Saturday 26 March 2011

Tea time


A couple more arrivals, typical of early Spring. First comes the Early Grey, whose salt-and-pepper colouring makes a welcome change from the current general palette of brown. And then the Hebrew Character, whose patterning repays a close look.


I have the familiar problem of an ageing blogger, that I've written about both these before, more than once. But I will repeat my feeble (but true) quip that the Early Grey always sounds like some endearment which Lady Grey might have used to the namesake of that lovely tea. My mind plays a similar trick with the weblink shortener Tinyurl, which conjures up images of a small member of the House of Lords. Penny and I mix Earl Grey half-and-half with supermarket sawdust for our morning brew which, as it happens, I am savouring in between typing this in bed. I very much recommend it. Lady Grey has her own tea too, and that's also a good mixer.


As for the Hebrew Character, I photographed one a couple of years ago on a page of the Hebrew alphabet, showing how the dark mark on each wing does indeed look very like the letter Nun. So I leave it at that for now (and for any reader to decide if they have the energy to scroll back and back and back...) and just say: Welcome both, although the Met Office says we're all going to get a chilly shock later this weekend.

3 comments:

Stewart said...

Hi Martin, Earl Grey ( now Lord Howick) is my Landlord! We live on his estate in Northumberland, the home of Earl Grey....

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Had a lovely scented Earl Grey tea this morning... with no milk - my more worldly friends scoff at this, but being of Asian genes I can't seem to ingest milk anymore without tummy issues.

I've been wondering about the Hebrew Character's character. I wish you linked to your old post for your readers, instead of having them try to find it themselves. Thought you might find this fellow blogger's post interesting from a month ago: http://billsbirding.blogspot.com/2011/02/last-night.html

Cheers!

MartinWainwright said...

Hi both!

Many thanks for comments

That's an excellent coincidence, Stewart. I spend most of my life trying to persuade the world that the North of England is lively, fun, prosperous and the rest. I had to admit on one occasion, though, when I was giving a talk in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, that I was staying at the Grey Hotel in Grey Street - exactly what Southern cliche-mongers about the North might imagine...

Sorry Katie - I did try to find it on Google. Then I thought: well, it'll be very good for them to read back through all my interesting posts. But you've shamed me into doing that myself and the web address of the main Hebrew Character entry back in 2009 is:
martinsmoths.blogspot.com/2008/09/distinguished-character.html

Thanks for your link and I'm very glad you had a nice cup of Early Grey


all warm wishes


Martin