Saturday 20th March 2010 - Reality and Fantasy.
REALITY
At about 4:00 this afternoon I was in my kitchen doing some ironing. (Yes, I iron shirts, dress-shorts and pants [trousers] which come out of the dryer avec some wrinkles.)
The kitchen window was open, and balmy (72 f) air was wafting in. It was a delicious moment.
That delicious moment led me into fantasy.
FANTASY
Now I am in the U.K. It is 4:00 p.m. on a balmy June day. I am in a suburban or rural house. We are seated at an oval table. It looks out through opened French doors to a terrace or patio, and then to a typical English garden. The garden has a daisy be-clad lawn, a few small trees, and an abundance of roses. It is the scent of roses which wafts into the room.
The table is clad in a linen cloth. On it there are bone china cups and saucers, plates and tea-pot. There is a sweet little milk jug, and a sugar basin with cubed sugar and delicate silver tongs. There is a tea-pot dressed in a cozy.
We are eating delicate sandwiches – “Hovis” bread with cucumber or watercress filling.
White bread sandwiches filled with salmon paste, or maybe with ham.
On a nearby “tea-trolley” there are some sweets.
I see good jam and clotted cream: - sandwiched in a sponge cake, (or maybe on a scone). Perhaps some slivers of Bakewell tart. Or maybe those fabulous little open-faced “jam and desiccated coconut tarts” which Mum used to make.
There are two other people at table. They are a retired Bishop; and our hostess (an elderly widow, from the stock of local gentry). Mum and I are in our element.
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We are talking about the “Iconoclast Controversy” (NOT!)
At about 4:00 this afternoon I was in my kitchen doing some ironing. (Yes, I iron shirts, dress-shorts and pants [trousers] which come out of the dryer avec some wrinkles.)
The kitchen window was open, and balmy (72 f) air was wafting in. It was a delicious moment.
That delicious moment led me into fantasy.
FANTASY
Now I am in the U.K. It is 4:00 p.m. on a balmy June day. I am in a suburban or rural house. We are seated at an oval table. It looks out through opened French doors to a terrace or patio, and then to a typical English garden. The garden has a daisy be-clad lawn, a few small trees, and an abundance of roses. It is the scent of roses which wafts into the room.
The table is clad in a linen cloth. On it there are bone china cups and saucers, plates and tea-pot. There is a sweet little milk jug, and a sugar basin with cubed sugar and delicate silver tongs. There is a tea-pot dressed in a cozy.
We are eating delicate sandwiches – “Hovis” bread with cucumber or watercress filling.
White bread sandwiches filled with salmon paste, or maybe with ham.
On a nearby “tea-trolley” there are some sweets.
I see good jam and clotted cream: - sandwiched in a sponge cake, (or maybe on a scone). Perhaps some slivers of Bakewell tart. Or maybe those fabulous little open-faced “jam and desiccated coconut tarts” which Mum used to make.
There are four of us at table. My brother Martyn will know that our mother is one of them. She loved this sort of middle-class event (especially the bone china).
I am there too, since I have gleefully inherited some of my Mum’s snobbery.
There are two other people at table. They are a retired Bishop; and our hostess (an elderly widow, from the stock of local gentry). Mum and I are in our element.
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We are talking about the “Iconoclast Controversy” (NOT!)
Magical, I could have been there as the young boy playing in the garden.
ReplyDeleteMartyn.