Tea is for Every Occasion and Situation!

Serendipitea: when you bump into a friend you haven’t seen for ages and head for the nearest cafe.

Tranquilitea: a cuppa in my garden, listening to the birds and enjoying the sunshine.

Charitea: always include a pack of tea in your Foodbank donation.

Nobilitea: Earl Grey of course!

Formalitea: a cup of tea with the Governor.

Sanitea: when everything else is going crazy, a cup of tea will soothe.

Tenacitea: hang in there and have a cuppa…

Sororitea: a cup of tea with my Yarn Sisters.

Universitea: that assignment can wait, I need a cup of tea.

Scarcitea: no toilet paper, but there’s still plenty of tea on the shelves.

Senilitea: now, where did I put my cup???

Infinitea: a bottomless cup of tea!

Luciditea: a cup of tea makes everything clearer.

Qualitea: definitely not Black and Gold brand!

Plentea: the tea caddy is full.

Emptea: Oh no, the tea caddy is empty!

BETTER BUY MORE TEA!

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The library at night

Libraries are magic places…

The Book Keeper Book Shop

“But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence. ”
Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night
Illustration by Jay Anacleto

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Stolen

My little red cup

I mourn your loss

I shall not see

The like again.

To Do List

I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed. Begin with Climate Change, nothing from COP26, add 2 years of COVID, then mad Putin’s war on the Ukraine, more refugees and top it all off with mind blowing amounts of water flooding Queensland and NSW. Throw in an election or two with all the relentless campaigning and I’ve reached the stage where I want to turn off all media and go hide under the doona.

But instead, I’ve got my “To Do List” – I think I can cope…

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths

I have a lifetime’s love of poetry. “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

The Book Keeper Book Shop

“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats
Painting by Tomn Dubbeldam

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Arise from sleep

Love both the haiku and illustration – both “perfect cat”

The Book Keeper Book Shop

“Arise from sleep, old cat,

And with great yawns and stretchings…

Amble out for love”

Issa, Japanese Haiku

Illustration by Philippe Imbert

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Music and Me

When we were kids, my sister and I had ballet lessons once a week. There wasn’t enough money for music lessons as well, so I never learned to play the piano, or the guitar, or the drums… But the music got inside me anyway – music with movement attached.

Perhaps that’s why when I hear music I can’t stay still – my feet and fingers tap and snap, my body sways in time wherever I am. In the car, with something lively on the radio, I bounce and bop, tap the steering wheel with my fingers, and sing along if I know the words. At a symphony concert I close my eyes and sway, nod in time, beat a rhythm with hands in lap. Why, I wonder, is everyone else sitting immobile, apparently unmoved by the wonderful music? It flows through me and I can’t stay still.

I can’t even stay still in church, so I love it when we sing something with a beat and I can borrow Mary’s tambourine. You don’t need lessons to play the tambourine! I love to dance too – “ When the Spirit of the Lord is in my heart I will dance like David danced” ( but dressed more appropriately!)

And then, sometimes, the music carries me away, lifts me up, takes me to another level. Music is one of the thin places, where you can be halfway to heaven.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous

It takes all kinds, and none are dispensable.

The Book Keeper Book Shop

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Illustration by Jimmy Lawlor

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Merry Christmas Possum!

My Christmas present this year is an Ultrasonic Possum Deterrent. But really its for the possum that gallops noisily over our roof at 4am or thereabouts and eats all the new growth on my treasured Pierre de Ronsard rose bush and strips all the leaves off my struggling small apricot tree. Lately I hope the possum has been really enjoying the garlic and chilli mixture I’ve been spraying on the leaves – it seems to be working but is labour intensive. Just when the new leaves seem to be big enough to survive, if I forget my nightly spray routine, the next morning branches are bare!

Hence my new possum disco, complete with motion sensor, strobe lights and ultrasonic sound track.

Merry Christmas Possum!

Common Brushtail Possum

Gifts

Child of my heart,

One with my spirit,

Born of the dust

And the breath that I gave you.

What will you bring me

When you come home?

I’ll bring you the touch

of the wind on my cheek,

and the kiss of the sun

and the fragrance of earth,

the song of a bird

and the warmth of a friend,

these are all things that

I found of great worth.