Dec 1: And Now for Something Slightly Different

Ah, but there’s nothing different about Chorister at Home reappearing to talk tea and poetry, says you. Minor glitch: Our usual source of an Advent Calendar was first in Sri Lanka, then victim to some Dread Lurgy. So, as of December first, here we are sans calendar…bot never sans tea.

Here’s the plan; Until the calendar arrives, you’ll just have to walk with us through our kitchen and its considerable selection of teas. We’ll flip over to the mercurial whims of the Advent Calendar when it manifests.

Today, for instance, we enjoyed a lovely Scandanavian tea with the English name Emperor’s Bride. Sort of apt, since we’re still working our way through The Garden of Evening Mist, which has frequent cause to mention the Japanese Emperor. Is this the one the tea refers to? No idea. But the English ingredients say it’s flavoured with pineapple, orange peel and safflowers. It doesn’t actually taste that citrusy, but the pineapple gives it a pleasant sweetness. We’re going to be sorry when we have to replace it as our default breakfast tea.

Here’s a poem about ritual to go with our ritual morning tea. Hopefully the ending isn’t lost on our North American readers, who may not have cause to know the wondrously soothing thing that is the Shipping Forecast. Luckily, there’s always Google – and Carol Ann Duffy. Enjoy.

Prayer
Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.