August 25th, 2010
Hardly a good advertisement
“I’ve just made a cup of tea,” said Miss Caton, who was crouching near the gas-ring. “This will do you good– a strong cup of tea with plenty of sugar. I learnt that when I was doing first aid during the war– treatment for shock.”
Humphrey glanced distastefully at the tan-coloured liquid in the think white cup and waved it aside. “No, thank you, Miss Caton– I really couldn’t drink it– and where did you get that terrible cup?”
“It’s the one I have my elevenses and my tea out of every day,” she said briskly.
Humphrey took his mid-morning coffee elsewhere if he was not at a sale and was seldom on the premises in the afternoon either, so he had probably never noticed his typist drinking from the thick serviceable cup.
“Well, Miss Caton,” he said. “I can only hope that nobody has ever seen you drinking from such a monstrosity. It would hardly be a good advertisement, would it?”
“I take my tea in the back,” she said, on the defensive, “so no customer could have seen me.”
“And you, James– do you drink from such a cup?” asked his uncle sternly.
“I don’t know,” James mumbled. “I suppose I may have done on occasion.”
Humphrey exclaimed in horror.
“Perhaps a cup of China tea,” Miss Caton persisted, “though it wouldn’t have the same reviving effect, and without milk or sugar it might be too acid for you in your present condition.”
–from Barbara Pym’s The Sweet Dove Died
August 22nd, 2010
Cups and saucers
Today we not only hopped in the car, but we went to the mall, both of which are novel experiences for mall-hating folks such as ourselves, who don’t even own a car. But it was raining outside, and Harriet needed new pajamas, and our dinnerware also needed replacing after more than five years of being chipped and broken. Due to financial reasons, I couldn’t get the dishes I really wanted, but I do like the ones we settled on instead. The teacups in particular, and how lovely to have a saucer for each one to rest upon.
August 20th, 2010
If all else fails
So it turns out that I have a motto after all, because surely I’ve been saying this for years, but then Barbara Pym had been saying it for longer, so I read in her collected letters and diaries. The motto is (and it’s a good one, I think): “…if all else fails, we can always start a teashop.” Indeed.
July 28th, 2010
You’ve got to court delight
You’ve got to court delight, I think. By which I mean that things don’t just turn up in the post. You’ve got to send small gifts across the country to get a thank-you note in return, and subscribe to literary journals and magazines, and have a friend who lives in Antarctica who sends a postcard from time to time. Or rather, you have to go out of your way to buy a red teapot so that you can be a person who has a red teapot (unless you’re a particular fortunate person for whom red teapots arrive in the post).
Anyway, the point is that I received two letters in the post today upon whose envelopes my name was inscribed by hand. (And it wasn’t even that deceptively handwriting-like font that Bell Canada puts on all their envelopes when they send missives begging for the return of my custom.) Two handwritten envelopes is practically unheard of! I tore them open in a hurry and was not the least bit disappointed by what I found inside.
But let me backtrack. I joined The Barbara Pym Society earlier this year, because it seemed a strange, funny and Pymian thing to do. (I was inspired by this article.) And I also made friends with a brilliant writer/almost birdwatcher, and had her over for tea last week. As a result of these two things, I today received a lovely letter from a fellow Pym Society member who is looking for a Canadian meet-up*, and an absolutely beautiful thank you note from my birder-writer friend (who is truly as master of the form). Both of which made me exquisitely happy.
So you do have to court delight, I think. Though there’s also the point that if you wish to be perpetually delighted, just look for the pleasure of tiny, wonderful things. (Or perhaps I need to get out more…)
*Fascinatingly enough, the Pym Society member had sent me this letter unknowing that we’d corresponded in the past! Three years ago, she published a beautiful essay in The Globe, and sent me a note after I’d mentioned it on my blog. And now we find ourselves two of the very small population of Canadian Barbara Pym Society members! How marvelously tiny the world truly is…
May 9th, 2010
I’d rather lick a garbage truck
It was a year ago that we discovered just how immovable our child was, though I wouldn’t comprehend just how much until she was born. And now she’s eleven and a half months old, we’re planning her first birthday party. She sleeps all night almost every night, which makes me feel that wonder and amazement you’re supposed to feel when someone hands you your newborn for the first time. That this enormous blessing could be mine. (Other mothers say, “We’ll see how long it lasts” and then I want to hit them.)
I had a splendid Mother’s Day today, beginning with six and a half hours sleep (and it’s only that because I stay up far too late), then a lie-in, breakfast in bed (croissants! yoghurt! fresh fruit! tea!). Harriet was thoughtful enough to buy me Darwin’s Bastards (which I didn’t think I’d want to read when I first heard about it, but the more I read about it, the more I longed to). This afternoon, my own wonderful mom came into the city and accompanied us to afternoon tea at The Four Seasons. Scones were so fresh. Harriet was an angel, and the staff were so nice to us even though they had to vaccuum grapes and cheddar cheese off the floor after we had gone. (Interestingly, they remembered Harriet from our last tea in February. I am not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.)
Also, asparagus is in season, so all is well.
In really stange news, my maternity leave ended on Friday. In an alternate universe, I’d be going back to work on Monday, but as working full time and being a mother would cut into my tea breaks, we decided it would be best if I stayed home for a while. Also, my husband begins a new day job in two weeks, leaving his Bay Street office behind for work at a non-profit. I’m very proud of him, excited for him, and relieved that if I get to be home all day, at least he’ll be working somewhere that makes him happy.
And I do mean that, “get to be home all day”. Can I just say that staying home with a small baby sucks like nothing else in the world? I’d rather work in a glass chewing factory or lick a garbage truck. Staying home with a one-year-old, however, is pretty brilliant and gets better all the time. It’s also a great excuse to spend sunny afternoons outside in the park. Even though her naps are often fleeting, I get to curl up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea. When Harriet is awake, we hang out together. She is beginning to show her understanding of language in ways that fascinate me, we can share jokes, she is a pretty happy kid and very affectionate, and I really do like her company. So I feel lucky that we get to continue our days together, that spring is here and summer is coming, and I look forward to exercising feats of financial acrobatics so that our little family can get away with having our income cut in half. (There may have to be less afternoon tea. This is sad).
Anyway, all of this is to say that I am grateful for my good fortune (especially the asparagus) and that I’m very happy that I’m a mother today.
May 4th, 2010
House Post 2
I’d been thinking about houses anyway, on account of Meghan Daum’s wonderful book, when I found this book at a yard sale for 50 cents on Saturday. A House is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrated by Betty Fraser was published in 1978, and I can’t decide whether I like the text or pictures better. Never mind, they’re perfectly complementary.
The book starts off fairly tamely– a hill is a house for an ant, a hive a house for a bee, webs for 
spiders, and nests for birds, and then the refrain, “and a house is a house for me.” The story continues through various other abodes, returning to that house for me– which might be a treehouse, a fort under a tablecloth, a snow fort, or a huge cardboard box. But then things get a little bit crazy: “Perhaps I have started farfetching, perhaps I am stretching things some…”. Because a carton is a house for a cracker, a sandwich is a house for ham, a hat a house for a head. Because “once you get started in thinking, you think and you think and you think. How pockets are houses for pennies, And pens can be house for ink.”
The illustrations are to get lost in, managing to be both exploding and detailled at the very same time. Full of secrets, jokes, and delightful things, and flowing right off of the page. I love the be-spectacled duchess, in bed with her knitting, her books and her banjo. And yes, the tea page, which was created with the sole purpose of thrilling me, I think.
“A box is a house for a teabag. A teapot’s a house for some tea. If you pour me a cup and I drink it all up, Then the teahouse will turn into me.”
April 27th, 2010
Be sure to die near water
We went to the ROM today, which was an amazing experience, because Harriet is now 11 months old and therefore big enough to get something out of the Kids’ Gallery, and the museum was quiet enough on a Tuesday afternoon for an 11 month-old to play there with abandon. Her favourite part of the under-six area was a toy with a variety of cranks she could turn, and mine was the exhibit of children’s and minature tea sets. Elsewhere, I learned that fossils are seven times heavier than bones (and therefore the dinosaur exhbit’s floors are specially enforced) and that if you wish to be fossilized, be sure to die near water.
April 14th, 2010
The tea came from the East
“Mrs. Pigheights, without responding, raised the cup to her lips and was, as one sometimes is in moments of distress, delighted by the brief voyage along the inside of her throat. The tea came from the East and bore her away to the East, the East as it had been dreamed of and conquered by the British Empire, inlaid with saffron, sand, and multicoloured servants. The imagination holds in reserve a multitude of emergency exits. Always remember that, Lucie.” –from The Breakwater House by Pacale Quiviger, trans. Lazer Lederhandler
February 15th, 2010
Oh, for a cup of tea and crumpets
” ‘Do you know, Wilmet–’ the dark eyes looked so seriously into mine that I wondered what horror was going to be revealed next– ‘he hadn’t even got a teapot?’
‘Goodness! How did he make tea, then?’
‘He didn’t– he never made tea! Just fancy!’
‘Well, one doesn’t really associate Piers with drinking tea,’ I said.
‘He drinks it now,’ said Keith. ”
–from A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
