Dec 3: Nearly Normal Again
We have to show you this Advent Calendar. It’s not the usual one.
First off, it’s delightful. And kudos to our pneumonia-raddled mother for surprising us with it; She showed up while we were still out at a social dance group and had to leave it. Not her fault; we weren’t clear enough about when we’d be home.
But the surprise kept going. We knew it wasn’t the usual David’s Tea calendar, but we sort of thought (and so did she!) it would be done up like an Advent Calendar. You know, doors you open, boxes that pull out…You’ll see looking at this that it does have a very clever tea schematic in terms of what tea you get on what day. You may also notice that all the tea is just sort of…hanging out in different quadrants of an admittedly charming box. Obviously what’s supposed to happen here is that you’re supposed to put them in those reusable Advent Calendars, you know the kind? Bags, boxes, blocks…We’ve seen at least one overpriced model by Indigo.
Full disclosure; Despite a 33-odd piece Nativity set, we do not actually own a reusable Advent Calendar, because we’ve never had cause to. We’re not about to start now. So, feel free to weigh in. We can either follow the very careful schematic on the card insert, or do a pick-and mix sort of thing while we play catch up. Thoughts? Opinions?
In the spirit of surprises, we set out to grab what we thought was a section of a much longer Wordsworth poem on the theme. Turns out it’s a sonnet. Never tell the women who taught us Romantics. In our defence, we hear the title and with think C S Lewis before Wordsworth. Actually, don’t tell the old Romantics tutors that, either!
Surprised by Joy
William Wordsworth
Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
After all that we forgot the tea! It was Bigelow’s Spiced Chai today. We have to ration the Tetley Indulgence stuff at work, it’s such a hit, so we switch between the two. Supposedly Bigelow are some sort of family-run tea estate in North America. It might be Canada. Whatever they are, they’re hit-and-miss. Some of the teas are fine, but at least one was once described as “like drinking someone’s sweaty bathwater.”
The spiced chai is significantly nicer. Well, of course it is. You know us by now – we’re far too snobbish about tea to be drinking anything that isn’t nice, especially when slogging through verifications and press reports. It’s got a bit of cinnamon in it, and is the perfect thing to warm your hands in if you work in, oh, say, an icebox.
Which we do, by the way. It’s freezing. Look for poems about Siberia coming your way as soon as we open the metaphorical door of the very literal Advent Calendar tomorrow.
