven yarn
http://www.karabellayarns.com/yarndetail.aspx?yarnID=79
Kill meeeeeeeee. I adore merino. And look at all those COLOURS.
Broadway in the low 80s, upstairs: ‘you don’t see the store from the street but I think it’s right next door to that Laytner’s’
Coup de Coeur by Zabeth, in Stoplight
Sigh. Well, I’m not hurrying. I couldn’t knit the freller anyway.
http://www.purlsoho.com/purl . . .
http://www.purlsoho.com/purl/products/item/7962-Susan-Bates-Crystallite-Knitting-Needles-US-8-to-105
Oh whimper. WANT.
I’m not asking if any of these people ship overseas. Am. Not.
. . . But what do you suppose this is like to knit? . . . Arrgh. Wait a minute. It doesn’t have its own page. Click on ‘yarns’, and then on ‘artyarns’, and then on ‘artyarns pearled and beaded’. Want. But how does it knit?
http://www.thewoolgathering.com/
Okay, finally, a web site that you can’t browse and make yourself miserable. Yaaay. Sniff.
Hannah also her own self went to:
http://www.knittycity.com/blog/home
. . . http://www.knittycity.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=388 More artyarn. This one glitters. Okay, I wonder if artyarns has a UK outlet . . . back, back, thou tempter! Back, I say!
http://www.knittycity.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=361 The individual colours don’t seem to have their own pages, but it doesn’t matter. I want all of them.
http://www.tangled-yarn.co.uk/brand/malabrigo/arroyo/malabrigo-arroyo-850-archangel/prod_921.html . . . damn.
Apparently I have to go to France for artyarn. And not the near end of France either. Oh, wait . . .
http://www.yarnbox.co.uk/cgi-bin/trolleyed_public.cgi?action=showprod_BMSH1S Rats. Well, I’m broke. What a very good thing I’m broke.
ANYWAY. Hannah says Knitty City were very nice to her and even though the shop was full—including a men’s class—someone took time to help her pick out her (unnecessarily beautiful) yarn.
. . . OH GODS I’M SO HOMESICK I COULD DIE. No, no, I can get into plenty of woolly trouble in the UK. And have. And will continue to do so. But I love New York—you will have observed that I plonked New Thing’s heroine there, and even if I did instantly snatch her out again, still, she’s a native New Yorker and that won’t go away. †
It’s not touring SHADOWS or PEG II (or III) that’s going to get me back on an airplane, it’s the prospect of cruising Manhattan yarn shops with Hannah. Now all I need is an Extreme Dog Minder. Meanwhile . . .
- LEG WARMERS
Only a few rows to go. And fewer than that too, because I’ve knitted about four more waiting for stuff to load tonight. The old mews laptop has been in a bad mood ever since Word took it down with violence the other night. One of the best things about knitting is the low technology requirement.
* * *
*Please tell me someone else out there started with something that wasn’t a scarf. Clearly I don’t get it about scarves.
** Southdowner had just better not wear that jumper anywhere in my vicinity.
*** Just until I don’t have to make my leg warmers double-length any more. Because I need them to squunch down excessively around my ankles to hide all the errors.
† And if anyone is wondering if I’m forgetting my roots, I don’t really have roots: the curse of the military brat. I call myself from Maine because I spent more years there than anywhere else^. But my best friend lives in New York. As well as my publisher. And my agent. And the Nur ad Din room at the Metropolitan Museum. And the Metropolitan Opera.
^ Although Hampshire, England has now surpassed this record. I realise this with a shock.
More tea. More lack of sympathy. More frelling bells.
Arrrrrrgh. Ringing at the abbey. Arrrrrrgh. My first go of Grandsire Triples tonight was a complete retro meltdown. METHOD BELL RINGING IS A STUPID OBSESSION. I AM GOING TO TAKE UP SOMETHING SENSIBLE LIKE CUTTING USED PLASTIC BAGS IN STRIPS, PLAITING THEM TOGETHER, AND MAKING RUGS OUT OF THEM. And then, as if this was not humiliation enough . . . Peter and I went to Tabitha, the Bowen-massage lady, this afternoon, and she has this frelling fixation on drinking water.* She gives you this frelling ewer of water to drink at the end of your session ‘to help flush the toxins out quickly.’ Uh huh. By the time we got home again I had barely an hour before bell ringing . . . and of course I had to have a cup of tea. Face Grandsire Triples with a bell-rope in my hands without a recent injection of caffeine to stiffen my resolve? No chance. And the result was. . . .
I had thought there was a loo at the abbey. Well, there is, but the public one closes at the end of abbey-as-museum visiting hours.** And the staff one is available only by Delphic utterance, and while Og gave me the correct orison, no one had a spare golden apple with which to placate the guardian dragon. So . . . I climbed down through the centuries again to ground level . . . and staggered dizzily out into a good-sized town with dozens of public loos—the fabulous public loo system is high on my list of good reasons to live in this frelling country—all of which were closed. Nobody needs to pee after 6 pm. It’s probably in the fine print of my visa. Eventually I gatecrashed a hotel. I might as well have been in New York City. Arrrrrgh.***
And, not that these two events had anything to do with each other . . . but my second trial of Grandsire Triples . . . was not too bad. Therefore I am writing this blog rather than getting my sword off the wall to make it easier to fall on.
I did realise I was speaking rather provocatively the other night about tea and critters. . . .
Mirkat
Have I shared this before? http://www.adagio.com/teaware/ingenuiTEA_teapot.html
Hmm. Do you use this? Do you like it? I’m having a little plaintive ‘why?’ moment. I like my teapot. And it works just fine. But if this one makes you happy then that’s good.
Or do you have a favorite tea infuser?
About fifteen years ago some bright spark finally invented—or anyway marketed—or anyway marketed in the UK—a proper frelling tea sieve. It’s the shape of a tea mug, and just enough smaller to fit inside the mug, and with a lip around the top so it hangs on the rim and you don’t have to fish for it. Peter and I have several, partly in case of accidents or visitors, and partly because since I tend to like my tea STRONG any infuser I employ regularly tends to pick up flavours, so I want different infusers for different teas. And that’s what I use. I also have two teapots with very large lids, which means very large holes where the lids fit, which will take one of these infusers—or an even bigger one, suitable for teapots belonging to people who like their tea STRONG. Whittards was the first I know of to introduce these purpose-built mesh infusers, but most tea shops that sell loose tea have them now.
EMoon
I think being in central Texas defeats the whole notion of tea.
Phooey. Don’t any of you forum people watch THE AFRICAN QUEEN at regular intervals? In which Katharine Hepburn drinks lots of hot tea in the tropics?
When visiting in England, I loved tea. . . . But here I have a) sulphury, hard, heavily treated water, b) water that is, for much of the year, emerging from the faucet warm to hot, and c) no real desire for anything hot to drink because it’s so hot.
Have you ever tried a cup of good tea in hot weather? I drink it year round and while English summers are nothing on Texas summers, in a bad year we’ll get weather quite hot enough to lay me out and make me miserable. Hot drinks may have the curious effect of cooling you off.
And no desire to waste the water that filling a pot with hot water, tossing that water, and then filling it again means, because we’re still in drought. (Or for that matter having the stove on long enough to boil that much water.)
Good lord, who said anything about tossing it? You put it back in the kettle. It’s still half-warm too, so the kettle will re-boil that much quicker. AND YOU NEED AN ELECTRIC KETTLE. You can now get them in America although I’m not sure how common they are. But they are THE BEST.
In our rare cold spells, I wish very hard for good hot tea. But make it? In these conditions? Probably never.
Different water filters will deal with different things; presumably your local Water Filter Experts have not endeared themselves to you. I doubt I’d drink the stuff you’re describing either in tea or at all. But there is always bottled water. Bottled water varies too—there’s a lot of fancy expensive mineral water out there I actively dislike the taste of—but if you used bottled water just for tea you wouldn’t get through it fast enough to put the mortgage at risk.
nickithomas
I use loose tea in the cup . . . Put milk in cup first ( . . . I am one of those unreasonably fanatical milk-firsters), a generous spoon of tea in a strainer, shake strainer over bin (to get rid of the dusty bits that will end up floating on your tea otherwise) before putting on cup then pour boiling water in SLOWLY and moving around to cover all the tea. When full, leave a minute or 2 before removing strainer and stirring.
SHUDDER. Well, as above, to each her own. If this works for you then that’s fine. But your tea can’t infuse properly if you treat it like this. Milk first isn’t a problem—you just brew your tea in a one-mug-sized pot, and pour it into your mug with the milk in it. PS: Good tea does not have dusty bits.
Have to admit that this does not work well with the really good expensive tea that tends be much bigger leaves and requires more steeping – but I can’t afford that very often anyway.
It’s not just more steeping—you need hot water. There’s a whole fal-lal about water temperature, and how different teas do better at different temperatures. Generally speaking you don’t want furiously-boiling water, which may burn or anyway damage good tea. You want it some kind of just-barely-off the boil. Which if you’ve already put your milk in, isn’t going to happen.
glanalaw
I drink PG Tips, but only because it’s the only halfway decent loose tea to be had in this part of the country.
I’ve heard rumours that PG Tips does a not-bad loose tea. As someone who remembers PG Tips in their heyday of powdered charcoal briquettes and black widow spider legs, I am dubious, but I will take your word for it. Since I plunged into the Fussy Snob Tea world a long time ago I’m not likely to try it myself.
Short of mail-ordering from England, which isn’t an option on the poor-starving-college-student budget.
Oh, now wait a golly gosh darn minute. I don’t for a minute believe there aren’t a million posh tea web sites in America. The British tea fetish is pretty much a myth—the overwhelming majority of cuppas are made of (bleaugh) cheap tea bags, and overall, the British drink more coffee than they do tea. Sacrilege. But cult tea is alive and thriving—it’s come on pretty much parallel to the availability of proper strainers, I think. In the dark ages your only option for loose tea was those damned little tea balls on chains that you hooked round the handle of your tea pot. Except that they were TOO SMALL so you might as well use bags after all, the tea still had no room to expand. Mostly I just dumped the tea in the bottom of the pot (or the mug) and let it swirl. Since I like loooooong steeping, by the time I was ready to drink it the tea leaves had all settled tactfully to the bottom anyway. If I was using a pot, I poured through a sieve. This did mean that by the time you drank your last cup it was getting kind of . . . violent. But one of the laws of the universe is that good tea does not stew. It may get a little exciting, but it never goes bitter.
If I was making tea that someone else was going to drink with me I would sometimes use a festoon of those wretched little tea balls, so I could pull them out. I had about six.
Regarding cats vs. dogs: I’ve always preferred cats (and at my present stage of life, a dog would be impossible because I’m not home often enough).
Buy two dogs. Then they keep each other company. People roll their eyes when I say this, but it’s perfectly practical. It’s the first dog that’s the huge leap of responsibility. Dog or no dog is the big one. One dog or two dogs is details—including important details such as getting two dogs that like each other—and a little extra dog food.
But then most of the cats I’ve know, definitely including the current one, seem to think they are dogs actually, at least in terms of the being-glad-to-see-you and the cuddling.
It’s individuals really, on both sides, the humans and the critters. If I have to come down on a side, then I’m a dog person. Clearly. But there are plenty of dogs out there I wouldn’t have even if they came with a guaranteed charm for ringing Grandsire Triples (just add boiling water). And even within categories of dogs I don’t like—little frelling terriers, say—there are individuals I’m all over. I met up with Titus’ little frelling terrier puppy again about a fortnight ago and he’s still adorable. And I was taking care of the hellcat again while Cathy was here, while Phineas was golfing in Scotland [sic]. I’m actually pretty pathetic: if it’s furry and it acts like it likes me, then it’s my friend.
I hope your baby robins don’t wash away!
Me too. I’m worried I’m not seeing more little rustling things in the shrubbery. I did see dad robin stuffing mealworms into something yesterday, so I think there’s at least one of them still undrowned.
Blogmom
Cats rule! Dogs drool.
Flapdoodle. In the first place, you have a dog, and I bet he does not drool, any more than the hellhounds do, who are an entirely drool-free zone. In the second place, worst droolers I’ve ever met have been cats. I’m told it’s something to do with having been weaned too young. But they knead your lap or your chest and DROOL. Ewwwww. Give me an honest Great Dane any day.
Kathy S
Dogs set booby traps. Cats courteously bury it.
Again, flapdoodle. I have cat crap all over my garden at Third House and I don’t feel the least kindly and tolerant about it. One of my absolute pet peeves is the fact that cats are allowed utter freedom to trash other people’s property, shred, roll in or dig up their plants, crap all over their driveways, claw their doorframes, eat their endangered songbirds and have yowling cat fights under their windows and that’s just the way cats are. I completely agree that dog owners should pick up after and generally control their dogs . . . but it bites me big time that there is no regulation of cats. Including that they get to make your dogs’ lives hell because it amuses them to act like jerks.
b_twin_1
I will acknowledge that dogs are inclined to leave landmines. BUT…. Cats also leave them. In your garden beds. Where you can find them whilst you are on your hands and knees weeding….
Yes.
I think that we’re frelled no matter which side we take…
Yes. That’s about it.
Diane in MN
I like cats–at least, I like doggish cats–but I seriously do not like litterboxes, or the little kitty feet on the countertops after they’ve been in the litterbox. I admit that my dogs can slime the countertops, but there is a difference, however slight.
This is pretty much the deal breaker with me. The little kitty feet on my counters. I’ve lived with cats. And I’ve liked the cats I’ve lived with, and I find purring very soothing to go to sleep to. But cats leap. That’s the way they are.
shalea
I love both dogs and cats, but I have an absolute No Feet or Butts on Food Preparation Surfaces rule for everyone — cats, dogs, small children (who might sit on countertops).
And how do you ENFORCE this? Dogs and children are (relatively) straightforward to train. Cats, not so much. I know they can be trained, and that what I react to as head games is the cat idea of social interaction, but how do you keep them off your countertops? Barring poisoned spikes, that is, which would be kind of in the way at suppertime.
AbigailW
So what kind of tea do you drink? I like a good cup of black tea and I know that bags are cheating, but what do real Brits drink? I suspect it’s not Twinings.
CathyR
Well, this Brit drinks Twinings. Teabags. English Breakfast. Weak, no milk, 1/2 a sugar. A brew less like Robin’s it would be hard to imagine!
Which is to say everything is about individuals.
* * *
* Speaking of obsessions. I wonder if she’d like to go halves on developing the plastic rag rug market.
** I think the loos stay open later if there’s a late service or a concert. —The admin, and the proliferating admin decisions, about trying to run a major national centre of practising Christianity and an internationally famous tourist attraction must be mind-blowing, and not in a good way. Any big corporation is a complex mess to run but when the widget your factory produces is spiritual enlightenment, wowzah, oil and water are soulmates in comparison. I know people who know people, and the abbey is a complex mess. And I’m told our tower captain watches the abbey diary like Jeremy Lin watching the ball,^ and not infrequently phones up this or that person and says, pardon me, but shouldn’t the bell ringers know about this? Oh—er—yes, says this or that person. Sorry.
^ Good gods, I just made a sports reference+. Sorry. But I like stereotype breakers, and he is one.
+ That isn’t about horses. Hey, did you know that Great Britain has a very strong dressage team for the Olympics this summer? First flicker of interest I’ve felt in the Olympics, which I would much rather were being held somewhere else. Katmandu. Neuquen City.
*** Gemma had given me the keys to her house. This would have involved driving, for pity’s sake. For a LOO? I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. I was jingling her keys in my pocket and wondering what the chances were that Wolfgang would start not once but twice only about twenty minutes after I’d turned him off^ when I took a sharp right and shot through the doors of the Hotel Forza Verduta. Fortunately the only receptionist was on the phone. I heard her say ‘There is a train from London . . .’
^ No, I still haven’t booked him in to get his starter motor replaced. I know, I know. And I don’t like living dangerously. I’m just disorganised.