M.C. Steep's Blog

Dec 24

Here already? Everyone says February is the shortest month of the year, but December gives it a good run for its money, what with the Christmas parties and the shopping and the traditions.

Speaking of, we drew a traditional tea today – classic Earl Grey, no spices or anything fancy about it. Absolutely lovely. It was exactly what we needed at six this morning.

Here’s a traditional poem to go with it. Well, what else would it be? Some things are too good to change.

The Oxen
Thomas Hardy
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

No one writes a Christmas poem like Hardy. Happy Christmas for us, from the Marschallin Cat, the Dachshunds, and Freddie, the latest of the Marschallin Cat’s many minions. Even if she does mostly swear at him. See you in the new year.

Dec 23

Tell you what, after the holiday, can we have a holiday from the holiday so we can all recover?

We sat down at 7AM, and then, with the exception of tea at eleven (more on that shortly), worked through until almost five, and we have barely scratched the surface of the stuff in the work queue. Then we went out for the evening with family to see what turned out to be an exceptionally odd film, and now there is shortbread in the oven.

After we do this, we have to walk down to the local metro to see if there’s marzipan (there won’t be) to do the Christmas cake for tomorrow.

Oh, and dinner wouldn’t go amiss. That would be quite nice. We had vague plans of reading before bed but the window between now and then is apparently full, so….there’s always Christmas Eve?

But about this tea. It was Earl Grey Spiced Chai. It’s such a mouthful of a name we had to double check it against the packet. It tastes a bit confused. Really lovely tea, but not obviously Earl Grey. The signature bergamot gets lost in the spices. It might be better without milk or sugar, but with it, you definitely wouldn’t peg it for an Earl Grey. That’s not to say we wouldn’t have it again. We absolutely would. We might also give it a different name.

Before we rush out on Mission: Marzipan, have a poem. Nothing to do with names or Earl Grey so much as with the time of year, which definitely looks the part at the moment. Snow everywhere.

A Winter Bluejay
Sara Teasedale

Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced,
Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.
Across the lake the skaters
Flew to and fro,
With sharp turns weaving
A frail invisible net.
In ecstasy the earth
Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstasy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstasy we laughed
Drinking the wine of love.
Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
“Oh look!”
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty?

Now, to rescue the shortbread and locate marzipan! Until tomorrow…

Dec 22

Normally, as technological as we get is the presence of the whistling kettle in the kitchen. Used tonight, by the way, to make a cup of ginger mint green tea. Not the obvious combination, but it’s -14 and getting steadily colder, and the heat of the ginger is welcome. Anyway, we mention this, about the technology of the kettle, because in the past 48 hours everyone’s been forcing us to battle technology.

There’s the usual work stuff, obviously. Our end-user thing needs headers in size eleven but the body of the reports in twelve, so we – yes, really – tell the user-thingummy to set them to 14 and 16 so they will display as 11 and 12. If you get that, go have a biscuit with your tea that you presumably boiled using one of those pod-things with fancy buttons.

Then, last night, we went out to see the new Wallace and Grommit film, wherein, no spoilers, a pice of technology runs amok. Delightfully funny if you live with one of those home assistant things. We did, but do not now. We don’t miss being told our request for the jazz station somehow requires a subscription to YouTube, but only if we want to listen to jazz from Mars while orbiting the solar system of Utopia Limited.

Then, today, after running around to see The Messiah and an aborted effort to decorate the tree, we sat down to write the blog. Up popped a message asking if we wanted to allow the logitech accessory to access our device. Logtichec? Accessory? We only figured out it was asking if we wanted the mouse pluggin we’ve been using since we bought the laptop to access the laptop it already accesses when it became apparent the mouse wasn’t operational. Why wasn’t it opperational? Who knows! It was working last night. It was working this morning. There was no major power outage that we know about.

Personally, we blame Wallace and his gnome-tech.

After finally persuading the computer that the mouse it always uses should most definitely be allowed to continue in use, because who can be doing with trackpads, we went looking for a poem. This was not the one we planned. But it sums up how we feel about anything more advanced than an electric kettle. Top marks to the author.

We Have The Technology
Michael Robbins

By the sparklet of certain ciliates cesium
practices its cricket song.

Am I supposed to be impressed? My smoothie
comes with gps.

Take a left at that crustacean. You—yes, you,
with the crisis Isis eyes.

By Odin’s beard, this is snowier than usual. We can
 always burn the first folio.

Go bug a dandelion. You’ll have
 the elephant of surprise.

Dec 21

We’ve been having fun with bookshelves tonight. And b =y fun, we mean that we woke up from a nap and thought they were leaning dramatically more than six months ago. For reasons we can’t fathom, we have photographs of the books six months ago, so checked, and sure enough, they were decidedly listing to the left.

Luckily, the friend in civil service has got into DIY in a big way since buying a flat – presumably to have something to do that isn’t the civil servise. And she had all kinds of ideas, which bore fruit. The neighbrous probably weren’t thrilled we were moving bookshelves about, and the cat most definitely was not, but at least nothing is leaning ominously anymore.

Basically, we’re fine as long as we never exceed the current number of books. Note to self: Do not buy books. Also, buy small manageable bookshelf for bedroom…unless someone’s offering…This is more than mildly inconvenient, because see the Edward Guest poem of the other night. And also the new Jane Urquart book we want to buy. And a few other things like that. Oh well. Didn’t one of the Gilmore Girls build a bookshelf out of books?

Now we’re drinking Tumeric Spiced tea. On day 21 we have finally realized that 12 of these teas are normal and the other 12 are spiced. Oh well, better late than never. We definitely like this one with the spices better than bog standard Turmeric. It might help we have cramp at the moment and are actually up for a herbal that might help with it.

No apposite poem today, unless you happened to go outside, in which case you might have noticed it was extremely cold and very snowy. It definitely was in the wilds of Guelph, Ontario. Thing is, when we’re frozen and snowy, we can’t usually see past “frozen and snowy,” sort of like the Dachshunds of Dawlish. But some people see it as a metaphor for life’s condition. We’re almost envious.

Dreams
Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to look at the snow and simply accept how fleeting and pretty it is.

Dec 20

Sometimes you can’t beat the classics. This reminder brought to you by a cup of Darjeeling Summer in the middle of the afternoon. We know it’s winter, at least our side of the pond, but it was still nice to have a reminder that somewhere there was light and flowers and sun.

We’ve been working from home, and that means we don’t have the alarm on that much. We’d been trying to figure out why we were getting up later and later, and then over breakfast and the Advent Calendar, it dawned on us we were approaching the shortest day. The thing Donne calls “The Year’s Midnight.”

Other countries have it worse, but we once spent a winter solstice in St Andrews, Scotland, and we’ll never forget it. It’s not even that far North, as North goes. I mean, you can keep going for miles before you hit Orkney or Norway or wherever. It was enough for us. The sun came up after nine and was gone by two. Sort of amazing.

So, anyway, just so we all remember that sun exists, and that summer exists, have a poem on the subject. We figured it paired well with light and floral Darjeeling Summer.

Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Dec 19

Today’s Vanilla Chai was particularly nice. So much so that we finally got an opportunity to take advantage of the teabag rest (china, cat shaped, a gift from a friend, not the one in the office) so we could re-infuse it later. All very Barbara Pym. In the office, we re-infuse tea all the time, primarily because there are signs everywhere asking us to be “mindful of our consumption” and we can get through an awful lot of tea. Also, a mug doesn’t seem like adequate use of a teabag.

Typically when we work from home it’s leaf tea all the time, but this calendar does a line in teabags, so that’s what we’ve been using. Because it was chai, and also because of the vanilla, we sweetened it again and the result tasted excellent. It also got us through three high-profile reports, and that’s not nothing.

Candidly, when it was all done we didn’t have the energy for the blog. Or for books , or for flipping mindlessly through various channels to find something maybe watchable. We just want to sleep for a week. But anyway.

The other day we gabbled on at you about the sestina, which is rare and hard to find in literature. Today we went in search of another structured poem, the villanelle. Turns out, whereas the sestina mostly died out because it’s a linguistic hell to write, the villanelle became bizarrely popular in the 1980s. The most famous example is Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle, probably with good reason. But his isn’t the only villanelle. Have this one by Auden. It’s quite good too.

Villanelle
W.H.Auden
Time can say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you, I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time can say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you, I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time can say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you, I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away?
Time can say nothing but I told you so.
If I could tell you, I would let you know.

Dec 18

Really interesting tea today. It’s an Earl Grey Citrus, so it sounds like it should be a black tea, but it’s not. It’s green. But it doesn’t taste particularly of citrus. We thought at first it hadn’t steeped long enough, but the second cup has had over ten minutes and it’s still a very good, very posh green tea with no floral or citrus undertones we can find. We blame the bergamot. It overshadows a lot, and so does the green tea base. It’s a very nice blend, but it’s not citrusy. And that’s fine. We’d drink this one again. We’re definitely glad we made it in a pot instead of the usual mug.

But it’s been a ridiculously long day. We sat down at nine and didn’t stop again until after a different nine. There was a break in there where we chatted to a friend out east. Not very Christmassy, either, so in compensation, have a Christmassy sort of poem.

Oh, and try not to look at the calendar. It’s frogmarching us all along faster than racing demon. If one of us blinks unexpectedly it will be Tuesday. It’s been that kind of day.

The Christmas Rose
Cecil Day Lewis

What is the flower that blooms each year
In flowerless days,
Making a little blaze
On the bleak earth, giving my heart some cheer?

Harsh the sky and hard the ground
When the Christmas rose is found.
Look! its white star, low on earth,
Rays a vision of rebirth.

Who is the child that’s born each year —
His bedding, straw:
His grace, enough to thaw
My wintering life, and melt a world’s despair?

Harsh the sky and hard the earth
When the Christmas child comes forth.
Look! around a stable throne
Beasts and wise men are at one.

What men are we that, year on year,
We Herod-wise
In our cold wits devise
A death of innocents, a rule of fear?

Hushed your earth, full-starred your sky
For a new nativity:
Be born in us, relieve our plight,
Christmas child, you rose of light!

Dec 17

Today’s tea was Pure Mint. It smelled like someone plucked it straight from the garden, which is impressive for the time of year.

At least one friend grows mint (tries to) on her winodwsill and we’re always teasing her, saying one day her lawn will go all to mint.

“But I keep it in a pot,’ she says, as if this makes a difference.

News to mint. We did not grow mint up in Scotland but the part of the lawn not going to clover was full of it anyway. The tenant from four years prior must have flirted with it or something. To paraphrase an old priest, who was drawing comparisons with his overflowing kitchen sink at the time, “It’s like the Holy Spirit. It gets everywhere.”

Heaney understands. Have a poem.

Mint
Seamus Heaney

It looked like a clump of small dusty nettles
Growing wild at the gable of the house
Beyond where we dumped our refuse and old bottles:
Unverdant ever, almost beneath notice.

But, to be fair, it also spelled promise
And newness in the back yard of our life
As if something callow yet tenacious
Sauntered in green alleys and grew rife.

The snip of scissor blades, the light of Sunday
Mornings when the mint was cut and loved:
My last things will be first things slipping from me.
Yet let all things go free that have survived.

Let the smells of mint go heady and defenceless
Like inmates liberated in that yard.
Like the disregarded ones we turned against
Because we’d failed them by our disregard.

Dec 16

Today’s tea was Cinnamon Chai. We had filched cane sugar last night, so were able to have it the way we liked it, all milky and sweetened. It was the perfect break in the middle of a busy Monday morning. We followed it up this evening with Masala Chai at an Indian restaurant we frequent. We’re starting to think cane sugar might be the secret to making it right, because the stuff they gave us wasn’t miles off what we made from the calendar. The spices were a bit different, but otherwise we had it right.

We were at the Indian restaurant for a book club meeting. All two of us. People mock, but you know what? We’ve never had a bad book. One day, we’ll write an article on it. How to create the perfect book club.

So, have a poem about books.

Good Books
Edgar Guest

Good books are friendly things to own.
If you are busy they will wait.
They will not call you on the phone
Or wake you if the hour is late.
They stand together row by row,
Upon the low shelf or the high.
But if you’re lonesome this you know:
You have a friend or two nearby.

The fellowship of books is real.
They’re never noisy when you’re still.
They won’t disturb you at your meal.
They’ll comfort you when you are ill.
The lonesome hours they’ll always share.
When slighted they will not complain.
And though for them you’ve ceased to care
Your constant friends they’ll still remain.

Good books your faults will never see
Or tell about them round the town.
If you would have their company
You merely have to take them down.
They’ll help you pass the time away,
They’ll counsel give if that you need.
He has true friends for night and day
Who has a few good books to read.

Clearly we need to read more Edward Guest. We sort of forget he exists, but next time someone asks why we don’t just put our books in storage, you’d better believe we’ll point at his poem. Because books are friendly things to own. Clearly.

Dec 15

Remember we promised you a look at a contrapuntal poem? Well we had to follow Alice down a rabbit hole to get this one for you. It turns out that contrapuntal poem was originally in Latin. We discovered this while digging through Google for it. Could we find it, could we never.

Turns out that’s because read one way the poem’s Catholic, read another way it’s Anglican. You’ll see what we mean in a second. Anyway, we remember the opening line as a very Catholic one. Every scholar ever (and Google’s SEO, who knew/!) remembers it as Anglican. No wonder we couldn’t find it! But never say we aren’t excellent at our job (sort of spying and for spying read research).

Here’s your poem. You have to read it twice. Once reading left to right as if the two stanzas are a long one, and once in columns. We did not give you the Latin, because, well…Look, you have enough work reading this thing twice. Did anyone desperately want to read it four times?

We thought not.

The Double Faced Creed

I hold for faith What England’s church allows,
What Rome’s church saith, My conscience disavows.
Where the king is head The flock can take no shame,
The flock’s misled, Who hold the pope supreme.
Where the altar’s drest The worship’s scarce divine,
The people’s blest, Whose table’s bread and wine.
He’s but an ass Who their communion flies,
Who shuns the mass, Is Catholic and wise.

Oh, the tea. About the tea. Original Himilayan Green tea. It’s very nice. You don’t have to drink it six different ways to arrive at this conclusion. It’s just very lovely, uncomplicated green tea. Unlike say, the poems lobbed at you by weird choirless choristers.