FIRST CUP OF TEA

New home, same mug, same feeling.

Continui-tea is an underrated thing. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA - HAIKU

Imagination

In its finest walking boots

Takes infinite strides. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Uninterrupted views of the imagination. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The forecast for the next ten minutes or so, sunny with outbreaks of imagination and scattered pondering. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Fluffy slippers for the soul. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Taking the mundane and, sip by sip, revealing the beauty therein. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I wonder do I ponder more?

Or ponder do I wonder more?

Drinking every fresh-made brew

Though I suppose both could be true. 

To join the two is to combine

To plumb Imagination's mine

From every sip and every sup

There's gold, somewhere, in every cup. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I sip and muse and I recall a time when my dad would fill his tartan Thermos flask with boiling water and place the teabags under the cup and off to work he'd go.

I don't know why but it was always a tartan Thermos. Probably part of the Bricklayers Code. 🧱☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Teabag and spoon, mashing in perfect harmony until just the right colour is...not yet...one more mash...nope...one more...until just the right colour is achieved. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Teaquality for all! ✊☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The teabag slam-dunks itself straight into the mug as I launch it from at least 6 feet away. 

One of life's little victories that means nothing and yet everything at the same time. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Taking me from now to then and back again. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

A bit like following faint footprints in the sand; you know the tide will eventually wash them away but you instinctively know which way to go. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Deep-tea diving. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The Coziness Of The Long Distance Supper - the story Alan Sillitoe wrote when he stopped being an Angry Young Man. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

If I was still in the Cubs I could guarantee you two things - firstly, I'd have my Tea Drinker's badge, and secondly I'd be the only 6ft2, grey-haired Cub in the UK! ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

My own sparkler, my own banger - 365 days a year. ☕🎆🎇

FIRST CUP OF TEA

How did I reach my teabags as a child?

On my PG Tiptoes. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm headed up North

where tea tastes much better

but why, I don't know, 🤔 

it's not that it's wetter. ☕

TRUE PARTNERS IN RHYME

Liberace - Fibonacci 

Brian Lara - Kate O'Mara 

Peter Cook told Barry Took

Paul Weller's a tall fella

Wayne Rooney - all the Moonies

Rusty Lee and Kiki Dee

Houdini - Mussolini

The Dalai Llama - Sir Keir Starmer

Michael Jackson - Toni Braxton

Robert Plant's a supplicant 

Martin Clunes is farting tunes

Foo Fighters - Sue Ryder's

Doris Speed in Harris Tweed

Vincent Van Gogh - Tony Han Cock

New York is True North

Mick Jagger - Merle Haggard

Eddie Wareing - steady bearing

Billie Eilish fights the Irish.

Celebrity indemnity

Pay no attention

To this invention.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Cognition's nutrition. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Lady Macbeth never could get this tea-making malarkey completely right and thought she could merely command the liquid into the cup- "Out, out damned pot, out I say!" 🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where every day is Thirstday. ☕

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND

I'm not sure where or when I'm gonna spend my extra hour

I'm not sure if I have the right to exercise such power

For Time is a museum and we're all briefly curators

But let's be honest most of all we're just procrastinators.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Much like meeting an old friend after an absence, no words need to be exchanged, just the knowledge that you're back in safe and reliable company. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Liquidating my assets. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I dunk the teabag tentatively in the mug as if I'm a painter looking for that perfect colour on their palette. We're all searching for that perfect shade of tea. You know it when you see it. ☕😊

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The tour guide of the soul. ☕

HOPE IN HIBERNATION

Applaud the curtain call of summer 

As winter waits in silence in the wings

Autumn speaks the lines of fallen colour

In hibernation, hope eternal springs.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Coffee may be the brash usurper

but tea is the drink for the consummate slurper. ☕

THE LOST SONG

living between

the tick

and 

the tock

we never get time

to stop and take stock

before we arrive

and after we've gone

Time's the great orchestra

Now's the lost song.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

One cup fits all. ☕

COMMON PARLANCE

Innit, though, I can't keep pace,

Is 'wicked' now so out of place? 

I hear the kids all now say 'bless'

This parlance lark, such a mess

But stop to think what all this means

Our language and its fading genes

Fashions rising-fashions sinking

'Right-on, man'-'blue-sky thinking'.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Every day this simple cuppa makes it feel like I've discovered a new secret. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I ponder then I contemplate

I reckon and I muse

Tea's the drink

It makes you think

We even leave reviews! 🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I've already found my pot of gold. 🫖🌈☕

AM I A PATRIOT?

Do I love my country? I mean, there are parts of it that I actively dislike, but on the whole I love the people, the humour, the scenery, the cities, the cultures, the tenacity and the determination of the UK to get on with things. Does that make me a patriot? That's a trickier question to answer.

I've had my face painted with the cross of St. George and flown flags from my car windows during international football tournaments. I mourn along with the nation every Remembrance Sunday but rarely visit a church unless it's to lay someone to rest or to see someone get christened or married. I guess I'm like the vast majority of Brits. I'm happy for people to do whatever they want, pray to who they want, dress as they want, even behave as they want, as long as it doesn't impinge too much on my life.

Despite the Tweets we may read or the headlines that are made, most of us are a tolerant lot. I'll agree that it seems we're becoming more intolerant as time goes by but we'll put up with a lot before we complain. But am I a patriot? I think that word has been co-opted by a certain demographic which I, myself, could quite easily be mistaken for. The white, middle-aged man, much maligned recently by Gary Neville in a video that has split opinion. I'm on Gary's side. Apologies if you find yourself on the other side. I'll explain why I am.

If you profess to love your country then what does that actually mean? It's OK hanging a few flags from lamp posts and painting a few roundabouts but how is that loving your country? If the act of patriotism is tinged with a 'Love it or leave it' attitude to others then you're arguing that only those who love their country should be allowed to stay. Samuel Johnson famously said that 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' People left with nothing else can resort to patriotism and use it for dubious means. Whether that's frustrations at politicians or frustrations at how your own life has turned out, the resurrection of patriotism (surely something reserved for the Last Night Of The Proms?) feels distinctly un-British. We don't normally like to express ourselves. We don't tend to argue or make a fuss. Aren't we supposed to 'Keep Calm And Carry On'?

So no, I'm not a patriot. I have a certain love for this country built on the people I know and who live in it, although not necessarily because of all of its institutions. 

Patriotism, much like our nations flags, should not be wielded like a weapon. If it is, it ceases to be the thing in which we believe. If you've got this far then you'll have your own opinion on patriotism and the flag. Maybe you served? Maybe it means more to you than me? That's fine, because tolerance and freedom of speech is definitely something I love and can get behind.

I might even fly the flag for that!

---

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Achingly simple, the cuppa we simply ache to take. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Superlative supping, poured to perfection.🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Like a simile for a smile. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where memories play. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Steam-powered imagination. ☕

MEMORY BANKS

Memories are the cheques we once wrote to our former selves.

That's why we keep them in a memory bank.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

This would be the cup Goldilocks would choose. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Watching the ripples extend as I skim stones across the waters of Imagination. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I must've won something, I'm lifting the cup. ☕🏆

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Casting reflections from pools of Imagination. ☕

"WARNING!"

I wake and do my puzzle game

I ache to wake my sleepy brain

My bones they need much more coercing

"Warning! This body is reversing."

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Yoga for the soul. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA - poem

you can ooh!

you can ah!

you can smack your lips

you can sip along to Radio 4's pips

you can slurp

you can burp 

you can iron your shirt

you can swallow

you can wallow 

that you're off to work

tea is the redeemer 

tea is the salvation

savour the flavour 

saviour of a nation. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The ancestral home of pondering. 🤔☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Pot of the world, Ma! ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm traveling at the speed of contentment. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Close encounters of the thirst kind. ☕👽

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where the forecast is always wet and sunny. ☕☀️

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Travelling and pondering the byways of Imagination. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Contemplating all things in the universe, but mainly the question of where I have put my shoe polish? 🤔☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where do all the teaspoons go?

I had them in this drawer

they must be somewhere in this house

I'll have to buy some more.

But this brew, here, it cannot wait,

it can't afford to linger,

promise you won't tell a soul,

I'll stir it with my finger. 🤫👉☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Self-tannin lotion. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The template from which all future cups are made and measured. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

We'll begin today's (silver) service with the first hymn, I Vow To Tea, Thy Country, and finish with Abide With Tea. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Welcoming back an old friend. ☕

THE LIGHT EPHEMERAL

Light from a distant star reaches my eyes,

traversing a universe to find me - 

a long and unbroken journey

through the dark, guided only by time. 

At last it falls upon me. I wonder:

will my light ever find such distant eyes?

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Puzzle-solving for the soul. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

If at first you don't succeed, sip, sip again. 😊☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm travelling light, just the one bag. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The journey is the destination? 🤔☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Anchored in the quiet harbour of an early morning. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I have a coffee caddy and a sugar caddy sitting either side of my tea caddy. Guess which two are the ugly sisters? ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Slurp like nobody's watching. ☕

SUNDAY'S LINEN

The Northampton clouds are looking a little off-white and have taken on the appearance of over-boiled linen. They're not exactly threatening rain but they're fairly sure they know how to get hold of some. Sunday's deafening silence tells us exactly who was in charge of the linen.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

How do they manage to put a smile in every cup? 😊☕

DRESS REHEARSAL

Northampton is dark with cloud yet brighter skies cling faintly on to the horizon. Imagine a frown that's finding a way to be happy. Autumn lurks, ready. Today it seems like we're in full dress rehearsal for the season to come. Leaves twitch in the breeze. They know their fate.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Marking Contentment present in today's register. ✔️☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Bringing the day into focus, one sup at a time. ☕

NORTHAMPTON CLOUD

In Northampton the white clouds are clumped tightly together with tinges of black and grey. Like a heap of discarded cotton balls after a lady's removed her mascara.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Wondering what I'll wonder is the perfect preamble to the first sip. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Perhaps Imagination

Is the true reality

And we only get to see such truth

Through endless cups of tea. 🤔☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"The fast train to Imagination is now leaving from Armchair One. This is a direct service." ☕

MONDAY

Marmite Mondays. It's not everyone's favourite day or even everyone's favourite metaphor, but it starts another week and there are many who wish they could do that. Monday isn't about endurance, it's about finding little victories hidden along the way - like Tuesday. 😉

FIRST CUP OF TEA

A new beginning, every day. I'll drink to that. ☕

SUNDAY

Sunday's warm hug greets me like an old friend. Sunday gives you the confidence to aspire to do nothing or in which to do anything. It's quite unlike any other day of the week. A free pass from life, if you like. A get out of stale free card. You can do it! Or not. That's Sunday.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

 Imagination's Open Universitea ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The Tea Rex died out not because of a catastrophic comet strike but because its arms were too short to sup its daily cuppa. ☕🦖

NARRATION'S FLIRTATION

The book of your day was held upside down

There's no need to scowl and no need to frown

Cos when all's been done - or yet to be said

Remember you start and end all days in bed.

Savour the tale contained in those pages

Narration's flirtation - your ʞooq for the ages.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm a tea hewer - and an ahh-er. ☕⛏️😊

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The sunroof to the soul.☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Allowing thoughts to go everywhere and nowhere at the same time. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Imagination's charging point. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Einstein, a voracious tea drinker, originally calculated E=Mmm Tea² before modifying it ever so slightly. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Life's underlay. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over...(slurp)...it is now! ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The nursery of imagination. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The First Cup Is The Deepest - the original title of the song by tea aficionado, Cat Stevens. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Tea stewing, ponder brewing, imagination, at its station. ☕

AMUSE-BOUCHE

Early mizzle seems to hang in the air like an uncleared throat. My parched lawn has started showing the tiniest hints of regrowth though not enough to convince a balding man to ditch his wig. Sunday silence, the amuse-bouche before we gorge ourselves on the cacophony of the week.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Signing Imagination's guestbook. ☕😊

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

Sit down. 

We have sit down for the first cup of tea. The Imagination has just left the launch pad and should dock with the orbiting Inspiration in tea minus one sip. 🚀☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Granting favours to the imagination. ☕

NOW

Between every tick

Between every tock

Now is all

Life just happens.

Between every tick

Between every tock

There be how

There be dragons.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The Swiss Army Knife of good feelings. ☕

STARS IN THEIR EYES

Am I the only one who takes the cup and passes it through the steam coming off of the kettle and go, "Tonight Mathew I'm going to be..."? 

Thought so. ☕

ROLL UP! ROLL UP!

This early morning carries itself the same way confidence tricksters carry themselves. We know it's going to trick us into thinking the rather pleasant start won't turn into a real scorcher by this afternoon - but we have no idea how it goes about it.

Roll up! Roll up! 🌞

NIGHT PLAY

The temperature didn't bother going to bed last night. 

It stayed up, throughout.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where thoughts go to play. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

NOW WE SIP...

now, we sip

at the boundaries of existence

as far away as we can possibly be

from the future

or the past;

now, we sip

at the boundaries of existence

as far away as we can possibly be

from the future

or the past;

now, we sip...☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Walking around Memory's maze, grateful that I'm lost. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

My barometer reads 'slowly falling pressure' - my cuppa concurs. ☕

YOUNGSTERS

The second hand on my bedroom wall clock ticks its way around the clock face in crisp, staccato beats. 

The hour hand, immovable it seems, turns to the minute hand and says, "Youngsters, eh? When will they ever learn?"

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Brewing up a calm. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The golden, richly decorated, illuminated first initial in the dusty manuscript of today. ☕

HEATWAVE HAIKU

Dappled woodland path

Sunlight by invitation

Effortlessly cool.

(📷 photo taken 19th June at Hunsbury Hill Country Park)

ADAM AND EVE'S FIRST CUP OF TEA

The 'lost' passage in the Bible that explains the invention of tea.

Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden

Kicked out by God because of their thieving

Sinful and naked they sought some relief

They covered their shame with the humble tea leaf. 🍃☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Noble warming. ☕

NEXT YEAR

The bedroom fan whirrs a weak apology for barely keeping me cool overnight. It gathers dust most of the year in a dark corner. 

I tell my wife, "Next year we'll definitely get an air conditioner."

It's always next year. 

Like that book you never write.

It's just fan fiction.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

This is why the words 'lip' and 'smacking' were first placed together. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm pondering away like a good 'un - 

Just how many trees does it take to form a wood? 

Which Blue Peter pet lived the longest?

Why is chocolate so bad for you if its seeds come from a fruit? 

Pondering - one of the great things you can do with a brew. ☕🤔

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The only promise that can never be broken. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Hail to the leaf! 🫡☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Welcome to the Town of Ponder, twinned with Wonder: Population 1. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The original influencer. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I wake from sailing

a sea of dreams

I spy land in this cup

(or so it seems)

I'll wander its shores

I'm not in a hurry

I'll amble a while

free from all worry. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Oiling The Great Pondering Machine and wondering where it will take me today. 🤔☕

INVISIBLE DANCE PARTNERS

This drizzle is having a crisis of confidence. It hangs nervously in the air, wishing it was light enough to be mist. Gusts make small puddles shudder as if a tiny giant is walking the Earth, and the big trees sway as if they have a very tall yet invisible dance partner.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Sunning the soul. ☕

SUNDAY THOUGHTS

If Now becomes Then

And Then becomes Now

How is Time constant

Yet we're not, somehow?

If Time's an illusion

With no clock to tick

Just who's the magician

And what is the trick?

FIRST CUP OF TEA

First ponder of the day - does the first cup of tea ever post about us? 🤔☕

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Saturday; the younger, more impudent sibling of Sunday, plays with free abandon, whereas Sunday studies hard, though for what we are not told, and dismissively tuts at Saturday's antics. 

Between you and me I think that Sunday is somewhat jealous of Saturday's wild independence.

FIRST CUP OF TEA (sort of)

First cup of tea:

(damn)

(out of tea bags)

First cup of coffee: Second amongst equals. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Come for the pondering, stay for the wondering. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Gold panning in the streams of imagination. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Permission to ponder. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

My favourite Shakespeare play about tea? 

Henry IV Pot 1. 🎭☕

FIRST CUP OF RAINBOW TEA

The humble omnipresence of that first cup of tea; it has the melancholic beauty of a rainbow - both have no end yet they're both destined not to last. ☕🌈

TINY HOTEL CUPS

Tiny

hotel

cups

Ubiquitous

Reliant

I

often

pick 

them

up

And 

pretend

that

I'm 

a

GIANT. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

 Teavolution - the survival of the sippest. ☕

DREAMY

I dreamed I dreamed a dream in a dream

I dreamed I dreamed that, too, 

I dream so much it's hard to gleen

The old dreams from the new. 

But what if I am dreaming now?

Here comes the big plot twist,

What if I'm just dreams, somehow,

And I just don't exist?

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Slurp like nobody's watching. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

First ponder; I drink from my 'Happy 40th Birthday' mug and wonder many first cups have passed since that time. 🤔☕☕☕⏳

It's 6,384, if you're interested, but I needed the calculator on my phone. Happy 6,385th to all you mundane ponderers out there. 🧮☕☕☕

LOBSTERS

The morning sun promises a warmth which eases the bones but reminds us to carry a cardigan. Spring is a calmer, more softly spoken warmth than summer. Its smile, while not as radiant, won't leave us looking like freshly-baked lobsters.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Tuning up the morning silence. ☕

CONFUSED

Time waits for me as I wake late. It tuts and points to its watch, which is a funny thing for Time to be wearing, if you think about it. Who'd wear a tiny version of themselves on their wrist?

I then wonder if I'll spend the rest of the day as confused as this?

Time will tell.⌚

IN BITS

I've never finished the novel, Frankenstein. I've read it in parts. 📖

It's what the author would've wanted. 🦶💪🦵✋👃👂🧌

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Make Imagination Great Again. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

We've won the cup

we've won the cup

ee aye addio

we've all won this cup! ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

sip like a duchess

with a pinkie in the air

glug like a navvie

we won't comment

we won't stare 

slurp like a trouper

we won't be a party pooper

sip through your lips 

or inhale for all we care.

just remember when you drink

take a while

to pause and think. ☕

SLOW TIME SUNDAYS

Time seems to run slower on a Sunday. Like a small hangover. Where you move just that bit slower than you normally would. Or maybe Sunday's trying to keep the calm between two bickering siblings. Perhaps Saturday and Monday have fallen out. That's it - Sunday is the peace broker.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Wandering amongst the foothills of imagination I arrive at the base camp to Mount Ponder. My face reflected in its Pools of Wonder, I start to gently ascend. ☕

DISTURBED SILENCE

Outside, 

A motorbike

Rudely interrupts 

The silence before the

Doppler Effect

Drags it

Away.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Distance is no barrier to imagination, from the safety of an armchair, shoe leather is never worn out on its well-trodden roads; tea is the universal mode of travel for those who think while they drink, ponder while they wander and light up while they sup. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

A game of snakes and ladders, with all the snakes removed. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Catching random, scattered thoughts in a butterfly net before releasing them safely back into the golden fields of imagination. ☕

STATELY PLEASURE DOMES FOR ODD SOCKS

I dreamt I finally found the mythical place where all the odd socks go. Now I've woken up I've forgotten where that is.

I'm consoling myself with the fact that Coleridge must have had similar dreams before he one day woke up and wrote 'Kubla Khan'.

Maybe.

BLOOMING MORNINGS

I don't so much rise from bed these days as unfurl like a slow-blooming flower. 🥀

FIRST CUP OF TEA

We 'first-cuppers' should have a name or at least a collective noun. There are millions of us, every morning. ☕

The Sippers In Slippers?

A contentment of first-cuppers?

The Slurperites?

A ponderance of first-cuppers?

The Snug Glugs

Just a thought. 🤔

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Scientists agree that we have to practice something for 10,000 hours before we can call ourselves an expert in that field.

I am therefore an expert in the field of tea-drinking, even though I can't recall ever drinking tea in a field. 🤔☕

BLESSINGS

It's Easter Sunday, lamb for dinner, all is silent save for my wall clock which gently taps its beat in metronomic reassurance, reminiscent of a quieter, bygone age. 

I sit in my comfiest of armchairs and count my blessings, sip by sip and tick by tock. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I've found the end of Imagination's rainbow, and it's sharing out its gold. ☕

DESSERT PRESENTED AS A TREATISE ON GLOBAL WARMING

Lack Forest Gateaux.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Not many people know that the humble cuppa was the world's first GPS system - Gulp, Pause and Sip. ☕

EDITING THE DAY

I'm constantly 

 ̶r̶e̶w̶r̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶

editing 

my day.

So far 

 ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶

I've not much 

To say.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

This tea was grown on the far-off slopes of Pondering, in the shadows of Mount Contentment.

MOODY TUESDAY

A gloomier, cloudier start than recently. I wonder if Tuesday forgot it was working today? It's turned up in a mood bringing overnight rain. Darkened slate tiles become obsidian rooftops. Is Tuesday sketching its feelings? I recommend a lighter pencil and more colour.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

we covet our first cuppa, I slurpose,

we love it for the thoughts it will expose

we care about the time and place we sip

we journey far and wide from where we sit.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Scientists have discovered that the first ever 'first cup of tea' was formed milliseconds after the Big Bang, right around the time that pondering and musing were also said to be created. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"Is this a cuppa I see before me?

Handle towards my hand

Come let me clutch thee." - first draft of Macbeth where Shakespeare decides he will not kill King Duncan and have a nice brew instead. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

April continues to shower me with sunshine. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where pondering pools. ☕

CORONATED LIGHT

I wake with the Night, just before the Light to see the horizon crowned with a ring of fire. The Light has been coronated to a dawn chorus of "The Night is dead, long live the Light!"

Well, not exactly, but it's best not to tell the birds it's merely a job share. Ruins the mood.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately nice tea-room decree - 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's first draft. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

We don't seek answers as we ponder over our first cuppa - it's enough that we like playing with the questions. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

One freshly-washed favourite tea mug shows faint signs of tannin stains on the inside.

Or maybe it's a mishmash of memories from past first cups that gathers to remind me? ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Most people wanted to be astronauts when they grew up, or footballers or ballet dancers (I knew one lad who wanted to be all 3)

I always wanted to be a tea taster. And here I am - tasting tea. Much more relaxing than pirouetting around Wembley in a spacesuit! ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The brain's a wonderful thing, billions of cells and neurons capable of millions of computations a second - yet all I can think of over this first cuppa is whether my good jeans have been washed or not. 🤔🧠👖☕🤯

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The impermanence of the present meets the constance of the memory, and somewhere between the two do I sip. ☕

THE BOOK OF TIME

Time's the only book that's written by everyone you've ever met and everyone you'll ever meet. Some say the ending's unwritten. Some say there's an unreliable narrator at work. Me, I just enjoy the words at every turn of the page. Remember, even those minor characters matter.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Bobbing about on Lake Ponder.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Who is April Fools and why does she have her own special day. 🤔☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Old-school AI, the Magic 8-Ball of brews, the soothsayer, where you'll find all the answers you'll ever need at the bottom of that first cup, particularly the answer to the question - 'Shall I have another cup?'

FIRST CUP OF TEA

And my first ponder of the day - who gets our lost hour? It must have gone somewhere. Is it kept in a drawer for when the clocks go back again in the autumn? Has it gone Down Under to play with the Australians? It'll probably be down the back of our sofas. Most things are. 

ADONIS

Adonis was the son of Kings,

And probably his sister.

He might have been good-looking 

But he had six-finger blisters!

FIRST CUP OF TEA

My first few ponders of the day...

How many sips in an average mug?

Will it rain today?

I think there's about 25.

Hmm. There's washing needs doing.

Maybe 30.

It can wait until tomorrow.

Will it rain tomorrow? 

Nah. Probably 25.

Probably.

THE ̶R̶H̶Y̶M̶I̶N̶G̶ FEATS OF A WAKING POET

I wake to a weekend full of joy and  promise,

But nothing rhymes with 'promise',

Well, maybe there's 'pumice'.

But that's not right for an early morning tweet.

Who really wants to read about the rubbing of feet? 🤔🦶🦶

FIRST CUP OF TEA

One single ponder

to start the day,

leads to two single ponders

I think I'll stay.

Two single ponders

now turns into three,

and this is the magic

of that first cup of tea.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"Of all the cups in all the world, this teabag had to stroll into mine." - what Humphrey Bogart said off set during the filming of Casablanca - probably. ☕

WAVES AND PARTICLES

Light is both wave and a particle 

I read it in an interesting article

I think that it means

It flows in Time's stream

But at night it just hides - which is farcical.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Today I think I'll ruminate, then cogitate, then ponder. Then it should be time for a second cup. ☕☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Pondering's starter motor. ☕

BONDAGE CLUB INVITE

I decided to decline the invitation to the local bondage club.

I thought, "Why knot?"

TEARS ALONG THE DOTTED LINES

TEARS ALONG THE DOTTED LINES

A young man races

Tears along the dotted lines

Of aspiration.

TEARS ALONG THE DOTTED LINE

A widower sobs

Tears along the dotted lines

Of separation.

TAKING STOCK

My bedroom wall clock ticks

My bedroom wall clock tocks

And in between those two small sounds,

Well, that's where life takes stock.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The John Lewis of cuppas - never knowingly under-slurped. ☕

SUNDAY'S VASELINE

Someone's smeared Vaseline on Sunday's filter and it's ready for its misty-eyed close-up. The rain has retreated, muttering to itself that we haven't seen the last of it. A bird hops across a wall as if it's spring operated - which it is, if you think carefully about it.

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

The gardens at Kerr Towers have burst into bloom. Nature's intricate weaving skills are on display. My Yellow Ladies reveal a Rorschach Test of rich red dots on a pale silken frame. All this effort to attract a bee for the briefest of encounters.

The rest of its time is ours.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Like all true friends, words are often not needed, merely their warm, reassuring presence.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

First ponder of the day - do Australians stir their cuppa anticlockwise? 

🤔🇦🇺☕

JEALOUS DAYS

Thursday desperately wants to be Friday - a much cooler day who personally knows the weekend! Thursday's so desperate to be Friday that it's sometimes heard to say "Not long 'til the weekend, eh?"

Friday thinks Thursday is silly.

Friday desperately wants to be Saturday...

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Thursday's ponder; do you think those monkeys ever did finish getting that piano up the stairs?

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Pre-pondering perfection. ☕

THE EDGES OF SEMBLANCE

I wake pre-dawn to a world of dark outlines. Trees and buildings in their simplest form. Light hesitating at the edges of semblance, as if it has just arrived from outer space (spoiler: it has just arrived from outer space) and doesn't quite know which bits it should colour in.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

the anticipation of the first

the expectation of a second

the possibility of a third.

there's a lot more going into your first cup than just tea and boiling water. ☕

STUPID BOY

March - so much brighter than its older brother. It's rumoured they're thinking of having February tested. The sun rises with more confidence, clouds part with greater ease. In fact there are so few clouds this March it's thought February forgot to put the order in. Stupid boy.

SCHOOL SWEAR WORDS

I misunderstood the meaning of calligraphy at school and filled out a page of swear words.

Then I found out what cursive meant.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where pondering comes to keep fit.

AN ODE TO A PANCAKE ON PANCAKE DAY

Happy flipping birthday, pancake

Greetings, and all that

I hope you get all that you want

And that you turn out flat.

I know you find the day exciting,

Fun and so appealing

But can I ask you very nicely

Come down from that 

ceiling.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Scientists have finally cracked the DNA code of tea - 

20% imagination

20% pondering

20% relaxation

20% satisfaction

5% magic

5% mystery

5% awe

5% ahhhhh

POETRY FINDS

I'm on Substack a lot these days. Someone described it as social media for those who read whole books, which I found both funny & possibly true.

I came across this poem, The Two-Headed Calf, written by Laura Gilpin in 1977. I was moved by its simplicity and its power.

A FINAL REMINDER

To many, Monday's arrival is as welcome as an overdue bill landing on the doormat. Another week at the coalface. Now that I'm no longer able to work due to ill health, I recall all the times I hated Mondays. But now I wish the postman would deliver just one final urgent reminder.

QUIET PLEASE!

Sundays Light has an easier time than most. Reflecting off of fewer cars on the road and fewer people rushing around, it gets to choose where it settles. Once it's settled it's rarely disturbed. Sundays Noise takes heed and reverberations are kept to a minimum. Library Sunday.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Sponsored by The Union Of Amalgamated Ponderers and Imagineers. ☕✊

THE SPRING CLEANER

February's finally left. How does the shortest month always feel like the longest? The party guest nobody remembers inviting. Always hogs the music. Always drinks your good booze. 

But now March is here. Our spring cleaner. They'll tidy up the mess and they'll stick to water.

COURIERS

Morning's light has been left on the horizon. Even Mother Earth can't get decent couriers.

SNAPS DECISIONS

As a kid it used to be 2p into town. I remember it was the same price as my favourite snack, Snaps.

Snaps are now 49p a packet and the bus fare's a whopping £3!

I'm hoping the government will adopt my Snaps Economic Policy to further route out such egregious injustices. ✊

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The last teabag in the house for two mugs of tea; performing CPR on the solitary teabag with a spoon, after first ensuring your wife's brew is to her exact colour match.

Kids - this is true romance. ☕❤️☕

TODAY'S SCRIPT

Wake Up

Improvise

(guests to be announced).

FIRST CUP OF TEA

some cups are savoured

some cups are glugged

some cups are flavoured

some cups are hugged

some cups are mugs

some cups are sipped

some cups are chugged 

some cups are sipped

some cups will last

way after the thirst 

some cups surpass

that cup's the first ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Cast afloat to drift awhile,

I'll just float and sift and smile.

REVOLVING DOORS

Time is a revolving door

In which we go round and round,

An ever-evolving tour

But we are, where we are, where we're found.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Dangerously close to second cup of tea time - I fear I've disturbed the tea-qulibrium. ☕☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Ten out of ten, again and again.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Lipsynching with imagination.

AS YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

"All the world's a stage"

Says Jacques, he's quite Shakespearean.

"No, it's not" says Jacques,

As you like it, you contrarian.

BAD MEMORIES OF ODD SOCKS

Bad memories are like odd socks. We have no idea why we keep them. We have no idea why we don't throw them away. And they always turn up in the least expected places.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Tiptoes through the two lips. 

BLUE-RINSE THURSDAY

Thursday is so desperate to be cool, but unlike Friday it can't stand next to Saturday vicariously basking in the expectation of a weekend. 

So it's plain old Thursday. Pension day, if you're old enough to remember. Blue-rinse Thursday. Flat-cap Thursday. You're still cool to me.

A FURTIVE GLIMPSE

I learnt my first proper swear words watching my dad play grassroots football. The swear words a 6 year old shouldn't really know. I'd go home with the knowledge that my mum hadn't been part of my furtive glimpse into the adult world. Somehow I was now the keeper of its secrets.

AT THE BORDER

My dreams were at the border

Then grabbed and bound and chained

It seems that sleep's been ordered 

To Make Waking Great Again.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The silent conversationalist.

MINIATURE HOPE

Is February a sad month? January has the kudos of post-cheer revelry & the excitement of a new year. March fully embraces springtime - blooming & birthing. What has February got? Well it has the snowdrop,its head hung in silent prayer. February isn't sad.

It's hope in miniature.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Bag, loose or instant? 

Builders, Assam or Earl Grey?

Sugar, sweetener or none?

Milk or no milk?

Pot or not?

Mug or cup?

Sip or slurp?

Sit or stand?

Alone or not?

No wonder we relax with a brew (or is it a cuppa?)

The choices we have to make are so tiring. ☕

WHY PREPOSITIONS MATTER

The first phrase tells a tale of a chef engrossed in his work.

The second phrase tells an altogether more grisly tale.

"The chef was consumed WITH his cookbook."

"The chef was consumed BY his cookbook."

POSTCARD TO UNREQUITED LOVE

I wish you were her. 

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where wandering in imagination meets pondering and meditation.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Imaginations journey of a thousand miles starts with a single sip - Old Chinese proverb.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

If the first cup of tea was a character in a Dickens novel it would have been called something like Mugwain Guzzle or Cupernica Swallow.

TIME - A SHORT STORY

Time's finally retired and finds itself resident at The Retirement Home For Elemental Forces Of The Universe.

A nurse asks if its children ever visit.

"Now and Then" reveals Time.

 

"Ah that's nice, do you ever see the Future."

"I used to. Many years ago."

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The universal translator for the imagination.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Monday's sup is fair of face

Tuesday's sip is full of grace

Wednesday's slurp is full of woe

Thursday's gulp has far to go

Friday's swill is loving and giving

Saturday's nip works hard for a living

But the swig that's born on Sabbath day

Well, it all goes down much the same way.

WEEKLY ARGUMENT

Monday - Some call Monday the parent of Tuesday, the grandparent of Wednesday, the great-grandparent of Thursday etc. 

But by that logic, Monday is also the great-great-great-great-great grandparent of itself! 

It's a grand argument, but it's a week argument.

THE UNASSUMING

Sunday arrives seeming somewhat smudged in grey cloud and broken mist. The first sketch of Sunday, the artist getting their eye in. The light behind the tops of windows refracts through the gloom into subdued crowns of yellow. The Unassuming Kings and Queens of the Early Risers.

TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF TIME

Nothing is faster than the speed of light, so says science. Yet when I wake in the dark all I can hear is the comforting sound of the tick and then the tock of the bedroom wall clock. Time's beaten Light in the scamper to Sunday. Maybe science should take a look at my clock. 🕗💡

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"Out, damned pot!" - Lady Macbeth clearly preferring her teabag left in the cup.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

the devil's in the detail

the tea is in the cup

just one final exhale

just one tiny sup...

FEBRUARY'S ECHO

A cold, damp February morning. The kind of cold and damp that seeps not just into bones but into memory. Long after summer is here, and the garden's turned from a muddy green to a riot of warm colours, we'll still shudder at February's echo, shrugging it off as a passing breeze.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Allowing the silt to settle for the day ahead.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

To become an expert at anything they say you have to practice for over 10,000 hours, which is 416 days, well over a year - challenge accepted! ☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

ESP - Extra Sensory Perfection. ☕

EASY! EASY!

Winter's headlock. Cold and damp tighten like a wrestler's grip. But this wrestler is less Olympian and more Big Daddy. It's just a show. An illusion. Easy! Easy! Before Mick McManus can scream 'Not the face!' it'll be spring. 

I prefer golden autumn mornings & giant haystacks.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Today's song will be slurped in the chord of T major.

MINIATURE MEN

Miniature men from '79

We had miniature thoughts

But made giants of time.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Coffee's calmer, more sensible sibling, infused with wisdom rather than impulse - the one who didn't run away to join the circus.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Brewing up a calm.

LET DOWN

The inventor of the parachute succeeded by being let down gently.

FACE NOT RECOGNIZED

I hold up my phone and stare at the screen

It says - "Face not recognized" 

I thought - "That's quite mean."

I hold up my face to see my reflection 

I say - "Face not recognized"

On closer inspection.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"Of all the kitchen's in all the world, you had to walk into mine." - from the first draft of Casablanca, where it was originally set in the UK and called Cirencester. ☕

SHAKESPEAREAN COOKERY

Some days my mind is an open book

Words flow all day long at my leisure

Others, like Shakespeare's cookery book,

I have to read measure for measure.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm back at the imagination station.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The DNA of a happy day.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

"It was the best of times."

(slurps)

"It was still the best of times." 

Charles Dickens - first draft of a Tale of Two Cities.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The wrist bone's connected to the hand bone

the hand bone's connected to the finger bone

the finger bone's connected to the bone china ☕

NAKED AMBITION

What if our real life and our dreams were two competing versions of ourselves vying for the upper hand?Who would we want to win?

The real life version, who is flawed, human and driven by a desire to improve?

Or the dreamlike version, who is always turning up naked to exams? 

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Taking up with an old friend as if you'd never been away. 

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE WEATHER FORECASTER

Beneath the rain, below the wind, between the frequent squalls.

Poor old Michael Fish must think,

No storms are here at all.

ODD SOCKS

If your dreams just disappear 

When all the sleeping stops

You'll find them all still playing 

With all the lost odd socks.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Interviewing imagination for the important job of Ponderer.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I sit at the front of a conference of memories and listen to the future, the keynote speaker.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Taking me straight to the coalface of the imagination mine.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Stirring stuff.

FIRST DRAFT

"Last night I dreamt I went to Whitley Bay again." - Daphne du Maurier's first draft.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

A feeling much like the one when your dad first lets go of the bike saddle and you're pedalling on your own, realising you can now go anywhere that you like.

ARTISTS

Along the horizon a silvery band of light appears behind backlit clouds. The sun will soon rise. I hope Friday remembers its lines. The town resembles a roughly-drawn charcoal sketch. A first draft. A memory. As we wake we fill that sketch with living colour. Artists one and all.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Laying the underlay for the day ahead.

LOVE IS...

Early stroll - to the kitchen. That teaspoon was sat by the sink last night. Won't its parents, presumably two tablespoons sat in the cutlery draw, be sick with worry? Love is... that Goldilocks muscle-memory honed from pouring just enough milk into your partner's tea cup.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Soul aerobics.

DRESSING THE DAYS

The spellings to the start of each day always changes

They wear their own clothes which they choose

But the endings remain all the same and what's strange is

They all wear the same pair of shoes!

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Filmed in TetleyColor.

RICTUS GRINS

Blue coping stones on my garden wall have mined diamonds from the frosty air and are sparkling in the sun. It's so cold I feel I could break chunks off of my garden with a toffee hammer. The sun is weaker than a lost argument and my lawn smiles a rictus grin of peppermint green.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Gritting the pathways of imagination.

SLOPPY

I'm up early when there's no guarantee of light. "Past performance is no promise of future results." We should read the small print on each day, not just assume it's arriving on time, or arriving at all.

Look what happened to those above the Arctic circle when they got sloppy!😉

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Allowing the imagination to read between the lines.

THE PEALING OF THE FROST BELLS

The sky's boiler light is lit. An orange band fills the horizon, rising with the morning sun. It's a cold, hard frost this morning. The frost is so thick it can look like a light dusting of snow. The frost bells peal across the land, the sound of the scraping of car windscreens.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Lift-off.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

All the decs are down and I'm left with just my morning star. 

AUNT VI

Our Aunt Vi loved Roman Numerals.

We used to call her Aunty 6.

ONE SLIPPER

Our snow's all gone. The dazzling guest at the ball is no more. Shining for the briefest of times, leaving memories of sparkling white. 

A clump of snow remains behind a corner of the garden wall where no sunlight reaches. It's hardly Cinderella's slipper. But proof it was here.

NARNIA

Northampton or Narnia? We're blanketed in the uniformity of snow. Oh, to build a snowman! Grab an old hat, carrot & some twigs, really go to town. But it's supposed to melt by noon.

 

I'm daydreaming, snowdrifting back to a time when fat, wobbly snowmen seemed to last for weeks.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Much like every snowflake, each first cup of tea is unique.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Oh soggy bag of Tetley's

just lying in my sink,

How do you do the things you do?

How do you make me think?

How do you take a simple brew

And turn it into wonder?

Dive my wrecks of memory

For treasure you then plunder?

WAITING

Frost has briefly stopped time. Fallen leaves are locked in an icy grip & the water in my bird bath has hardened to ice. Rooftops are whitewashed & my grass looks like it's going grey on top. I look for signs of life. But nothing moves. Then a bird hops onto a fence.

Waiting.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Allowing you to sort through the junk drawer of your mind.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where the past meets the present to ponder the future.

SILENT SPEECH BUBBLES

The air's crispier than a crisp that's just won Crisp Of The Year; fresher than fresh toothpaste fresh from the tube at the toothpaste factory. A vaporised speech bubble hangs above the silent man, vaping at the bus stop. If only I spoke Vape, I could surely read his mind.

HANSEL AND GRETEL

Wednesday still has that fresh new year smell. The litter in the streets speaks of an inverted retelling of Hansel and Gretel. Where tipsy revellers leave party detritus and kebab boxes in their wake in order to find their way back to 2024. Alka Seltzer's stock price soars.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

 Just 358 more supping days until Christmas.