Dec. 14

We’re trying to get ahead today, so of course the bloody blog is playing up. Actually, it’s doing this because we said the laptop (13 years old) was still nice and reliable and didn’t need replacing. Look, 99.99999% of the time, it doesn’t. Except when we use Chrome.

When do we use Chrome? To write everyone’s favourite tea-and-poetry blog.

But why, says you. Why not use a functional browser?

Ah, friends, so said we. Our normal browser is Firefox. But the thing about operating a 13-year-old computer, is that after a certain point it refuses to run new software. So, we’re stuck on an antiquated model of firefox, not that you’d know it, because it runs at a perfectly good speed.

But Chrome…Chrome wants to see if it can be outpaced by a snail. Or maybe a tortoise. We told it that was silly because the tortoise won the race, but….Since when does technology listen? We regularly tell the Google Home to stop babbling and it keeps right on going.

Anyway, all this started because (don’t tell!) we’re trying to get ahead on the book club book that we should really have read last week so we can discuss it tomorrow. But then family dropped in for a visit, and stuff happened, and the computer won’t go at speed, and now it’s twenty minutes until a singing lesson and our kindle still says six hours, eight minutes to go. Totally doable, right? We’ll just wake up at six, skip breakfast and get stuck in…

It’s a really good book, by the way. So’s today’s tea, which is black, inspired by Capri, and called Southern Lemon. We think it’s supposed to taste of lemons, but it doesn’t, hugely. Which…if you’re the type that flavours Earl Grey with lemon because of theological and/or personal objections to milk in Earl Grey, probably makes sense.

It’s really good tea. We want more of it. It’s perfect for waking you up, if, say, you are racing the clock to read most of a book before a singing lesson and a Scottish Country Dance session and are failing miserably.

And now that we’ve got the computer more or less functional, we’ve almost finished the bloog. We should give you a celebratory poem about technology to mark the occasion, but that seems sort of soulless. Have this poem about really good books, instead.

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.