My Dear Friend,

Words can not possibly express how joyful and hopeful you made me today.

For you -

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

Because sometimes life is black and white... but sometimes it's bright bower-blue.

Twenty Eight!

Oh my goodness, dolphins and porpoises, it's going to be twenty eight degrees on Sunday!

I know it's only August, but summer is really on its way, the breeze has been so wonderfully zephyric and balmy and I'm starting to turn into Summer Kenny (a fundamentally unsound oceanid with a desire to jump into water from dizzying heights) already.

So, just to get me more excited, twenty eight glorious things Sydney summer is bringing to me: -

1. Icy Poles

2. Clovelly

3. Twilight Picnics (mosquitos and all)

4. Strawberries

5. Raspberries

6. Blackberries

7. Eurydice

8. Making a Dent in My Reading List

9. Getting Oil Paints all over my Hands and Clothes

10. Sleeping with the Windows Open

11. The Clovelly Groper and his Lady Gropers

12. Late Nights at the Duck & Swan

13. White Sandals

14. Sun dresses

15. Home-Made Lemonade

16. Summer Projects

17. Sewing Bags and Dresses

18. Early Sunrises

19. Late Sunsets

20. Late Nights with Good Friends

21. The Mystery of Edwin Drood

22. Colourful Flowers Everywhere

23. Straw Hats

24. Sleeping Nude

25. Swimming in the Ocean Every Day

26. Wandering Through Markets

27. Living in Bare Feet

28. Spending a Third Summer Kissing That Man of Mine

Tea for Two

Hello Strangers,

I was just recalling an anecdote my darling boy once told me.

In the 1920's, the conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Nikolai Malko, bet the composer Dmitri Shostakovich one hundred roubles that he couldn't completely arrange and re-orchestrate the Vincent Youmans standard Tea For Two in an hour.

Shostakovich, of course, did it. From memory. In forty five minutes.

If you're interested, the arrangement is called the Tahiti Trot, and after first being performed in Moscow in 1928, has been performed ever since.

Anyway, that's a fun little story that actually has nothing to do with what I want to talk about. Well, very little.

In the winter months (fuck you, Northern Hemisphere readers, your balmy weather reports are not welcome here) I am a tea fiend, especially when I'm staying up ridiculously late for no good reason.

So, today I bring you a post-hibernation reflection on tea. Mmm, deep.

Five Amazing Cups of Tea:

1. Russian Caravan, home-brewed by Dad, with a big splash of milk and a heaped teaspoon of sugar in a purple flower mug.

2. Chai tea with steamed soy milk from the Frisky Goat at Wynyard Station, drunk half-asleep on the bus to uni.

3. English Breakfast with a dash of milk in a Boleslawiec blue mug at Roman's house on a Sunday morning with a good British fry-up.

4. Jasmine tea in a latte glass at Toby's Estate, served with good conversation with a dear friend.

5. Hot lemon and manuka honey tea with a drop of liquid echinacea, the perfect healing potion when one is ailing.

Finally, I'd just like to share an image I have, an image of what I want my life to look like in the indeterminable future - it involves mugs!

Just to have a little house with some mis-matched furniture and a cat or two, a big bed with a nice quilt, and perhaps a blue-eyed man napping in it... and mugs. I can't wait to have a mug that's mine in my own cupboard in my own home.

It'll be special because of the hundreds of times I'll raise it to my lips. Whilst reading a good book. Whilst skritching a cat behind the ears. Over a fierce debate, over comfortable silence, over a murmured "I love you".

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This little birdy is grateful to weheartit for the beautiful photos whilst I am devoid of camera.