jolly good times!

Posted on by trish

Because Typhoo tea was on sale right when we ran out of tea bags. (By the way, did you know that “ty-phoo” came from the Chi­nese word for doc­tor? I didn’t!)

Because there were only sug­ar cubes left in the cor­ner store on East­er Sun­day, when we ran out of sugar.

Because it’s rained near­ly every­day here in our neigh­bour­hood, it’s almost like we’re liv­ing on the British Isle.

So we decid­ed to go the extra mile on the sub­way and buy some prop­er tea ware from the thrift store, so we can have some prop­er tea this week­end and join in the Roy­al Wed­ding fun. The dain­ty tea cups and saucers cost approx­i­mate­ly £2.85 (or exact­ly $4.50 CAD), and we’ll be all ready if the queen ever comes over for tea. (Or the prince and the new princess! Aren’t they com­ing to Cana­da in July?)

We even made cucum­ber sand­wich­es! We made the most sim­ple, tra­di­tion­al kind accord­ing to this trusty source. So, basi­cal­ly thin­ly sliced cucum­ber, sprin­kled with salt and pep­per, and sand­wiched between two pieces of bread. The white bread was sold out at the gro­cery store, but that’s OK, WW bread is bet­ter for us anyway :)

We only made the cucum­ber sand­wich­es for fun. I would­n’t real­ly want to eat a whole one, because it’s kind of bland. But if one is adven­tur­ous one could try fanci­er ver­sions of the cucum­ber sand­wich. Like this cur­ried ver­sion, or these with mint and cream cheese. These open face ones on rye look pret­ty appeal­ing too!

Mike even hung up his British flag for the occa­sion (and found out that our door frames are made of met­al! More sur­faces to hang stuff with mag­nets! :D).

He also bought some crum­pets for break­fast, because he’s a big fan of crumpets.

I don’t care much for crum­pets, because I find them kind of bland (there seems to be a trend here… is it just me, or is Eng­lish food gen­er­al­ly bland?). So one morn­ing I decid­ed to try them with but­ter and syrup, because the back of them kind of look like pancakes…

… but they’re no pan­cakes. The syrup did­n’t change the flavour much. Oh well. What are crum­pets sup­posed to be eat­en with anyway?

But all in all we had a jol­ly good time drink­ing tea, eat­ing crum­pets, and talk­ing like char­ac­ters in Wal­lace and Gromit :D

Lots of peo­ple I talked to were kind of annoyed by all the exag­ger­at­ed excite­ment and fas­ci­na­tion around the roy­al wed­ding. And hav­ing planned my own wed­ding and enjoyed the com­plete absence of expec­ta­tion from both of our fam­i­lies (they’re the best!), I kind of wished that every­one would just leave the cou­ple alone so they can have a pri­vate time of cel­e­bra­tion. Well, I can only wish. But I think any wed­ding of two peo­ple who are deeply in love with one anoth­er is a hap­py occa­sion worth cel­e­brat­ing. So the roy­al wed­ding just gave us a rea­son to do some­thing fun and British (or what we think is British).

But no, we did­n’t stay up to watch it. But from the pho­tos I saw after­ward I think the prince and princess were gen­uine­ly hap­py, and for them I am happy.

And I think it’s always good to find things to be hap­py about. Like yes­ter­day, I saw that the mag­no­lia bush we walk by every week is final­ly blooming.

 

They’re almost white this year. I remem­ber that last year they were more pink. But look how grace­ful the soft petals are, unfolding.

 

That made my day. I hope this week will bring you many things that fill your heart with joy.

Chee­rio!

7 thoughts on “jolly good times!”

  1. The Roy­al Wed­ding made my day too! I watched it live, because the time dif­fer­ence isn’t that big for us (I’m in the Nether­lands) and it was so sweet. I’ve heard neg­a­tive com­ments too, but I did­n’t expect any­thing more than two peo­ple cel­e­brat­ing their love and that was exact­ly what I got.
    Love the mag­no­lia, it’s my favourite tree. Although the bloom­ing, sweet smelling lime trees in my street are also nice.

  2. thank you for vis­it­ing, Lirael! it’s been cold in Toron­to so see­ing the trees final­ly bloom­ing is extra excit­ing! enjoy all the spring flow­ers in your neigh­bour­hood! :D

  3. I’ve kin­da been vis­it­ing your blog a lot late­ly. Read it from the first post on and total­ly love it! You have a great way of writ­ing and crafting :)

  5. I’m down here in the States near Chica­go IL, and it was tak­ing FOREVER for spring to arrive! Final­ly, we now have warm sun­ny days! 

    Your emails/blogs are always delight­ful; thank you! Some­times it takes me 2 weeks to get into my home email because my three kids reach the home com­put­er before me. So I read all of them after the kids go to bed until late at night.

    Such a shame I have to get up ear­ly each morn­ing to get to the office!

    The secret to bet­ter Cucum­ber Sand­wich­es is a fine qual­i­ty UN-salt­ed but­ter thin­ly spread onto the bread, and a sprin­kle of black pep­per on top of the cucum­bers. Then we cov­er the sand­wich­es and chill them for a short time — they deli­cious when the cucum­bers are real­ly chilled and crunchy!

    It is rare we have crum­pets at our house, but some­times it is fun at the win­ter hol­i­days (Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas). We toast the crum­pets until gold­en brown, and then spread the fol­low­ing onto the nooks & cran­nies: (1) a lit­tle unsalt­ed but­ter, and then (2) “Sweet Pep­per Jalapeno Jam.” 

    P.S. The red-col­ored sweet pep­per jam tastes bet­ter than the green-col­ored one.

  6. thank you so much for the tips about cucum­ber sand­wich­es and crum­pets! i like the taste of but­ter bet­ter but for some rea­son we only ever buy mar­garine… maybe that’s why the sand­wich­es and crum­pets were bland! thank you for vis­it­ing! :D

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