Footnotes to a Conversation, December 20, 2021
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Time for Tea
“Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.” – Thomas de Quincey
I begin every day with a pot of tea and a read – the luxury of the semi-retired! I have a small teapot that I love. It’s a fake Brown Betty, which just goes to show how ubiquitous the Brown Betty has become for all sorts of good reasons. A true Brown Betty is made from Etruria marl clay that is only found in Staffordshire, UK, and finished with a Rockingham glaze. [TeaTime]
Here’s a short video showing how Brown Bettys are made. [Cauldon Ceramics]
Let It Snow!
Did Napoleon Bonaparte hone his military skills when he organized a 10-day snowball fight at military school? Are you familiar with the 1838 snowball riots in Edinburgh? And then there are the artworks which have memorialized snowball fights throughout history:
“A fifteenth-century fresco from Trento, Italy, reveals combatants with arms cocked back (and one unfortunate recipient of a headshot), wearing expressions of minorly-sadistic pleasure or intentions for revenge — postures nearly identical to Utagawa Kunisada (I)’s woodcut snowball scenes (ca. 1825) or to those of the schoolchildren in mass combat depicted by Fritz Freund’s nineteenth-century The Snowball Fight.” [JSTOR Daily]
Sugarplums Dance in their Heads – and Around their Necks
In Maharashtra, newlyweds and newborns celebrate their first Sankranti festival with intricate jewellery made from sugar-coated seeds.
“Sankranti is celebrated in January all across India, marking the northward movement of the sun and the start of harvest season … Since Sankranti is a festival of abundance, Maharashtra’s halwa dagine symbolizes the wearer’s hope for future blessings.” [Atlas Obscura]
Kingfishers
I’m delighted when I catch a glimpse of a kingfishers as I walk by Victoria’s Inner Harbour. I was surprised to learn that the Kookaburra is a member of the kingfisher family – until I looked at a photograph and saw that distinctive profile. I wrote a short article about Belted Kingfishers, which may be of interest. [EcoFriendly Sask]
May each of you be blessed with moments of happiness, sunshine, and love. Merry Christmas! Footnotes to a Conversation will return on January 3.
“The holly bush, a sober lump of green, shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey, and smiles at winter be it e’er so keen with all the leafy luxury of May.” – John Clare, Winter Walk
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, I suggest you also read EcoFriendly Sask that I publish in collaboration with my brother, Andrew. Check out EcoFriendly Sask’s Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.