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January 17, 2003
Even Minutiae are Limited on Weekdays
Yesterday I suffered from unaccountable melancholy; so I got enough sleep, got up today at a sensible time, took my vitamins, ate proper meals with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and cheered up a whole lot.
Picked up coffee at lunchtime, and also a loaf of nut bread and a (great) sandwich from the French bakery. Also more fruit and tea bags, and I broke my anti-consuming resolution by getting a cheap-in-sale china tea mug with integral strainer and lid. Which was worth it; the black tea tastes a thousand times better. It's partly the heat, but I also think it's partly the china; it cools the tea much less than the old mug. My grandmother would only ever drink tea from a china cup. She only ever bought one sort of tea, too; broken orange pekoe packed into miniature tea chests and sold in London by the now defunct Ceylon Tea Council. (A couple of years ago, remembering some but not all of this, I established the rest of the tale by talking to a man at Fortnum & Mason who knew everything about tea.)
When we got the coffee home, we helped Marianne find where it was sourced on her globe (Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, roasted today, and an organic Ugandan, if you're interested. I've never had Ugandan coffee before). Turning the globe, she said "That's China! Like in Mulan. Where did the Huns come from?" The globe also plays music for each country, but my faith in this feature was severely bashed when I failed to recognise the British music. There are two tunes for Britain; one is 'Greensleeves', and the other... isn't. Of course, the two most likely tunes, "God Save the Queen" and "Land of Hope and Glory", have both been appropriated by the Americans for other purposes. And my guess is that "Jerusalem" would just confuse people.
I had various plans for this evening; a soothing bubble bath plus book, or curling up with Steven and a nice film. Instead, I spent much of the evening registering for Fast Track for the two of us, on the Congestion Charging website. This site loads 35 different graphic elements every time you load a new page. And you will have to load at least a couple of dozen pages to register, as long as you're careful not to explore any of the options. Whoops! Was just about to mention my views on congestion charging. A narrow escape, eh?
Posted by Alison at January 17, 2003 11:11 PM