Afternoon Tea

 Dear Reader,

When I was a child I used to go to afternoon tea with a neighbourhood friend and her mother.  Her mother was my idea of a perfect mother, and I still do think so, after all these years.  This is a picture of her.  She was plump with a round face powdered white, and curling silver grey hair.  She was always kind and interested in her guests and asked me questions which were lacking at home.  Never asked in fact. She was homily and funny too, always laughing and making jokes which my sister and I enjoyed.  She made delicious cakes and scones and had out on the table cloth an array of homemade jams and Devonshire cream.

I thought Catherine was very very lucky to have her as a mum but I am not sure she was appreciated as much as she should have been.  Still what is that quotation about prophets not being known in their own country? Something like that springs to mind when I think of Aunty Margaret which is what we used to call her.

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From Francis Kilvert  August 11th 1871 in Dorset

'In a field among the woods the flax sheaves stood in shocks like wheat, the fine-hung bells on their wiry hair stalks rustling and quaking in the breeze like wag wantons.  A mare and foal stood in the shade among the flax sheaves.'

From Gerald Manley Hopkins August 18th in Devonshire

'We sat on the down above Babbicombe bay.  The sea was like blue silk.  It seemed warped over towards our feet.  Half-miles of catspaw like breathing on glass just turned the smoothness here and there.  Red cliffs, white ashy shingle, green inshore water, blue above that, clouds and distant cliffs dropping soft white beams down it, bigger clouds making big white tufts of white broken by ripples of the darker blue foreground water as if they were great white roses sunk in a blue dye.'

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Afternoon Tea

 

If the woman had had

choice of mother,

she would have chosen

one who liked afternoon tea,

with scones, strawberry jam,

sweet biscuits, and hot Darjeeling.

 

But the mother of the woman

did not like afternoon tea.

She liked cocktails, excitement,

after dark and its secrets,

stirring things up, mischief,

and life’s excesses.

 

As the woman knew

that choice of  mother

was not negotiable,

she chose her friends

with four o’clock in mind.

 

                                                                              *

With very best wishes, Patricia 

PS    A catspaw : is a light air that ruffles the surface of the water in irregular patches during a calm.