How to make the perfect cup of tea

These notes are for my American grandson, Harry. Harry, this is how Grandpa makes a cup of tea.

1 Switch kettle switch to ON.

2 Switch kettle switch to OFF. Fill with water.

3 Repeat Action 1.

4 Wipe spilled water from round the kettle and the teapot.

5 Forget to warm the teapot. Say bad word.

6 Take down tea caddy and put 1.5 teaspoons of tea into the teapot.

7 Put tea caddy back, and wipe up spilled tealeaves from round the pot.

8 When water boils, pour too much over the tealeaves and close lid.

9 Open lid and stir tea. Close lid.

10 Repeat Action 4.

11 Pick up dishcloth from the floor and put it in the sink.

12 Set timer for four minutes.

13 Go to study, check email. Remember tea after 15-20 minutes.

14 Say bad word. Repeat as necessary.

14 Go back to kitchen, pour tea into cup. Forget the strainer. Say bad word.

15 Add milk to taste and stir.

16 Look at tea, then pour it in the sink.

17 Go back to Action 1 and repeat sequence ad lib.

Serenity it is, then

With all the gloom that pervades the media these days, I was beginning to become despondent.

And then my daughter sent me this photograph of my Californian grandchildren, the twins Kiki and Harry, dressed up for some formal occasion.

When I saw it,   "my heart soared like a hawk", as Chief Dan George exclaimed when his grandson reappeared after a long absence.

So, much as I want to be a Grumpy Old Man these days, I realise that there are forces conspiring against me, causing - as in the case of this photograph -  a big smile on my face and a warm glow in my chest.

I know when I am beaten: I will just have to put up with being serene for a while.

Poem

Mary had a little bike,

it was painted red and yellow.

Every where the front wheel went,

the back wheel used to follow.

Oliver Sacks

I am grateful to Mary Colwell for drawing my attention to THIS article from the New York Times. One paragraph in particular resonated with me:

[QUOTE]
I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate — the genetic and neural fate — of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
 [UNQUOTE]

What didn't you say?

I can remember being asked if I would give a presentation at a forthcoming conference and I declined. When they asked me why, I said it was because I had nothing to say. They looked baffled, but it was true: I saw no point in talking for the sake of talking. Things are very different in my scrotage: nowadays it's difficult to STOP me talking.

Haddenham, Thursday, 5 February, 0630

[In order to pass the time between sneezes, I just composed and posted the following email to my grandchildren, who are variously in Auckland NZ, San Diego CA and Florida]

As predicted, the snow has returned. Haddenham is a whiteout again. Fortunately I ordered a large quantity of salt last winter so I can keep vital pathways clear, though it's never difficult to find an untreated icy patch on which to slip, fall and crack a kneecap.

It's not surprising that "fenitis" has set in: you wake up in the dark, it's dark again by late afternoon; when the sky is overcast, it's even dark during the day. The weather is unpredictable, but the chances are we will have one or more of the following on any day: precipitation, cold, nasty winds, plagues of frogs.... Even when the sky is blue and the sun is showing, the brass monkey sits in the porch fearing for its masculinity.

The bonus of all this is that at least you know you will not escape nasty aches and pains, and, if you are really lucky, a cold or a bad chest infection, leading to a visit to a doctor with a name like Ngondo or Jalfrezi, who will agree that you don't look well and prescribe a course of tabasco, paracetamol and little coloured beads.

I am not going to ask you lot how you are, because I know how you are: tormented by warm pleasant days, balmy nights, wall-to-wall sunshine.

I will write again soon: I don't see why you should escape my misery.

Grandpa/Grandad

PS I lied about the plague of frogs. The rest is, of course, entirely true.

The Cliche Police