Guests, graves, and great tea

My friend Kathy and her son Alex came for a wonderful visit Tuesday and Wednesday. We tried to have Jeff take some photos of us, two moms with two sons. Only problem is that in most of the photos someone had their eyes closed and in all but one of the mosts William was making funny faces. So I used the photo that was the least bad of the three of us on the left and stuck William from another photo onto the right to get this sort of okay shot of the four of us.

Here's what the original photo looked like.



It was a bit of a trick to find activities (I first wrote "addictives" instead of "activities" - Freudian slip?) that would appeal to everyone - two women, a kid, and a teenager. Kathy wanted to go hiking but Alex was "hiked out" from stops they'd made in the mountains on the drive over. And then we got talking and sidetracked and it got towards dusk and it was too late to go hiking. We eventually settled on the local park so Alex could play. But Alex is ten, going on eleven, that hard age when they think they want to play on the playground equipment but after a couple of minutes realize that it's not quite the same anymore. So after about fifteen minutes, we were ready to leave the park.

I suggested we could go to the local pioneer cemetery. Kathy thought that was a hilarious idea. Like I'd just offered to take them to the local water treatment plant or the police station or some other odd place. William and I thought it was a completely reasonable suggestion. We love going to old cemeteries. There's history, there's art, there's natural beauty. Despite Kathy thinking we were nuts, Alex was now intrigued, so off we went.

When we got there I whispered to William that I thought Alex was the type of kid who might be easily frightened so please don't try to scare him. He behaved himself but Kathy jumped out at her son and shouted "BOO!". Alex did indeed get frightened and William protested that I had told HIM not to do that! Kathy had one of those mothering moments when you feel guilty but you still can't stop laughing at your kid. Fortunately Alex recovered quickly and we actually had a pretty nice time wandering about.


This gravestone broke so that it simply said "Frederick Bacon died". Thinking out loud I commented "Well, obviously." For some reason we couldn't stop laughing about that for awhile.

I didn't mean for this photo to be slightly out of focus. I think it's because the camera tried to split the difference between the tree in the foreground and the background. But I kinda like it. With the colors of his clothing and the way he's lined up with the background, he sort of looks like a ghost, or a tree spirit.


This broken winged angel is my favorite thing in the whole cemetery.

We had a good time together, the first in a year. What with phone calls and e-mailing photos, sometimes we forget how much time passes in between visits. Kathy and I stayed up most of the night talking, but it was worth the lost sleep. Which, speaking of lost sleep, between pets and phone calls and crashes in night and all manner of small things, I haven't had a full night's sleep in about four nights. I tried to catch up last night but we just advertised that we had a woodstove for sale this morning folks started calling us about it bright and early. Grrrr. Argh. I want the sleep but I also really want to sell the woodstove so I can get it out of here and start shuffling things around into the place it's now occupying.

The new tea room in town, Coventry Gardens, opened up this week. Everyone is all a-buzz about it, all positive reviews. Since it was our last chance before Jeff went back to work for the week, the three of us went there for lunch yesterday. I was happy to see that they are heavy on the tea room and light on the gift shop aspect, making it a real place to frequent instead of simply a place to buy something on occasion. We went in the late afternoon when it had quieted down a bit and chatted with the owners at some length.

They commented in particular that they were pleased to see both my husband and son. They said they had made an effort not to make the place too "frou frou" so that men would feel as comfortable there as women. I like this picture of the gangly teen in the band shirt sitting with his cuppa tea.

The service was great, the food was great, the ambience was great, and last but not least, the tea was great. The boys had sandwiches but I had this great mango salad with a savory scone. We ordered a never ending pot of Earl Grey Lavender. I couldn't decide whether the flavor or the smell was the most heavenly and I'm going to have a hard time not ordering it again. But I do want to make an effort to try all their teas before I settle on a favorite. I can hardly wait to go back again. Do you think today might be too soon for a repeat visit?

If you want to read more about my burning desire to make a tea cozy, go on over to Laume's Studio today.